Vol. 3 No. 12 · 2 July 1981
pages 12-13 | 2280 words
Absurdities
Angela Carter
- Original Sins by Lisa Alther
Women’s Press, 608 pp, £6.95, May 1981, ISBN 0 7043 2839 9
- Amateur Passions by Lorna Tracy
Virago, 192 pp, £7.95, April 1981, ISBN 86 06 81971 9
Original Sins is a big, fat novel that looks as though it should be sold by weight – ‘a couple of pounds of fiction, today, please.’ It has the air of the novel as commodity, of an item designed to be sold, a programmed bestseller. Amateur Passions is a slender, almost anorexic collection of short stories, each one pared down to the glittering bone, fiction produced by authentic internal compulsion. Although carving on ivory is not the easiest thing in the world, it is possible to maintain a very high degree of quality control over short runs, and Lorna Tracy’s quality control is so stringent that there is not one flabby sentence or second-hand image in the whole book. The same cannot be said for Alther, who is often reduced to stylistic tics such as ‘“I don’t hate men,” said Emily with hatred,’ and, like many American writers, believes it is possible to summon up an entire social ambience by the judicious use of brand names, such as Bass Wejuns and I.L. Bean down vests.
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Letters
Vol. 3 No. 15 · 20 August 1981
From Hannah Barber
SIR: Angela Carter describes Original Sins by Lisa Alther as having ‘the air of the novel as commodity, of an item designed to be sold by weight’, while Lorna Tracy’s Amateur Passions is a ‘slender collection … fiction produced by authentic literary compulsion’ (LRB, Vol. 3, No 12). Is caviar less of a commodity because it is sold by the ounce rather than by the pound? The fact that the reader has a fine and discerning palate does not make her or him any less of a consumer. Art does not rule out profit, as Angela Carter herself should know.
Hannah Barber
London E2
From Antoinette Burton
SIR: Re: review by Angela Carter of Original Sins by Lisa Alther (608 pp., £6.95) and Amateur Passions by Lorna Tracy (192 pp., £7.95). It is all very well for reviewers in your pages to sneer at fat, relatively cheap books as items ‘designed to be sold’. Angela Carter presumably gets review copies. The rest of us are not so lucky and I, for one, am delighted in these hard times when I get value for money. Does she thinks that the ‘slender, almost anorexic collection of short stories’ by Lorna Tracy is not designed to be sold? Perhaps, indeed, it is not, at £7.95 for 192 pages.
Antoinette Burton
London N16
From R.A. Delgado
SIR: I was intrigued by Angela Carter’s highly favourable review of Lorna Tracy’s slim volume, Amateur Passions. In the final analysis, I wonder if Ms Carter would agree with me that on the evidence so far this author’s work is costagomic?
R.A. Delgado
Gorebridge, Midlothian
Vol. 3 No. 17 · 17 September 1981
From Carmen Callil
SIR: We are interested in the work of Dorothy Edwards (1903-1934), author of the collection of short stories Rhapsody (1927) and the novel Winter Sonata (1928). I should be pleased to hear from any of your readers who could help me trace the literary executor of her estate.
Re Antoinette Burton’s letter (LRB, Vol. 3, No 15) referring to Angela Carter’s review of Lorna Tracy’s Amateur Passions: this collection of short stories was published simultaneously in hardback (£7.95) and paperback (£3.50): 192 pp for £3.50 works out at almost 2 p a page. Lisa Alther’s novel weighs in at just over 1 p a page but she is an established writer and seller, Amateur Passions is Lorna Tracy’s first published work of fiction. The 500 hardback copies were printed for a. the dwindling number of libraries who, if they buy first novels at all, still insist on buying them in hardback, and b. for review purposes, it still being more difficult for an original paperback to receive review coverage than it is for the proverbial rich man etc, etc.
Carmen Callil
Managing Director, Virago Press, Ely House, 37 Dover Street, London W1
