What I find in fiction these days, the thing I am finally analyzing about my choices in reading, is this:
When I was young, I kept up with and read almost every book featured in the best seller lists and Book of The Month. I was almost robotic in slurping up every new offering, and I remember being so shocked and put off by the likes of Philip Roth. As time went by, the passing decades put me out of the mainstream. The movement toward and then into total acceptance of unrepressed sexuality and gutter speech filled with expletives made me turn to cosy British mysteries. I could not then, and still I flinch from, absorb the to my mind uncivilized culture exhibited in so many acclaimed works of modern literature. I confess to finding refuge in any good book from a more civil era. In the same way that the vast majority of network and cable television offerings smite me right into my soul and are impossible for me to adjust to, I cannot dive into the latest best sellers. The immoral choices, the language, the THOUGHTS! The addictions, the lack of duty and responsibility and LOYALTY! No wonder the young are the way they are! I get the feeling my own family groupings are, most of them, a wholesome throwback to the Leave It To Beaver days; but I see those few of my own generation still chugging along having to accept downright earthmoving changes in the mores of their descendants. I have been on the phone long distance with a number I can count on one hand who live too far for further meeting, and they cry over the change in values.
It all goes together, it is a package of time; and I am living in the wrong package these days!
