A sense of shame
15 Jul
The programme for the Melbourne Writers Festival, which runs August 27 to September 5, was in this morning’s edition of The Age. Quite a line-up I have to say, from Brett Easton Ellis to Joss Whedon. Several of my mates are coming along too, Peter James, Simon Kernick and Val McDermid among them. They’ll have a great time. I’ve done the festival twice now and it’s quite something.
But how about this from the programme…
‘There seems no end to our shameless enthusiasm for crime stories.’
I put the word ‘shameless’ in bold there because, frankly, it took my breath away.
This is a country that’s just awarded its top literary prize, the Miles Franklin, its equivalent of the Booker, to Peter Temple, a ‘crime writer’, for Truth. Are we really supposed to feel some guilt, some sense of shame for wanting to read stories that address so directly the world we inhabit?
Melbourne Writers Festival 2010
What is shameful is the implication that there should be any shame at all connected to such a classic genre. We exist to solve mysteries and those who can successfully create them should be heralded as gods. (I’ll get down from the soapbox now.)
Thanks – I wondered if it was just me!
Shame? I’d be ashamed to like the “literary” stuff that’s often hailed as “great,” “groundbreaking,” “a must-read,” and, gag me!, “informed.”
A-freakin-men!