Life is like Martin Amis--nasty, British and short. Rhodes once said that. And if you don't know this, I do, having lived over there. Your older civilizations really do produce the most shocking writers. They've seen so much more horror than we have--they have to gouge deeper to really shock. To thus approximate life.
Life might once have been like Walter Scott, or James Fenimore Cooper. Later, like the foul Jane Austen. Later still, perhaps, like Steinbeck.
Now, however, it's like Amis. All the nasty bits left in, and each installment more searing than the last.
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