Literary Significance and Criticism
"A superb example of Sayers' ability to set a group of people going. The advertising agency is inimitable, and hence better than the De Momerie crowd that goes with it. The murder is ingenious and Wimsey is just right ..."
"Sayers herself disliked the novel, which she wrote quickly in order to fulfill her publisher's contract, and was unsure whether it would ring true with the reading public." Her biographer Barbara Reynolds quotes a letter she wrote to publisher Victor Gollancz on 14 September 1932:
The new book is nearly done. I hate it because it isn't the one I wanted to write, but I had to shove it in because I couldn't get the technical dope on The Nine Tailors in time. Still, you never know what people will fancy, do you? It...deals with the dope-traffic, which is fashionable at the moment, but I don't feel that this part is very convincing, as I can't say "I know dope". Not one of my best efforts. —Dorothy L Sayers quoted by Barbara Reynolds, Dorothy L Sayers: Her Life and Soul.Read more about this topic: Murder Must Advertise
Famous quotes containing the words literary, significance and/or criticism:
“... the Ovarian Theory of Literature, or, rather, its complement, the Testicular Theory. A recent camp follower ... of this explicit theory is ... Norman Mailer, who has attributed his own gift, and the literary gift in general, solely and directly to the possession of a specific pair of organs. One writes with these organs, Mailer has said ... and I have always wondered with what shade of ink he manages to do it.”
—Cynthia Ozick (b. 1928)
“For a parent, it’s hard to recognize the significance of your work when you’re immersed in the mundane details. Few of us, as we run the bath water or spread the peanut butter on the bread, proclaim proudly, “I’m making my contribution to the future of the planet.” But with the exception of global hunger, few jobs in the world of paychecks and promotions compare in significance to the job of parent.”
—Joyce Maynard (20th century)
“The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment by the public. The conventional is uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)