Commercial Writers

John Balzar’s amusing but critical remarks on Fay Weldon’s forthcoming novel (“Sold! A Literary Soul, Now Mud,” Commentary, Sept. 5) might have raised Dr. Samuel Johnson’s eyebrows over 250 years ago. That literary giant himself growled that he counted any writer a great fool who did not write for money. Jane Austen said that although she liked fame, she loved “pewter” more.

And those writers kept in groceries in Paris in the grim days before and after World War II, like Anais Nin, Henry Miller and Lawrence Durrell, contracted to write pornographic novels for Maurice Girodias’ Olympia Press of 10 chapters, 20 pages each, with two sex scenes per chapter, none of them repeated, making 20 “hot” episodes in all. At least they didn’t sign their names to those books, let alone boast of it as Weldon does, laughing all the way, she hopes, to the bank.

Jascha Kessler

Professor of English

and Modern Literature, UCLA