WHY I SHRINK FROM READING NOVELS.

WHY I SHRINK FROM READING NOVELS. I feel vindicated by Michael Dirda’s expression of his feelings about novels because what he says applies to me. Back in the fifties I read a news article about television shows in which a TV executive said that what the audience wanted was “happy stories about happy people with happy problems”. Ever since I have taken that as a useful expression of my taste in literature and movies. An example I give is that when we lived in New York, One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest ran many weeks in the Village, and we made plans a number of times to go see it. But when the time came, we were never in the mood.