Letters June 11, 2012 Issue

Letters

M.M. Bennetts, Carmen Louise Votaw, Carol Logian

I am more than most grateful for the interview with author Susan Vreeland [“Spiritual subtexts in writing fiction”], which I came upon in the 14 May Sentinel [“Envy”]. Thank you so much for that!

I have been reading the Sentinel regularly since 1975 and cannot recall a single instance previously when a novelist was interviewed or indeed any articles about them or their work. All the other arts, yes. Singers, musicians, dancers, actors, painters, photographers, yes. And often it has seemed to me and indeed been presented as if Mary Baker Eddy’s small phrase about a specific kind of work, “nauseous fiction,” had been taken to mean all fiction. (Not that I’m disputing that there was nauseous fiction in her day—there’s certainly plenty of it about today too!) But it’s been as if her words about printers and authors occupying “the most important posts and perform[ing] the most vital functions in society” (Science and Health, p. 387) had never been written. So thank you for this article. 

And thank you for printing Susan Vreeland’s comments about Henry James’ advice: “Try to be a person upon whom nothing is lost,” and Ms. Vreeland’s interpretation of that. Because, yes, that is what we do—it’s living Life with all pores open. And her words about the Mind that inspires us and keeps us going and gives us every word and every character and every plot—that is how we work.

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