Derb ruins one’s day:
I had a conversation once with “Theodore” (real name Tony) about whether there was any particular literary approach common to doctor-writers like Somerset Maugham (not much read now, but a great storyteller), Smollett (ditto), and Chekhov. We concluded that there was—a certain detachment and distance, obviously essential requirements for a job which consists in part of watching people die.
Forget it. Henceforth, I’m cheering on the feminists, the globalists and the jihadis. Western civilization doesn’t deserve to survive. A society that can’t be bothered to read Maugham is a society that is dead to me.
And how much more does it deserve to be damned considering that it’s not even as if our scivilization has cast aside Maugham in favor of halfway-interesting things, (such as the ur-Gesamtkunstwerk of Doom III, for example,) but for fawning over wretched creatures such as the Three Airheads of the Apocalypse.
Not much read now indeed.