Novels and poems and plays of the late century smelled of the faculty lounge. “Serious” novels were still read by people who thought themselves better educated than their fellows. Meanwhile, almost all of what [most] people did read was unrelievedly banal: romance novels put out by formula, suspense novels with clipped or infantile sentences, and weird fantasy novels trying desperately to echo J. R. R. Tolkien.
—Anthony Esolen
