A Quote, for Discussion

"I asked a recent house guest--a novelist [Valerie Martin]--for her opinion. Was it possible, I said, to write a story with no moral implications at all? "No," she said. "You can't help the moral implication, because a story has to come out one way or the other, and the rear will have opinions about the rightness or wrongness of the outcome, whether you like it or not. She recalled various authors who had tried to do away with this element: Gide in Lafcadio, Robbe-Grillet, who declared that he was out to dispose of two obsolete concepts, character and plot. I do remember reading the latter in the late fifties--it was sort of like reading a cafeteria tray before you've put anything on it. That having been said, I'd also say that Robbe-Grillet came pretty close to writing morally neutral prose. But this prose was also neutral in most other ways--ways that make much writing of interest. "His essays are a scream," said my friend. "Yes, but do you still read his novels?" I said. "No," she said. "Nothing happens, and there aren't any jokes."

- from Margaret Atwood, Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2002. p. 110.

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