Should Writers Avoid Sentimentality?
Each week in Bookends, two writers take on questions about the world of books. Roland Barthes said, “It is no longer the sexual which is indecent, it is the sentimental.” This week, Zoë Heller and Leslie Jamison debate whether sentimentailty is a cardinal sin for writers. By Zoë Heller Sentimental fiction is a kind of pablum: Excessive amounts can spoil the appetite for reality, or at least for more fibrous forms of art. Photo Zoë Heller Credit Illustration by R. Kikuo Johnson Continue reading the main story Related Coverage Bookends: Archive SEPT. 10, 2013