Farrell Looks at His Writing

Abstract

There is no law, there is no absolute way of judging whether or not a book is good or is great or is awful. As a matter of fact, many of our impressions of books are subjective, and the moment we attempt to establish absolutely objective, universal standards for books and for the judging of books, we find ourselves becoming confused. When we establish laws or categories of a set of fixed criteria of what a book should be in order to be a good book, we attempt this by examining books from the past which are generally accepted as being lasting or good or great books. But once we do this we find that as likely as not a new generation, a new writer will come along and ignore all of these criteria. He will write in total or complete violation of the category you set up. He will not write according to fixed standards. And he will either violate our standards or our enthusiasm if we