I’ve never understood this quote/rule, whatever you want to term it. Don’t blame the author if he failed to achieve what he set out to do, as it’s not HIS fault. Then what is the point at all, to give a free pass to poor prose, plot and technique? It should be lambasted. If I were to ever put out a literary work and it royally failed and nobody ever told me how poor it was because of this rule, how would I improve if that type of refuse was considered (pardon me while I shiver) acceptable? Nobody wants to be simply acceptable; we want to shine.

To be honest I think it was Updike’s old age creeping in trying to undermine his waning ability should people find him unreadable in the coming years. But that’s merely my very not so humble opinion.

And by the way, Dan Green is the epitome of a conventional thinker. He has the same categories in his conventional arsenal as E.M. Forster, who in his ASPECTS OF A NOVEL defined for all time what a novel never is.