November 16, 1973

Dear Mr. McCarthy:

I am writing to you in your capacity as chairman of the Drake School Board. I am among those American writers whose books have been destroyed in the now famous furnace of your school.

Certain members of your community have suggested that my work is evil. This is extraordinarily insulting to me. The news from Drake indicates to me that books and writers are very unreal to you people. I am writing this letter to let you know how real I am.

Tim Parks in the NYRB suggests that finishing a book may not be necessary to the aesthetic experience. I don’t agree with this line of thinking, that the concept of the art in question lies entirely with the reader or viewer. If a piece of art (i.e. a book or painting) is conceived as a whole and executed as a whole, then finishing it is necessary to understanding and appreciating that piece of art.

If you are not enjoying a book, feel free to put it down. I have many times. But I don’t pretend that I have formed a complete and valid judgment. I forfeit that when I fail to comprehend the work as a whole.

As for whether endings are “necessary” when you have enjoyed a book, it depends on how necessary the author intended it to be, not on whether (as the author was rightly, in my opinion, angered by) the reader felt they were “done.” It’s a bit like knocking the wings off a statue because you think it looks better that way. What you think looks better isn’t the point. The statue was created that way because that’s the way the creator conceived it.

Personally, I think it is critical to read every word as the author intended. Otherwise you are appointing yourself as editor over their artistic imagination. You are in charge of your own time and enjoyment, but not the structure and content of their work.

It is difficult for us to conceive of, having grown up with reference works, and more difficult still for a new generation raised with the Internet and its promise of instant access to virtually any work or knowledge. So it is likewise strange to attempt to put in context the fact that 2010′s Encyclopaedia Britannica will be the last one printed. Some will stroke their chins, some will wail and tear their hair, some will shout for joy. But most, perhaps most tellingly, won’t care – indeed won’t ever notice. >>