Name: On Moral Fiction
ISBN: 9780465052264

John Gardner

A genuine classic of literary criticism, On Moral Fiction argues that ”true art is by its nature moral.”

On Moral Fiction

rumbledethumps

This book is a bit scattered, and seems incomplete, like no one really bothered to edit it. Much of it is the author's attempt to take down the fiction of his day, but only by making very broad generalizations about another author's entire oeuvre.

The crux of his argument is that art should be moral. And by this he means, "Moral art in its highest form holds up models of virtue, ... heroic models like Homer’s Achilles." Using Achilles as a model of morality or virtue seems to miss much of the point of the Iliad.

But, Gardner does make some good points. The most important thing I took from him is, "without real and deep love for his “subjects” (the people he writes about and, by extension, all human beings)—no artist can summon the will to make true art; he will be satisfied, instead, with clever language or with cynical jokes and too easy, dire solutions like those common in contemporary fiction."