Thought of the Day: “Sentimentality”
“I like grit, I like love and death, I’m tired of irony. … A lot of good fiction is sentimental. … The novelist who refuses sentiment refuses the full spectrum of human behavior, and then he just dries up. … I would rather give full vent to all human loves and disappointments, and take a chance on being corny, than die a smartass.”
Amen to that.
—Jim Harrison (via the Writer’s Almanac)
Reader interactions
4 Replies to “Thought of the Day: “Sentimentality””
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Harrison’s in good company. Here’s Nelson Algren on sentimentality, in 1963:
Q: What is sentimentality? What is sentimental?
Algren: Oh, it’s an indulgence in emotion. You want men and women to be good to each other and you’re very stubborn in thinking that they want to be. I’m not against sentimentality. I think you need it. I mean, I don’t think you get a true picture of people without it in writing…It’s a kind of poetry, it’s an emotional poetry, and, to bring it back to the literary scene, I don’t think anything is true that doesn’t have it, that doesn’t have poetry in it.
(From “Conversations with Nelson Algren”, 1963.)
Harrison’s in good company. Here’s Nelson Algren on sentimentality, in 1963:
Q: What is sentimentality? What is sentimental?
Algren: Oh, it’s an indulgence in emotion. You want men and women to be good to each other and you’re very stubborn in thinking that they want to be. I’m not against sentimentality. I think you need it. I mean, I don’t think you get a true picture of people without it in writing…It’s a kind of poetry, it’s an emotional poetry, and, to bring it back to the literary scene, I don’t think anything is true that doesn’t have it, that doesn’t have poetry in it.
(From “Conversations with Nelson Algren”, 1963.)
Thanks Pete. This is great.
Thanks Pete. This is great.