The Plot Flickers

There may be a coming generation who will know the literary classics only from television’s adaptation of them, but that knowledge is better than no knowledge at all. I’m a novelist, so I’m hardly going to argue against the irreplaceable conditions of prose, the pattern and rhythm and truth of good writing. But literature is also about narrative and morality; if it takes a television show to get some of that over to an audience – and possibly to send them to the original source – then there are small grounds for moaning. —Andrew O’Hagan —The Plot Flickers (Arts.Telegraph)