To the Editor:
Re “The Encroachment of the Unsayable,” by Bret Stephens (column, Oct. 20):
In his otherwise thoughtful and important piece on the limits writers face today, Mr. Stephens doesn’t mention pressures far more common than religious fundamentalism.
The writers I know, novelists especially, are so terrified of writing something that might be deemed offensive — because of “cultural appropriation,” “othering” or race and gender sensitivities — that, as Bruce Springsteen once said of poets, they “don’t write nothin’ at all.”
It has become next to impossible, for one example, to put on the page an evil character who belongs to a marginalized or oppressed group. Novels are symphonies of the imagination, and deal primarily with the magnificent uniqueness of the individual — Jane Eyre, Bigger Thomas, Gatsby — and, while they may have a political impact, they should not be read, or judged, as pamphlets.
We are killing democracy, yes, one timid book after the next. And among other negative consequences, this crippling of the imagination has hampered our ability to see each other, beyond the labels, as human beings.
Roland Merullo
Conway, Mass.
The writer is the author of 16 novels.
To the Editor:
What a wonderful set of contrasts among your Opinion writers. While Bret Stephens worries that writers are feeling constrained from insulting Muslims, Michelle Goldberg reports on how Republicans are happily spreading Russian disinformation to attack Joe Biden (“Is the Trump Campaign Colluding Again?”), and Scott Wiener, a member of the California State Senate, reports on how many mainstream Republicans are happily feeding QAnon’s violent extremism (“When QAnon Came for Me”).
Maybe some things are best left unsaid, and maybe the bigger threat is from the Republicans than from the liberals.
Richard Dine
Silver Spring, Md.