Journalists tend to be the heroes of their own stories, but novelists are more scathing about the popular press. After you’ve finished Evelyn Waugh’s peerless Scoop, here are three other memorable novels that savage the fourth estate:
* Bel Ami by Guy de Maupassant. A bounder discovers that he has the makings of a great journalist: He can’t write but he’s a big hit with publishers’ wives.
* Lost Illusions by Honore de Balzac. A provincial poet discovers that he can earn money, fame, and romance as a book and theater critic, as long as he is dishonest in his judgments.
* New Grub Street by George Gissing. About Victorians who take up the pen to avoid the grubby world of commerce — only to find themselves in an ink-stained grubby world of commerce.
A few discerning readers noted with asperity that last week we promised a list of four great novels about money, and published a list of only three. ” What was the fourth?” they demanded of us in no uncertain terms. After much thought, we decided not to tell you. Instead, we want you to guess. The first reader that successfully guesses the identity of the fourth book will receive a year’s gift subscription to THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
Send your entry to: Our Weekly Reader, THE WEEKLY STANDARD, 1150 17th St. NW, Suite 505, Washington DC 20036.
(For the record, the three titles we did publish: The Titan and The Financier, both by Theodore Dreiser, and Anthony Trollope’s Framley Parsonage.)
