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This is the blog of Ian Rosales Casocot. Filipino writer. Sometime academic. Former backpacker. Twink bait. Hamster lover.

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Monday, February 17, 2020

entry arrow12:32 PM | Rubbishy Tales



This amazing interview with Greta Gerwig by Annette Insdorf on the latest screen adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women (2019) singled out a line Alcott wrote in her diary when Henry James [what a pompous rich prick] gave a harsh review of one of her anonymously written potboilers: "I fell back on rubbishy tales, for they pay best, and I can't afford to starve on praise, when sensation stories are written in half the time and keep the family cosey” [emphasis mine, a phrase that actually becomes a line in the film].

Reminds me forever not to look down on whatever one writes in order to make a living. I know one Filipino writer -- one of our best fictionists -- who wrote porn because it paid the bills best for her.

This link is a 1976 New York Times review of a collection of Alcott's "rubbishy tales."

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