This essay by Philip Yancey is awesome.
Here is the link:
http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1300
Here are the first two paragraphs:
f someone were to tell me that it lay in my power to write a novel explaining every social question from a particular viewpoint that I believed to be the correct one, I still wouldn’t spend two hours on it. But if I were told that what I am writing will be read in twenty years time by the children of today, and that those children will laugh, weep, and learn to love life as they read, why then I would devote the whole of my life and energy to it.

The man who wrote those words, Leo Tolstoy, vacillated continually between art and propaganda. People are still laughing, weeping and learning to love life as they read his books, but others are also reflecting on, arguing with and reacting to his particular viewpoint on social, moral and religious questions. Although in this statement Tolstoy claims to come down firmly on the side of art, veins of “propaganda” run throughout his novels, inspiring some readers and infuriating others. In nonfiction works like What Is Art? the great novelist leans toward propaganda -- even, as some conclude, at the expense of true art.

 out of  found this valuable. Do you find this valuable?    

Show Last Reply