commercial success. Both have the habit of repeating compliments others have paid them, and both do it in a manner that is so blatant it almost seems ingenuous. Segal, for instance, speaking on the prototype of his book’s heroine: “JENNY exists and knows she is the inspiration for one of the strongest feminine figures in modern literature—honest to God, that’s really what one critic wrote.” Or McKuen: “There are a lot of people whotake potshots at me because they feel I’m not writing like Keats or Eliot. And yet I’ve been compared to both of them. So figure that out.”
More important, both of them have hit on a formula so slick that it makes mere sentimentality have the force of emotion. Their work is instantly accessible and comprehensible; and when the reader is moved by it, he assumes that it must be art. As a result, Segal and McKuen, each of whom started out rather modest about his achievement, have become convinced that they must be doing something not just right but important. Can you blame them? The money rolls in. The mail arrives by the truckload. The critics outside New York are enthusiastic. And to those who aren’t, Segal and McKuen fall back on sheer numbers. Millions of people have read and loved their work. The stewardess on American Airlines Flight No. 2 from Los Angeles to New York loves every bit of it. “I’m so sick of all the crap in the world,” she says. “All the killings, the violence, the assassinations. This one getting it. That one getting it. I don’t want to read any more about that kind of thing. Romanticism is here to stay.” She really said it. Honest.
I am a big crybaby. I want to tell you that before I tell you anything at all about Erich Segal. I cry at almost everything. I cry when I watch
Marcus Welby, M.D
. on television or when I see movies about funny-looking people who fall in love. Any novel by Dickens sets me off. Dogs dying in the arms of orphans, stories of people who are disabled but ultimately walk/see/hear or speak, having something fall on my foot when I am in a hurry, motion pictures of President Kennedy smiling, and a large number of very silly films (particularlyone called
The West Point Story
) will work me into a regular saltwater dither.
One other thing about me before I begin. I love trash. I have never believed that kitsch kills. I tell you this so you will understand that my antipathy toward
Love Story
is not because I am immune either to sentimentality or garbage—two qualities the book possesses in abundance. When I read
Love Story
(and I cried, in much the same way that I cry from onions, involuntarily and with great irritation), I was deeply offended—a response I never have, for example, with Jacqueline Susann novels. It was not just that the book was witless, stupid and manipulative. It was that I suspected that unlike Miss Susann, Segal knew better. I was wrong to think that, as it happened. I was fooled by his academic credentials. The fact is that
Love Story
is Erich Segal at the top of his form; he knows no better and can do no better. I know that now. I know that I should no longer be offended by the book. And I’m not. What is it that I’m offended by? Perhaps you will begin to see as we go along.
“Dear Mr. Segal: I realize that you are a busy man but I must tell you something that will probably make you inspired and honored. This past summer a very dear friend of mine passed away. She was seventeen and hardly ever unhappy or sad. Leslie had read your book. Not once but three times. She loved it so much. It was funny but everyone related
Love Story
with Leslie. She cried and said the story was so beautiful and realistic. When she was buried a copy of your book was placed next to her.… I wish you knew her. She was so unpredictable. That’s what life is. She had an instant heart failure, and thank G-d she didn’t suffer. I hope you don’t think I’m a foolish college kid. I felt any person who could capture young
More important, both of them have hit on a formula so slick that it makes mere sentimentality have the force of emotion. Their work is instantly accessible and comprehensible; and when the reader is moved by it, he assumes that it must be art. As a result, Segal and McKuen, each of whom started out rather modest about his achievement, have become convinced that they must be doing something not just right but important. Can you blame them? The money rolls in. The mail arrives by the truckload. The critics outside New York are enthusiastic. And to those who aren’t, Segal and McKuen fall back on sheer numbers. Millions of people have read and loved their work. The stewardess on American Airlines Flight No. 2 from Los Angeles to New York loves every bit of it. “I’m so sick of all the crap in the world,” she says. “All the killings, the violence, the assassinations. This one getting it. That one getting it. I don’t want to read any more about that kind of thing. Romanticism is here to stay.” She really said it. Honest.
I am a big crybaby. I want to tell you that before I tell you anything at all about Erich Segal. I cry at almost everything. I cry when I watch
Marcus Welby, M.D
. on television or when I see movies about funny-looking people who fall in love. Any novel by Dickens sets me off. Dogs dying in the arms of orphans, stories of people who are disabled but ultimately walk/see/hear or speak, having something fall on my foot when I am in a hurry, motion pictures of President Kennedy smiling, and a large number of very silly films (particularlyone called
The West Point Story
) will work me into a regular saltwater dither.
One other thing about me before I begin. I love trash. I have never believed that kitsch kills. I tell you this so you will understand that my antipathy toward
Love Story
is not because I am immune either to sentimentality or garbage—two qualities the book possesses in abundance. When I read
Love Story
(and I cried, in much the same way that I cry from onions, involuntarily and with great irritation), I was deeply offended—a response I never have, for example, with Jacqueline Susann novels. It was not just that the book was witless, stupid and manipulative. It was that I suspected that unlike Miss Susann, Segal knew better. I was wrong to think that, as it happened. I was fooled by his academic credentials. The fact is that
Love Story
is Erich Segal at the top of his form; he knows no better and can do no better. I know that now. I know that I should no longer be offended by the book. And I’m not. What is it that I’m offended by? Perhaps you will begin to see as we go along.
“Dear Mr. Segal: I realize that you are a busy man but I must tell you something that will probably make you inspired and honored. This past summer a very dear friend of mine passed away. She was seventeen and hardly ever unhappy or sad. Leslie had read your book. Not once but three times. She loved it so much. It was funny but everyone related
Love Story
with Leslie. She cried and said the story was so beautiful and realistic. When she was buried a copy of your book was placed next to her.… I wish you knew her. She was so unpredictable. That’s what life is. She had an instant heart failure, and thank G-d she didn’t suffer. I hope you don’t think I’m a foolish college kid. I felt any person who could capture young
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