AVID readers of the Times Literary Supplement's NB column will be sorry to learn that its writer, D.S., is calling a day. D.S., otherwise known as David Sexton, has accepted the job of Evening Standard literary editor, a post vacated by A.N. Wilson, best known for his dislike of sex scenes bin novels and for his denunciation of the Booker Prize, on whose panel of judges he served last year.
So will this TLS column continue without Sexton? If so, will have the same elegantly waspish concern for standards? Such questions may seem unimportant, but in a world where literary standards are steadily declining (even in literary journals), Sexton's observations, insights and style have been a small but bright beacon piercing the fog.
He's been unfailingly informative, too. For instance, I learn from a recent NB column that a total of 101,504 books were (published in Britain last year, and that contributing to that (number were 9,209 new works of fiction and 2,311 volumes of (poetry.
These are astonishing figures. Indeed, if we apply Cyril Connolly's famous 10-Year test (the books that still seem worth reading a decade after they were published), most of us would agree that only a handful of novels, say, from any given year, have endured the test of time.
However, let's be generous and increase that handful to 20 - so then what about the other 9,189 novels (quite a few, incidentally, by Irish authors) published in 1996? And what the 2,311 volumes of poetry? Will even five of these be let alone read, a decade from now? And what will the there enough remainder bookshops to house them?
The sad fact is that publishing in general has ceased to have anything to do with concern for quality and is now all about the pushing of product. The publishers know that if the product is successful an awful lot of money can be made from it - but as they have no idea what ingredients make any particular product saleable, they simply manufacture, distribute and market as many new products as they can, hoping to strike gold somewhere, somehow.
This is bad for everyone. It's bad for those older writers whose loyal and discerning readership is no longer considered large enough to warrant any further encouragement of or investment in, their work. It's bad for those younger writers who are offered such inflated advances that when they don't turn out to be the next Roddy Doyle or Donna Tartt (and where is she now?) the publisher loses interest and concentrates on hyping some other new hopeful instead.
And, of course, it's bad for those aforementioned discerning readers who, faced with a bewildering weekly onslaught of new books, have no idea what's worth reading any more but are determined that they're never again going to be conned into forking out good money for overhyped drivel.
Indeed, if any one thing hastens the much-predicted death of the novel, it will be the lingering resentment by readers against a publishing industry so intent on making a quick buck that it's prepared to let quantity rather than quality be the deciding factor - and I can think of a couple of Irish publishers who are just as guilty as their British counterparts in this regard.
INSTEAD of huge advances, perhaps young writers should have to make do with what they can get from the Public Lending Right, which is determined by library borrowings. Again I learn from David Sexton's column that the PLR rate in Britain has risen from 2p per borrowing to 2.07p and that 25,937 authors are now eligible for this heady increase.
Of these, 4,882 received less than £1 during 1996, signifying that Their books had been borrowed fewer than 50 times throughout the year; 15,540 got between £1 and £99 (under 10,000 borrowings); while a mere 98 received the maximum payment, capped at £6,000 and awarded for borrowings above 500,000.
The lucky recipients of this sum include Catherine Cookson, Maeve Binchy, Danielle Steel and Dick Francis. Well, it will pay a few bills, I suppose.
DAVID WHEATLEY (like me, an admirer of the NB column) will be giving a poetry reading alongside Yvonne Cullen and Nessa O'Mahony in The Winding Stair bookshop, Ormond Quay, next Thursday at 8 p.m. He should be worth hearing. He's certainly worth reading, as anyone who encountered his fine poem in these pages a few weeks back will testify. His first volume, due soon from Gallery Press, is awaited with real interest.