Sir, - I congratulate Brian Fallon on his ambitious review of literature in the 20th century (The Irish Times, January 7th) - though I'd hate to see Sartre's writings dumped in the Seine, and I'd like to point out that Spain has indeed produced some novelists of calibre since the second World War, though few of them are well known in English translation.
While I agree with Mr Fallon on the magnitude of the challenge to literature from the electronic media, I do not share his resultant pessimism. His article concludes: "The immediate outlook is not bright, then, but perhaps it is the dark before some new, unsuspected dawn?"
The "unsuspected" dawn is, I suspect, already with us. The same technological progress that threatens literature also powerfully enhances its availability and diffusion. In Eason's I recently bought the complete works of Shakespeare for £4.99, which must be about the price of a pint and 20 cigarettes. In my local bookshop in Donaghmede I picked up the complete fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen, also for £4.99, which works out at less than 3p per tale.
There has never been a better time to be a reader. The secret, it seems to me, is to be able to discriminate; firstly, in choosing what to read, and secondly, between alternative ways of spending free time. For the reader who is able to turn off the TV and walk away from the computer, paradise is here and now - and it doesn't cost the earth.
Literature has always been a minority interest in the world. It will, of course, continue as such. Yet it will continue to thrive. On a purely local level, as the Celtic Tiger prepares to take a giant leap into the new millennium, I feel we can have every confidence that one of the brightest and broadest stripes on its well-muscled back will be painted by the venerable brush of literature. - Yours, etc., Kieran Furey,
Donaghmede, Dublin 13.