The New York Times has a weekly feature called “By the Book,” an interview with an author about reading habits, tastes and preferences. One of the recurring questions is whether a great book can be badly written.
Montaigne died centuries before The Times was founded. But he considered the topic:
What I do know is that when I hear of anyone lingering over the language of these Essays I would rather he held his peace: it is not a case of words being extolled but of meaning being devalued. ...
Every time I see the question, I wonder what the person who devised it thinks of the Gospel of Mark. Love it or hate it, that short book influenced Western civilization. But the author did not have a gift for prose.
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