ABSTRACT
One must not say too much against the radio, for people did not have to wait for that before forgetting how to read. Before the radio there was the cinema, and before the cinema there was the newspaper, which already contained all the poison of which we complain; and which acted, for analogous reasons, in the same way. In the eyes of the press the 'later' a thing is, the more it is worth. So one hurries on to the last line; one does not turn back; and this is the precise antithesis of reading, since reading is a 'retreat'. And if people thus habituated are interested in Mauriac, for example they will be interested in 'the latest Mauriac' not so much because it is Mauriac, as because it is 'the latest'. There is no question of preaching a harsh austerity; no one will think it an offence to seek a 'distraction' in reading.
