Quality over quantity

In our internet saturated intellectual culture, sometimes less is more. Just ask Harper Lee

Harper Lee used to say that she didn’t have anything left to say after To Kill a Mockingbird. AP Photo

Harper Lee has just relinquished her position on an exclusive list. Her seminal novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, has seen its reach grow to epic proportions since it was published more than 50 years ago. Until the announcement this week that Lee will publish a long lost prequel to her sole novel this summer, it was widely believed that her name would join the likes of Margaret Mitchell, Arundhati Roy and Emily Bronte as esteemed writers with only one published novel to their name.

We now live in an environment of intellectual overstimulation. You might have two or three articles open on your internet browser to read at some later point that never comes.

Lee used to say that she didn’t have anything left to say after To Kill a Mockingbird. Today, some authors who have written 10 times as many words don’t know when to slow down. In literature as in life, quality still trumps quantity.