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Old news for Mennonite writers from John Updike in 1951: "We do not need men like Proust and Joyce; men like this are a luxury, an aded fillip that an abundant culture can produce only after the more basic literary need has been filled. This age needs rather men like Shakespeare, or Milton, or Pope; men who are filled with the strength of their cultures and do not transcend the limits of their age, but, working within the times, bring what is peculiar to the moment to glory. We need great artists who are willing to accept restrictions, and who love their environments with such vitality that they can produce an epic out of the Protestant ethic." New York Times, June 21, 1010, C6. Neutralize the gendered reference to writer and substitute "Anabaptist" for "Protestant" ethic and we have a thought-provoking manifesto and charter for literary achievement. -- Ervin Beck