>All in all this matter of ranking poets, musicians, painters is
>a mug's game. Fun to play (I've just been playing it) but
>pretty empty.
Well, I find it useful as a way of annoying the William Bennetts of the world. I mean, these stuffed-shirts are always lamenting the proliferation of female writers and writers of color in high school and college syllabi. According to the Conservative critics, one Toni Morrison does not equal William Faulkner. Fine, no disagreement there, but what about all the substandard white, male writers who are taught? Fer cryin' out loud, I loved The Catcher in the Rye when I was twelve, but does J.D. Salinger really belong in the pantheon? And what the hell was my AP English teacher thinking when she assigned such lite, vapid Oprah-fare like Snow Falling on Cedars and Cold Mountain?
So go ahead and rank those writers, if only to piss off the assholes who think that being white and male automatically qualifies you as a literary great.
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