Read What You Like, and Leave the Rest of Us Alone

Stumbled across this article this morning and it got me all worked up again.

Essentially, a bunch of critics these days - led by James Wood - are pulling out all of the old complaints about postmodernism again, including Thomas Pynchon, my favorite author. As Nigel Beale distills the arguement: "Is realism, "lifeness" or verisimilitude a necessary quality of good literature?"

I think the entire question is off-base. If you like something, read it, enjoy it, learn from it, tell others about it, and all is well in the world. The idea that something is a "necessary quality" of good literature is, to me, implicitly absurd. If it works for you, as an individual, then it's good literature. If it doesn't, then it's not.

I'm reminded of my trip to Napa Valley, all ready to be annoyed at the snooty wine snobs, only to be told at Saywer Cellars that "there are two types of wine. Not Red and White, but wines you like and wines you don't like." It's a refreshing attitude that I wish more of these high-minded literature reviewers would take to heart. Just because someone gets fulfillment out of, for example, a Stephen King novel - writing that some find may find repellent but that I find brilliant - doesn't mean that there's nothing redeeming about it.

I could go on and on about this, but i'll save you the rant. Read what you like. And let me know about the good stuff and i'll give it a read.