tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post3492346871425208149..comments2024-03-28T19:56:32.848-05:00Comments on Anecdotal Evidence: `And Be Not Queasy To Praise Somewhat'Patrick Kurphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436175583386298032noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post-63978828156331632962011-08-13T23:50:47.102-05:002011-08-13T23:50:47.102-05:00“The goal should be to encourage readers to put do...“The goal should be to encourage readers to put down bad books and pick up better ones—books that succeed where the overrated books fail.”<br /><br />Exactly so.<br /><br />TJGAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post-59162683182297843352011-08-13T17:32:05.580-05:002011-08-13T17:32:05.580-05:00I respect poets for what they do and don’t get rec...I respect poets for what they do and don’t get recognized for perhaps a bit too much to lay out my own inner circle of “oversold mediocrities” (although Anthony Hecht would be at the top of any such list). I have no such problem with fiction, having been insulted by bad writing, unbelievable plotlines, fake characters and self-conscious preening from lionized luminaries so many times I don’t even want to go near a book of "must read" literary fiction. I agree with Myers on “Beloved” in particular and Toni Morrison in general, and, almost at random, I’d tick off my own list of painfully overrated:<br /><br />John Updike, Don DeLillo, Vladimir Nabokov, Ayn Rand, Phillip Roth, John Irving, E.L. Doctorow, Cormac McCarthy, Jonathan Franzen, Salman Rushdie, Saul Bellow, Dave Eggers, Mark Helprin, William Styron, E. Annie Proulx, John Barth, Colson Whitehead, Norman Mailer, Rick Moody, Jay McInerney, Andre Dubois III – ah, this list goes on too frighteningly long I have to stop.WAShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10403669322174979974noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post-23047761485366278802011-08-13T15:10:37.087-05:002011-08-13T15:10:37.087-05:00Great minds think alike, Patrick. Just posted on t...Great minds think alike, Patrick. Just posted on the same <i>Slate</i> column today. <br /><br />I can't claim to be a big Theodore Roethke fan, though I have to say "The Waking" is one of my all-time favorite poems. That one alone redeems him, in my opinion.Cynthia Havenhttp://bookhaven.stanford.edunoreply@blogger.com