Re: Listen Up
Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Wed, 22 Jul 1998 21:31:40 -0500
> Yeah, I can't imagine Marquez being left off such a list either. Latin
> American authors aren't considered Western, and African American authors
> are only on there because we know we will hear complaints if they aren't
> :)
I can only suggest that since the list was English-language books (as far
as I recall), Garcia Marquez might have been ineligible since he writes in
Spanish. It may be that translations didn't count in the tabulating.
But as I said earlier, I think this need to rank people is idiotic. I
recall the end of "Annie Hall," when the character Alvy Singer is out in
Los Angeles when the Grammy awards are about to be presented, and he says,
"All they do out here is give out awards: 'Best Fascist Dictator: Adolf
Hitler.'"
One reason such lists are easy is that they have little or no subtlety, so
they can be easily sucked up by the mass media and turned into colorful
charts and graphics and pull-quotes for news magazines.
The recent list of "100 best movies" was another howler. We all got a kick
out of it at work....
--tim o'connor