Subject: Re: Reference to JDS by Paul Thomas Anderson
From: Cecilia Baader (ceciliabaader@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed May 08 2002 - 23:23:56 EDT
--- Jim Rovira <jrovira@drew.edu> wrote:
> So on the one hand we have
> problems with Salinger because of what Will said -- if a white male late
> 20th century author is going to be selected, Salinger won't be first
> pick. But they're not selected that often to begin with...
<begin rant>
The issue that I have with this discussion is that the underlying argument
seems to be that if a work isn't discussed in American University English
departments (headed almost entirely by white males, I might add), it isn't
important. Bollocks. It's faulty reasoning to assume that the best
intellectual inquiry arises solely in the land of the section men. In
fact, I'd argue this: far more interesting, and far-reaching, discussion
occurs on this list than in any PC-obsessed English Literature class I've
ever had the misfortune to attend.
Ask yourself this: how many foreigners on this list read The Catcher in
the Rye at their universities because it is considered the quintessential
American novel?
Another thing: James Joyce's Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake couldn't be
published in the United States until decades after they were written
because they were considered "obscene" and banned, yet once the moralists
were defeated and the community of academia got over itself, both novels
found themselves at the top of most lists of the best fiction of the
twentieth century and the subject of more scholarship than surely any book
deserves.
And speaking of such lists, I challenge you to find one that doesn't
include The Catcher in the Rye.
</end rant>
Regards,
Cecilia.
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