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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (45985)	7/18/1999 9:19:00 PM
From: jbe	Read Replies (6) \| Respond to of 108807

Gee, that makes THREE of you who put Jane Austen at the top, with TROLLOPE, of all people, running her a close second...<puzzle> <wuzzle> I should note that one of the three is Christopher, which should help clear him of the charge of being a misogynist...<g> It is true, X, that I did say there was little point in ranking writers that we more or less all agree are in the "greatness" category. Less great, more great -- what does it really matter? Every great writer is unique, and has something to contribute, and some will appeal to each of us more than others... But if one insists on ranking them (as Blue does, with her statement that she believes Austen to be the "greatest writer of all time"), we should perhaps bear in mind the difference between our "favorite" writers and the "greatest" writers. Do we have to believe that because we get a special bang out of reading Writer X that s/he is The Greatest? For example, I enjoy reading Jane Austen, and I do not enjoy reading Herman Melville (at least I did not when I last tried to, many years ago). Nevertheless, I believe Moby Dick is a greater book than anything Austen ever wrote. As charming as she is, seems to me that Austen does not have the range, depth, breadth, or universality that one would need to qualify as The Greatest. The basic theme of almost all her novels is, after all, the travails of early 19th century English gentlewomen in finding themselves suitable mates. Just how much do you think this grabs people coming from a non-Anglo-Saxon culture? (Or most males, in general? Christopher is something of an exception.) Not much. Homer goes over much better. So does Shakespeare. So do any number of other writers. Joan