the (2 white) boys from Ithaca

[Monte Davis]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/articles/A57255-2002Jul11.html

> "The intellectualization of American fiction produced one indisputable
giant, Vladimir Nabokov, and a great deal of work--always ambitious,
sometimes brilliant, often obscure and self-indulgent--by Thomas
Pynchon, John Barth, Stanley Elkin, William H. Gass, Robert Coover, Don
DeLillo and others less widely known, almost all of them white men and
many of them academics of one sort or another."

The "let's survey AmLit in the 125 years the Post has been publishing"
assignment
produced one indisputable embarrassment -- always tendentious, sometimes
flatly wrong, often self-contradictory -- by Jonathan Yardley, a fine book
reviewer who stubs his pecker every time he essays the role of critic.

_The Adventures of Augie March_ is the last "indisputably great" novel by an
American? GMAB. There have been 11 "indisputably great" American novels in
all, three by Faulkner? GMAFB... please. This is for people who find the
Modern Library "100 best of the century" poll too long to get through.

Yardley writes early on: "We borrowed our language from the English, but we
have little patience for polishing our prose as they do and none of their
quaint affinity for bookishness." Gosh -- once "we" has been defined that
way,  there's bound to be trouble ahead for those pointy-headed academics,
no?

What annoys me most is Yardley's transatlantic tunnel vision -- a version of
what he identifies as an American writers' trait. "The excitement aroused by
the Booker literary prize in England or the Prix Goncourt in France is
unimaginable in this country." Yep, last time I was in Wigan and
Passy-sur-Rhone,  every greengrocer and municipal clerk was all atwitter
over the awards.