Tracking the ever-elusive Great American Novel

[jbor at bigpond.com]

On 24/05/2006, at 7:53 AM, MalignD at aol.com wrote:

> << Speaking of which, maybe you could clarify why you'd label (and 
> dismiss)
> Toni Morrison's work as "[s]elf-consciously ethnic literature", though 
> not
> Philip Roth's? (Or Pynchon's for that matter.)>>
>
> Because I think the shoe fits in the one case, and not in the others.
>
> What I meant and perhaps was not clear about, was the difference 
> between
> writing about Jews, Jews as grist, as Roth does, and correcting the 
> record, which
> is what I think Morrison does.

Fair enough. I'd agree with Atwood and others that Morrison's fiction 
has more to offer than just that, though of course correcting the 
record isn't automatically or necessarily a bad thing either.

best

> I think fiction that attempts to do anything but be good fiction is 
> doomed to
> mediocrity.
>