The Feminization of American Culture: Ann Douglas: 9780374525583: Amazon.com: Books

[Keith Davis]

Fair enough.
On Oct 2, 2012 5:33 AM, "alice wellintown" <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
wrote:

> > So you're saying that because some authors aren't good at condensing
> their
> > ideas into shorter forms, they're not as good as those who are able to do
> > so? Not sure I agree with that, though it's an interesting idea. Is a two
> > hour Coltrane solo less telling than a two minute Miles solo? How to
> judge?
> > Is a sketch by Leonardo more important than the Sistine Chapel? Apples
> and
> > oranges.
>
> Not what I meant at all; it was suggested, not by me, that we might
> avoid the apples and oranges, or better, sardines (Melville's
> Bartleby) and a four course seafood feast (melville's Moby-Dick), and
> also find some common ground, some agrred to criteria by which we
> might measure excellence, in style, in character making and so on, if
> we took a look at these shorter forms of fiction. As there are so many
> of you guys who have studied English Literature, or Literature, I
> thought it reasonable to ask that we judge based on something other
> than reader-response to the text; that is, consider the works in their
> contexts, in the tradition, in their elements. To give this kind of
> discussion a focus we might include a work mentioned here, like Mr
> James Wood's How Fiction Works, or Booth's The Rhetoric of Fiction. Or
> Frye or Bloom, or that book about how to read like a professor.
>
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