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ANTIAMERICAN

                                              August    4, 2002
                                              December 29, 2005
                                        Rev:  May       4, 2019

  If you ask me, there's a dirty                                (May 2019)
  little secret about American                         But then: what about
  Literature: it sucks.                                Edgar Allen Poe
                                                       Walt Whitman
  Most of the things that get
  trumpeted as being the Great
  American Novel (e.g. "Huckleberry
  Finn", "Moby Dick") just aren't       And "Pilgrim's
  all that good.                        Progress"? Heh.

  But you had American folks pushing it
  out of nationalistic pride, and you                   (May 2019)
  had European folks who bought into it
  because they had this weird respect        Like selling gangsta rap
  for the noble savage produced by the       to suburban white kids.
  American wilderness.

                                How else to
  And once something is         explain the
  established as part of        popularity of
  the cannon, it never          Fenimore Cooper    "As for tomorrow, I
  really leaves. After          in Europe?         don't know if this
  all, it's really hard                            whim of mine will
  to judge whether                                 last; but this
  something is "Good"                              evening the anemic
  even if you directly                             pallor of our
  share the same                                   civilization, as
  cultural background,                             monotonous as a
  when it's a product of                           railway line, makes
  something written a                    RISK      my stomach heave
  century ago, it's hard                           with disgust.
  to say what kind of                              I find myself
  critical standards                               responding with
  should apply to it.                              passion to the
                                                   horrors of the
                                                   retreat from Moscow,
  If it expresses an                               the excitement of
  attitude that seems                              _The Red Rover_ and
  out of date, then                                the life of a
  it's historical, if                              smuggler."
  it expresses an                                    -- A character in
  attitude that seems                              Balzac's "The Wild
  up to date, then                                 Ass's Skin"
  it's amazingly                       BALZAC
  ahead of it's time.
                                                          *Excitement*?

                                                          Try reading
                                                          some Cooper
  And if the writing                                      sometime.
  seems really clumsy,
  well, standards were                                    I'm in full
  different back then.                                    agreement
  You have to appreciate                                  with Twain
  it in it's context.                                     on that one.


                                        HAWKING_FINN
           My take on Twain would
           be that for a writer,
           he was pretty good at
           stand-up comedy.           Though of course,
                                      I haven't read
                                      Twain's entire
                                      output...  Maybe
                                      I'll hit
                                      "Conneticut
                                      Yankee" one of
                                      these days.

                                        Or that other one
                                        people push as one     SECURING_RIGHTS
                                        of his best...



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