[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by evollove

What's "niche crap?"

oh this nasty little racist practice of ghettoizing writers by ethnicity or sexual orientation or what not, both marginalizing good writers as provincial and elevating bad writers to the canon because they are some sort of minority.

writers are either good or sucky.

take for example jhumpa lahiri-- she's fucking fabulous. i enjoyed reading "the namesake" immensely. it's one of the few contemporary books i have actually been able to read from cover to cover. and yet she is put in the "asian-american" pile together because she happens to write about the immigrant/first generation experience. she belongs in the contemporary pile instead of all that macsweeney self-indulgent white bullshit (there i go with the ethic shit-- but it makes sense in the context).

similarly, maya angelou... the lady is nice but... why should anyone read her? because she's "african american"? where the fuck is langston hughes? he should go on the modernist pile with all the other good ones.

philip roth and saul bellow, such tremendous figures in, i don't know what category, are put as "jewish writers" whereas woody allen is a "postmodernist". ayayay...

fucking niche/ghetto shit. there is also some crap on "hispanic literature" that nobody should be required to read but it's there because "it's hispanic". yes, my panic.

for the record, i haven't slept since saturday and i'm quite incoherent but my rage isn't. okay maybe it is, but it all makes sense to me.