Tonight, in the process of cleaning out my basement, I found a stack of notebooks from previous semesters. In one notebook, I stumbled across an essay I’d written to no one in particular, in which I argue that the standards for defining the modern literary canon have changed. Mostly, it’s an essay about why my mother hates “Moby Dick,” and I don’t really feel like reprinting the entire thing here, if only because you don’t need to be my mother to understand why “Moby Dick” sucks.
But I do want to reprint something from the essay that seems especially relevant:
It has been my experience that the average American mind simply runs through a checklist before approaching any media item. When considering the potential “greatness” of a book or blog or TV show, the mind starts ticking through the items.
No sex? No violence? No danger?
No interest!
What’s weird is, three months after I wrote that essay, “Flavor of Love” went on the air. I don’t think America has looked back since.