North American literature is Faulkner + A Confederacy of Dunces + the first half of Catch 22.
Everything else is "fine" and that's all. I've always felt sympathy for Fitzgerald, but his novels are quite irrelevant. Twain is G rated.
Hemingway is trash.
In poetry Whitman and Ginsberg are great.
And that's the end of North American literature.
Well done! I like this kind of sweeping arrogant dismissal, and I even
partially agree with it. For sure about Faulkner - head and shoulders above the rest - and Hemmingway (bleagh), and even Fitzgerald and Twain (good but perhaps not so 'important').
But you're still disregarding very interesting writers like Henry James, Flannery O'Connor, etc. Of course I suppose I may be confusing personal liking for something greater.
