Another way of putting it is that the teaching of literature has gone down the drain into the cesspit, and if you like literature, you’d better either go to a very unusual college that still has a real English department, or else read it for yourself.
Incidentally, I used to know Michael Korda pretty well, the guy who signed up Jacqueline Susann for Simon & Schuster. It was one of his major coups. I remember him saying one summer that he had to fly down to New York to have lunch with two of his clients one week: Jacqueline Susann and Bertrand Russell.
I don’t fault anyone for reading Valley of the Dolls, for amusement or as a sociological commentary on our cultural decay. But it’s too bad when that’s the only sort of thing anyone reads; that, and maybe Toni Morrison.
Exactly.
the teaching of literature and literature itself has gone down the tubes.
Nothing being written except tiresome politically correct narratives, or jittery cool ironic statements.