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The worst of our era are the Johns and the Anns. John Irving, Updike, and Ann Tyler, and there's another Ann who I've forgotten and who deserves to be. They write the most tedious, self-congratulatory drivel. Stories of small, self-pitying scope. Yet the critics keep praising them. Thankfully, they fall out of print and memory quickly. Phillip Roth, Kingsolving--they're all like the Johns and Anns in pretentiousness.

Thank you, I feel validated now. What do you think of Margaret Atwood? Read Cat's Eye, very good writer, but not a character in it I could root for.

You are simply not allowed to create characters who are morally good. They must be "complex", which is Hollywood-ese for "screwed up".

re: You are simply not allowed to create characters who are morally good. They must be "complex", which is Hollywood-ese for "screwed up".))

Beware the term "nuanced" also.

re: What do you think of Margaret Atwood?)))

I think she has an imagination (the premise of Handmaid's Tale was intriguing, though the book was really a long, keening, bleat) but descends quickly into the usual feminist masochism. Beat me, poor me, that sort of Lifetime Women's Television stuff.