Literature Can Only Help, Girls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                     Three days ago, a writer named Gregory Currie wrote an article in The New York Times, asking the question if reading "great literature" makes one a better person.  To me, this smacks of an anti-intelligentsia agenda, because, even non-readers know, to an extent, they are missing out on pleasures enjoyed by their more literate contemporaries..  And I happen to know that some of the most amoral people out there--like Ted Bundy, for one--were highly disciplined and  educated.  In other words, they would have been amoral, whether or not they read great literature.  Which does not mean that those with morals will be automatically elevated to sainthood if they read "Anna Karenina," (referenced in the article; very timely, because I currently happen to be rereading it!!!!) but they will be richer for the experience, if not better able to hold their own socially at parties. At least, the kinds of parties I go to, darlings!!!!!

                                     Currie's subtext, that just because one reads great literature one is not  morally transformed, is fine in itself.  Where it gets to be a problem is such posturing can be used as justification for devotees of "Twilight," "Fifty Shades Of Grey," and other such ilk, peeling away at the fabric of what is left of our culture.

                                       I say, basically, Currie is full of shit!!!!!!!  And what is a piece like this doing in what is supposedly the most literate newspaper out there, The New York Times?????   Why was it even published at all???  I will tell you--to stir up trouble among the literati and their less refined counterparts, to create more of a wedge between these groups, and to philosophically call for the former's downfall!!!!!!!!!

                                        As a member the former, let me go on record as saying I would rather, for example, discuss Salinger with a bigamist, than try to engage in conversation  with a fundamentalist Christian not up to the stinging sophistication of "Good Night, Moon!!!!!!!!!!!"

                                         There will always be a need for literature, and there will always be those of us who read it!!!!!!!!!!  Up yours, Mr. Currie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                            I wonder what Jonathan ("He's so dreamy!!!!") Franzen thinks of it all, darlings???????????????