Laura Miller Would Prefer Not To

After an oblique reference from another member of Critical Mass yesterday, Laura Miller identifies herself as one of a few critics who refused to play the NYTBR best fiction game, neatly pegging its underlying psychology: “People who talk about this sort of thing are always less interested in actually understanding and appreciating works of art than they are in savoring the ripeness of their own solemnity.”

She also perfectly encapsulates another significant flaw in the entire enterprise: “The idea of a single best novel… completely missed the point of what’s happened in American culture in general and American literature in particular over the past 30 years.” That’s right—call it multicultural or polyglot or whatever you want, but you really can’t reduce American literature to a bunch of white guys eligible for Social Security, with one African-American of each gender and another white woman thrown in just to be safe. (Although perhaps if the Review was willing to reveal the entire list of one-vote nominees, a little more genuine diversity might emerge…)

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