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From: Lorenzo Dee Belveal
Date: 16 Feb 2000
Time: 17:28:17
Remote Name: 148.244.100.149
Hi, Steve: If a writer doesn't want to go into literary eclipse, s/he had better not die. O.Henry and Poe are only two conspicuous giants in American letters, who have been largely ignored by the current crop of both readers and teachers. In the meantime, a covey of "new" literary celebrities have been put at the head of the reading lists - for reasons that frankly are hard for me to discern. Saul Bellow and Ernest Hemingway immediately come to mind, both of whom offer good reading and some worthwhile insights. But their output hardly entitles them to membership in the pantheon of what the literate contingent generally agrees is "great" writing.
We Americans seem to have no trouble creating literary quantity, as witness the flood of magazines, paper-backs and motion pictures. But where are our contemporary candidates for immortality?
I'm glad you enjoyed the O.Henry look-alikes. ........ Lorenzo