I swear that every week there’s some post saying ‘x author is the greatest of all time’. Okay, we get it, the author might be popular or well-regarded, but saying that something is the greatest of all time or any variation of that is extremely unproductive when you’re talking about something highly subjective. And no, you’re subjective criteria for deciding this does not suddenly become objective just because you’ve decided that these are the things that really matter.
Yes, this is primarily in response to the post saying Stephen King is the greatest living author. Seeing the criteria the OP was measuring by – age, number of copies sold, number of genres written in – made me sigh and stare at the ceiling for a full minute. Is Stephen King a good author? Sure, but there are plenty of people who have made legitimate criticisms of his work and his style of writing.
And by god, stop calling it elitism whenever someone criticizes your pick for ‘greatest author of all time’. Elitism gets thrown around way too much in this sub as a way to say ‘I don’t want to hear criticism’. Yes, the guy who only reads books printed before 1900 and says everything printed after is utter garbage is incredibly annoying, but someone saying ‘I think there are better authors out there’ is not elitism.
Please stop. You don’t seem smart when you argue with people about how your pick is totally objective because you measured them against self-made criteria. It’s a foolish mission.
by AltFocuses
2 Comments
But Alexander Dumas is the greatest writer of all time. How can one criticize that?
You don’t have to read every post.