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Jan. 31, 2007 I don't make generalizations about literature, because I know that I am in no way qualified to say that such-and-such writer is the greatest writer in the world or in such-and-such sphere of activity. I don't say, for example, "Shakespeare was the finest playwright of the English language," or, "Homer was the greatest poet of classical antiquity," or, "Tolstoy was the greatest novelist of all time." Many people do make such statements, and perhaps some are more qualified than others to do so, but most of these opinions are mere commonplaces. So when somebody like Brian Barbeito, whose very diction betrays his lack of qualifications to make intelligent commentary on the whole gamut of literature, which he does anyway when he says that Dostoevsky was the greatest writer of all time, goes into a fustian of indignation when somebody points his arrogance out to him, it makes him look childish and foolish. I merely compared "The Brothers Karamazov" and "The Quiet Don", which usually goes by a slightly different title in English, and it is reasonable for me to do so, since I spent hundreds of hours on each of the books. I did not pontificate on the entirety of human literature. I did not and do not. I am painfully aware of the fact that I have read probably fewer than 0.01% of the books in print. So Barbeito is correct, when he says that I probably haven't read Martin Buber, W.H. Auden and a whole catalog of other names that he trotted out of his chamber of horrors. And there are thousands of others I haven't read. That's why I, unlike Barbeito, don't utter fatuous irrelevancies like, "There is nobody standing beside him (Doestoevsky)," and, "He is hands down the writer of literature." Barbeito proposed that he and I write parallel articles. Later, I suppose, he would e-mail me to tell me his error-laden article was better than mine. I've never written to Barbeito to tell him an article of mine was better than one of his. This is very uncouth and rude. But he did this to me. This is like a man who comes into a room full of ladies and says, "Here I am, you lucky girls," pretending that he is being a wit. I pointed out that Barbeito's sentence, "He and her stood and watched the horizon," was grammatically incorrect. Barbeito admitted generously that, technically, "He and her" is substandard, but said he likes the sound, and would use it again. By the time I had reached the eighth grade, I knew better than that, and I am supposed to accept the idea that Barbeito can meaningfully select the greatest writer of all time? So he replies with an answer to the effect that if he wants to say "he and her", "whom is" and, "whomever is," he'll do it, regardless of what I think. Literature is not "not all that black and white", he maintains. It's one thing when a writer who everyone knows has an excellent command of the language uses an illiterate expression to achieve some effect. It's quite another, when a writer whose command of the language is sometimes tenuous makes a stupid mistake and tries to rationalize later, when it's been pointed out, as Barbeito is doing with embarrassing obviousness. This was also the case when Barbeito, apparently not knowing the words "chatoyant" and "nonpareil", ridiculed them, later claiming that he did know them. So why did he make a big issue of my using them? My guess, from having read 200 or more of Barbeito's articles, is that he did not know them. I think I know what words Barbeito is likely to know and what words he probably doesn't know. Yes, as much as he hates to admit it, my knowledge and experience surpass his by far. When it comes to who is schooling whom around here, Barbeito is the pupil, not the teacher. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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