Frothy Paradise

“Q. You say a literary history has to make judgments. Give us an example of whom you see as overrated, whom underrated?

A. Overrated: Gertrude Stein. She played an important role in the development of modernism, but she played it for men. And she is just not readable. She became viewed as a “sister”: That doesn’t sanctify her work. We can criticize it. I look with a critical eye at contemporary poetry, too. There are a great many talented woman poets today, but I don’t think any of them measure up to a Sylvia Plath or Adrienne Rich. I don’t feel any male poets do either. Underrated: In the 19th century, Harriet Beecher Stowe. Her reputation got overwhelmed by the political debates over Uncle Tom’s Cabin, but you need to look at Stowe as a novelist. Dred is a powerful analysis of the possibilities of violence and insurrection. In the 20th century, Jean Stafford has become known for her venomous attacks on the women’s movement in the 1970s. (I once got a really rabid letter from her denouncing my work.) But accounts of her frustrations, childhood anxieties, bewilderment over finding her own voice are worth reading. We also need to pay more attention to Shirley Jackson. She wore the public face of a best-selling novelist, wife of a distinguished literary critic, happy mom. But the private face of a “bad girl” — morbidly obese, alcoholic, agoraphobic — revealed in a series of her writings is compelling.”

Pretty interesting Q&A with critic Elaine Showalter, even though some of the stuff she says is, um, dubious. I agree with her about Shirley Jackson. Everyone has read “The Lottery” but just ask people to name one other work of hers and they can’t. She really deserves to be read more widely. And despite the fact that Jean Stafford was a rabid anti-feminist (sob, I didn’t know that until now, sob), she wrote “Bad Characters,” one of the best short stories that no one reads anymore.

Disagree (strongly) with her comments about poets. Seamus Heaney and Yusef Komunyakaa don’t measure up to Sylvia Plath? Yeah, right. She must be reading different poetry from the stuff I’m reading.