Kathleen has already opened the discussion (so germane to her project) on Dale PeckÕs surprisingly lengthy takedown of Rick Moody, who in PeckÕs article stands in for a whole crowd of no-good postmodernist fiction-bastards.

But you canÕt call Peck a literary conservative, since he gleefully rabbit-punches Joyce (hates everything but Dubliners and the first half of Portrait) and gives the late Faulkner a hearty boot in the rear as he sends him out the door. It looks most like he just really wanted to rip into Moody and then was reminded of all the things he freaking HATES about other popular writers, and then it got sorta fun and he started scoring points.

I can relate.

Weirdly, this seems to be part of an (admittedly slow-burning) trend, started about a year ago by B.J. Myers in the pages of the Atlantic. MyersÕs piece bugged me at first Ð it seemed so relentlessly crabbed Ð but his meticulous close reading of his targets proved effective in shining an unflattering light on some reflexively praised current favorites of the literary establishment.

Now the Washington PostÕs Jonathan Yardley is weighing in, with an argument that sounds not unlike Tom WolfeÕs pre-Bonfire manifesto, ÒStalking the Billion-Footed BeastÓ, in which he said people should write more big, sprawling social-comedy novels like he went on to do. Yardley marches us dutifully through a mind-blowing dull Greatest Hits of American Literature and gives us his Harold Bloom-style rundown of Òindisputably greatÓ American novels (hung up on a literary nationalism which has all but strangled American fiction, by the way; thereÕs been an incredible unwillingness in this country to look to the rest of the world for good fiction. ÒBooker PrizeÓ is only just beginning to mean something here), which apparently concluded with The Adventures of Augie March. IÕll confess Ð unlike Myers, who is prickly but convincing, or Peck, who is throwing bombs to sporadic but noticable effect Ð YardleyÕs ÒState of the ArtÓ is an article which seems chiefly dedicated to avoiding surprising statements or choices that will make you think.

Still, this ÒwhatÕs wrong with these goddamn writers todayÓ is a game thatÕs so much fun to play that I guess I canÕt blame even Yardley for wanting to get in a few innings (he ends with a baseball metaphor. ItÕs after midnight. IÕm out of ideas here). God knows if I had my own forum to yammer about all the writers I hate and why they suck, IÕd love to start my own little crank-essay about literature and my discontents.

Say... wait a minute...