On Literary Tastes

I am a fan of kristine_smith's Jani Killian books. So when I heard that she had released a mystery novel under the name Alex Gordon, I pre-ordered Gideon. Alas, it was not to my tastes, and I put it aside literally half-read.

This got me thinking about the Sad Puppies. (Yeah, they have been on my mind a lot lately. So sue me.) Their rational argument, as opposed to the "waah, they're picking on Straight White Dudes" emotional one, is this:

1) It's clear what is and is not good literature in a given genre and this is universal despite ethnic, racial and sexual experiences of the reader
3) Awards can and should pick out what will become classics in the literature
4) Being a "best seller" is a mark of quality (except when it's written by John Scalzi)

Needless to say, all of the above is bullshit. (That's a technical term. Look it up.) Using the numbering scheme above:

1) Kristine Smith's novel referenced above has a boat-load of good reviews, and I like both the author and her previous stuff. Yet Gideon is not to my tastes. I've also never read, and probably never will read, any of Tolkien's stuff.

2) Edward Bulwer-Lytton was considered one of the best writers of his era. Now, the only way we remember him is as a punch line to a joke. ("It was a dark and stormy night.") Charles Dickens, his contemporary and the guy we remember, was considered a hack. We remember Herman Melville for Moby Dick, yet that novel was a critical and commercial failure in its time.

3) Here's a list of the bestselling books of 1930. How many of those books have you heard of? Hell, how many authors have you heard of? (I got 2 for 10, one of which because two of her other works became Hollywood movies.) Sure doesn't look like most of those books were timeless classics.

I really thought these facts were self-evident. But apparently not.