Literary Snoot

Instead of bellyaching about the "repetitive plots, the static characters, the pedestrian prose, the wit-free tone, the derivative themes," why don't you take your own advice, Mr. Charles? You've got the forum of a Washington Post article after all.

As I look back on my dozen years of teaching English, I wish I'd spent less time dragging my students through the classics and more time showing them how to strike out on their own and track down new books they might enjoy. Without some sense of where to look and how to look, is it any wonder that most people who want to read fiction glom onto a few bestsellers that everybody's talking about?

I know the Harry Potter books aren't masterpieces by any means, but they could be like "gateway" drugs into the more intoxicating stuff. Remember, complaining is not equivalent to critique or protest. Sheesh.