Highbrow/Lowbrow

If you haven’t read the article by Charles McGrath in the Times about highbrow/lowbrow distinctions in literature in the wake of the author in England who won a settlement in court by claiming that fumes from a shoe factory near her house caused her to write a thriller, which she claimed was a fall from grace, so to speak, from her usual output of literary novels, you should do so now. I can’t believe such a thing won in court, and yet I can at the same time. It’s ridiculous and wonderful, but better yet is this discuss McGrath teases out of it in regards to what the story really has to say about our notions of classism or elitism in literature.