The Posthumous Power Of PR On College-Credentialed Kulcha Vulchas

Telfer:  And so this new-fangled stuff, and these dandified people, are to push us, and such as us, from our stools!

Mrs. Telfer:  Yes, James, just as some other new fashion will, in course of time, push them from their stools.

Arthur W. Pinero: Trelawny Of The Wells 

Pinero was a real big deal in his time, raise your hands how many of you ever heard of anything of his but, remotely possibly, this play?  

Literary scenes make believe the people they push during their lifetimes are literary gods, only to have them pass from the scene as soon as they're dead or shortly after or while they're still alive.  Vidal drank himself into a really hideous dementia for his last ten years or so, prey to the schemes of Harvard to get hold of his money and stunning even those who stood by him with his snobbish cruelty.  Few if any bothered with his books that last decade, the occasional essay here and there referenced, perhaps.  Other than the essays (which when fact checked turn out to be unreliable) and his blue crap, no one reads him anymore.  The "historical" novels are probably more full of crap than the essays.  He could be cruelly funny but there was never much more to him than that. 

They are such stuff as PR campaigns and book tours are made of.  No one knows who's going to stand the test of time, especially now when post-literacy is the norm for even those with college credentials.

It's kind of funny how slacker kulcha vulchas who are fast on following those ersatz gods to their grave hold onto their rotted and desiccated reputations like monkeys tortured by sadists in the name of pseudo-science  grab onto chicken wire and terry cloth.  

Update:  I never once said anything bad about Joseph Heller.   Life is too short to spend it trying to refute every lie, they just keep telling more.  They even tell the refuted ones.  If I could sue to shut them up I would, but the ACLU and Supreme Court have made that impossible.  Not interested in following it up.  Heller's a good writer but other than Catch-22, how often is he read?