Mockingbird revisionism.

I didn't know this, but according to Stephen Metcalf at Slate, there's been a recent revisionist literary assault on To Kill a Mockingbird (from which Metcalf dissents, lightly).

I guess I should read the criticism. But as a gut reaction, that's just... terrible. Why bash To Kill a Mockingbird? The gist of the complaints is, and has always been, that it's not objectively great literature, either from a pure literary perspective or -- in the recent comdemnations -- from a social commentary perspective, seeing as it can be read sort of as a belated love letter to white professional noblesse oblige right in the heat of the civil rights era.

Well, ok, it's not great literature. But it's profoundly good literature... and isn't goodness kind of timeless, or at least doomed to be archaic and black sheep no matter when it's produced? Do I really need to find Atticus Finch altogether credible or 100% sufferable in order to find him memorable? Afterall, there is a sort of inate prudery built in to tolerance, particularly tolerance that's brave enough to clash with social norms. That should make us a little uncomfortable, shouldn't it?