[pmoriarty]

I didn't say there was no difference, just that whether you think one is better than another is not "objective" but a matter of personal preference.

Clearly Dan Brown and Don DeLillo are different. They write different sorts of books that appeal to different sorts of readers. But I struggle to see how those differences make one "objectively" better than the other.

If there are objective criteria by which one could judge whether the one is better than the other, I'd like to know what they are.

[TheOtherHobbes]

There are fairly standard criteria for literary criticism that include psychological and social insight, use of vocabulary, use of advanced writing techniques, use of form, and many, many more.

It is all opinion, but there’s a difference between the opinion of Alan Kay and of someone who has two days of Python and a copy of Angry Birds.

[reednj]

Your example of Alan Kay isn't a very good one though, because we can objectively test their opinions on say, the best way to implement `malloc` by having them do it and testing the results against the computer. There is no such equivalent for literature.

[MaxBarraclough]

> It is all opinion, but there’s a difference between the opinion of Alan Kay and of someone who has two days of Python and a copy of Angry Birds.

I'm not sure I see your point.

We put more stock in the opinions of Alan Kay, because he has a better command of the relevant objective facts than does the newbie.

In 'pure literature', there are no such objective facts.