[brofallon]

As someone who loves to read but has no formal background in Literature, I'm very intrigued by the ways in which people rank authors so as to find the one most deserving of some award. The article provides a handful of criteria, including things like "striking and realized style", "consistency of excellence".. how are these measured? Can reasonable people disagree? I don't mean to say that it's all arbitrary. I have this feeling that it's not, but at the same time it's impossible to directly quantify or measure in a manner persuasive to everyone. I have no idea if Delillo is deserving or not, but the discussions sounding who is and who is not, what criteria are used, and how authors are measured against those criteria are the most fascinating part to me.