This looks like an article written in haste as his deadline at the Mercury was looming:- it essentially says bugger all. At the very best it is a poor imitation of the true enemy of the grants funded writer Andrew "I'm still not Sorry" Bolt.

What Barnes was really trying to say - but dressed it up as a critique of contmeporary writers - was a repeat of his diatribe a few months ago where he labled Australia a rascist back water and a pig sty.

In this article he has merely refined his focus bagging young writers and sneering at the population at large who he seems to hold in some contempt. What's worth though is Barnesy actually gets paid - at least by the Mercury - for this kind of drivel.

An interesting article that unfortunately stomps worryingly into generalisations about who we are and what we read.

I'm sure that there were at least some critics of James Joyce who noted that he was "no Homer". And there were certainly others who simply didn't understand his writing. Similarly, Patrick White and Xavier Herbert had their detractors. Were these detractors merely idiot spoilers? Perhaps.

I agree that to render all important philosophical messages into a Dr Phil-style 10-word catch-phrase is diddling society out of the complex thoughts of great thinkers.

But I also can't help but think that some of our greatest literature is very, very hard work that has required not only its writers to have a broad classical education, but also its readers.

There are fascinating contributions being made to Australian literature - Elliot Perlman's 'Three Dollars' is a good example. I found that novel to be profoundly disturbing and uncomfortable - challenging in the ways that good literature should be.

I don't agree that the Australian public has the attention span and intellect of a sheep - the recent ABC ranking of our favourite books featured alongside pulp fiction like 'The Da Vinci Code' and 'Harry Potter', important literary works like 'Wuthering Heights', 'Nineteen Eighty-Four', 'Crime and Punishment' and 'The Catcher in the Rye'. And if everyone who voted for The Bible had actually read it (and UNDERSTOOD it), I'm heartened that the intellectual state of our country is not nearly so parlous as some might have us believe

I agree with everything Barnes has said.

Creative writing classes just waste the time of poor dopes who seem to believe they can be taught to become interesting. If you've nothing to say in the first place how can you be taught it?

Maximus makes some good points: "Without depth of values the banal becomes exquisite."

Well I've seen University humanities lecturers on this internet all excitedly discussing the latest goings-on in Big Brother. And all enthralled by it. So what hope is there?

Maximus, again: "Even Big Brother will probably be studied in secondary schools soon as literature, if indeed it is not being discussed as such in universities right now."

Exactly.