The subject of plot seems to be a popular bailiwick in web discourse. A few weeks ago, I posted a discussion about Lev Grossman’s contention that the reading public’s “thirst” for plot in a reaction to abstruse “modernism” is fueling young adult book sales. Now, over at Strange Horizons, Matthew Cheney provides a primer of historical literary criticism in reacting to the contention of my fellow Charlottesvillian, John Grishman. that plot and literature are somehow mutually exclusive realms.  I guess John never heard of Charles Dickens much less, as Cheney contends, Aristotle.

The plot thickens…