character, as if the two were gladiators, waging war on the sands of the Coliseum in some winner-take-all death battle. Both sides of the debate claim a definitive superiority for their chosen gladiator, and for the most part, the battle splits nicely down the lines of literary and commercial fiction, the commercialists placing the emphasis on plot in the interest of producing “page turners,” while the literati poke up their noses at the thought of anything so crude and artless.
