It would have been the equivalent of Jackson Pollock's attempts to copy the Sistine Chapel.

Poet critic Boswell of the Lost Generation of which he himself was a member savior of Faulkner's dwindling reputation editor of Kerouac's On the Road discoverer of John Cheever Cowley knew everybody and wrote about them with sharp insight. His biggest impact was from 1929 through 1944 when he was an assistant editor at The New Republic.