It looks like actual "ordinary" readers take more enjoyment in Anne Carson than Mike Snider would grant them. Never let the actual evidence of positive reader response get in the way of a good argument!

UPDATE: (the next morning)

I just wanted to present the other side of the story. To me, any tangible evidence I can find points to the fact that Anne Carson is an enjoyable writer whose novel and verse and translations of Sappho meet with an appreciative reception from the type of reader who is an actual reader, not a mere hypothesis in a hypothetical bookstore. I'm an empiricist. On a good day Carson can outsell another of my favorite writers, Elmore Leonard. That to me is encouraging.