Rambling letter from a newbie:
As chance would have it, I just picked up _Shame_ yesterday
at our little library. I'm only 50 pages into it. I'm
enjoying it, but I wouldn't call it a can't-put-down kinda
book.
I had to comment on the sacred cows issue. Every few years my
wife gets enraged because I make one-too-many conclusive
comments ("so-and-so is crap", rather than the more
politically correct "I don't like so-and-so"). At the same
time, I'm not so passionate about any particular writer that
I would get my hackles up over criticism. I'm fond of
_Gatsby_, have read it several times since high school, but I
recognize that it has its flaws. I'm also inordinately fond
of Conrad's
_Heart of Darkness_, but oh boy is it flawed, too. (_Heart of
Darkness_ as a crime novel? Hmm...) Are there any unflawed
works out there? In the realm of Crime Lit, in which I am far
from an expert, I can only think of _The Big Sleep_ .
Faulkner's a lighthearted kind of guy ; ) I still remember
being depressed for weeks on end after finishing _The Sound
and the Fury_. Nevertheless, _As I Lay Dying_ ranks as one of
the most memorable books I've ever read... one of those rare
cases where I read a book once, and still remember the
ending!
Hemingway? I've read him, and to this day I can't grasp why
people rank him among the 20th century's literary
heavyweights. Reminds me of how everyone always gushes over
David Mamet's wonderful dialogue-- which has always, always
sounded canned to me. Some of these icons are, IMHO, latter
day cases of the emperor's new clothes. To pick a genre I'm a
little more familiar with, science fiction, can anyone think
of a more flatulent icon than _Dune_? (One of the great tests
of an empty icon is how easily spoofed it is... too wit, the
annual Bad Hemingway contest. Some of you may have read a
spoof on _Dune_ entitled, I think, _Doon, the Dessert
Planet_, which I found VERY funny.)
Signing off before I wear out my welcome,
Doug Hoffman
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