--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Moore" <moorich@...> wrote:
> As I think back fifty years ago to my teenage years when reading became a passion, two writers who ranked in my top five were John D. Macdonald and Robert Heinlein. The phrase "moralizing narrator" is one way of summing up what happened to both of them. I'm not sure what did it to each of them but they both became so convinced of their own brilliance that they interrupted their later stories to lecture to the masses. That's what destroyed the magic.
--Except perhaps with CONDOMINIUM, which I haven't read yet but keep hearing bad things about, JDM never approached the masturbatory level of self-impressed lecturing that characterizes the frequent worst of Robert Heinlein's work...the asides did tend to get heavier and more galumphing in the McGees, but nothing as deadening as FARNHAM'S FREEHOLD or I WILL FEAR NO EVIL's nattering, which is at the Randian level.
Too close for good art at times, but not That close.
Todd Mason
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