Life is elsewhere
When I expressed disgust at most of the Guardian’s Summer Reading list, I meant to say what Ellis Sharp has said, but far more eloquently than I ever could. Fantastic stuff.
Also, don’t miss Patrick Giles’ dissenting comments on James Wood in the, er, comments section of TEV’s blog entry on Nicole Krauss’ new novel. More fantastic stuff.
Other Splinters posts of interest:
- Comments kaput Sort of. Our blog comments provi…
- Summer reading: a book is a mirror …
- Reading Is Shagging
- Comments part 2 I got impatient and added Halos…
- Broken Blog Comments
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2 Responses to “Life is elsewhere”
Mr. Waggish
June 21st, 2005
Surely Wood wouldn’t disagree with most of what Steve and Ellis Sharp say about the conservative nature of the British novel. I still remember his blisteringly negative review of Enduring Love, published in the Guardian, which accused it of being structured like a Hollywood thriller. And his review of Saturday in the New Republic was decidedly mixed, especially on the thrillerish elements.
Anonymous
June 24th, 2005
When you have to put up with the likes of McSweeney’s and The Believer, as I do, even an unadventurous type like James Wood comes off pretty well. Wood doesn’t get on my nerves as he seems to for many people I know; I enjoy his religio-humanist obsessions even when they seem wholly inappropriate to the work under consideration. And I’ll give him points for digging up people like Verga and Hrabal for praise. Yet Giles is absolutely right in saying he pales in comparison to the predecessors he mentions.
Sharp’s attack in McEwan is absolutely dead-on, and I’m not even a Communist. How this resolutely middlebrow writer made it to the top of the pile I don’t understand.