tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110039268234101685.post5461236792524443640..comments2023-10-31T08:29:26.593-07:00Comments on Booksquawk: GHOSTWRITTENMelissa Conwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12368962908843137225noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110039268234101685.post-82561055221112369862009-11-21T08:40:40.551-08:002009-11-21T08:40:40.551-08:00I'm glad to hear I'm not alone in backing ...I'm glad to hear I'm not alone in backing away from literary lions. Life is too short to have to work hard at reading. I could never go along with the Mallarmé attitude to poetry - I want to understand what I'm reading right away (and, as a bonus, have flashbacks and eureka moments after I've finished the book). Nowadays, if I'm not drawn into the narrative by page four or five, that's it. But I'm fairly confident that Mitchell will keep you with him.Bill Kirtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07675643113010061969noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110039268234101685.post-40367555418279145132009-11-19T19:52:11.731-08:002009-11-19T19:52:11.731-08:00Yeah, this made me actually curious about the Mitc...Yeah, this made me actually curious about the Mitchell book...even enthusiastic, which I hadn't expected (the -ist problem; I have that big-time). (Richard Powers, by the way, I find utterly, completely unreadable; I have a sneaking fondness for Wm. Gaddis, though -- he makes me laugh, even if I've never actually quite worked up the momentum to FINISH one of his books somehow...!)Kate Kassermanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16635115092643305080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110039268234101685.post-18134775816985682172009-11-19T13:33:52.879-08:002009-11-19T13:33:52.879-08:00Great review, Bill. It made me think you'd re...Great review, Bill. It made me think you'd really enjoy Evan Dara's <i>The Lost Scrapbook</i>, if you haven't read it.<br /><br />I too have avoided Mitchell so far, not just out of 'experimentalism' which I also fear, but out of a basic mistrust of "literary lions," by which I mean critics and authors both. Richard Powers for instance I <i>know</i> to be a fine writer, but his stuff is so lacking in what Evelyn Waugh once called the "rich glint of lunacy" that I haven't been able to finish a single one of his books, and I think we have three of 'em. So when I read yet another critic all celebrating The Genius of Powers, it just makes me feel tired. I have the same trouble with Gaddis, and also Vollmann. Ho well. I'm hoping one day it will all just hit me like a ton of bricks and I'll yell "Eureka!" and leap out of the bathtub waving my copy of <i>You Bright and Risen Angels</i> or whatever it is.<br /><br />Wait, sorry we were talking about D. Mitchell, okay, I am hereby emboldened to give him a try.dorkismohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01000548925139368120noreply@blogger.com