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I just found a sample of Lorrie Moore's latest novel, A Gate at the Stairs, on Amazon.com. It's supposedly from the point of view of a college student looking for work.
Please, o all-wise flist, go read the first few pages. Then tell me if I'm completely crazy to find this critically lauded book a precious, pretentious, oh-so-literary creation that bears as much resemblance to the inner monologue of a college student looking for work as it does to the collected works of Marie Corelli?
Thank you.
Please, o all-wise flist, go read the first few pages. Then tell me if I'm completely crazy to find this critically lauded book a precious, pretentious, oh-so-literary creation that bears as much resemblance to the inner monologue of a college student looking for work as it does to the collected works of Marie Corelli?
Thank you.
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The Token LIterary Fiction Reader Sez...
Date: 2011-04-19 10:00 pm (UTC)From:I haven't read any Marie Corelli. What's her story?
Re: The Token LIterary Fiction Reader Sez...
Date: 2011-04-19 10:24 pm (UTC)From:Re: The Token LIterary Fiction Reader Sez...
Date: 2011-04-19 10:27 pm (UTC)From:Re: The Token LIterary Fiction Reader Sez...
Date: 2011-04-19 11:30 pm (UTC)From:Re: The Token LIterary Fiction Reader Sez...
Date: 2011-04-19 10:28 pm (UTC)From:Completely OT - I just read Thunderstruck! by Erik Larson. Fabulous book juxtaposing the invention of the wireless and the use of same to apprehend a criminal. Loved it.
Re: The Token LIterary Fiction Reader Sez...
Date: 2011-04-20 01:50 pm (UTC)From:Have you seen this? http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/book-review-mary-gordons-the-love-of-my-youth-a-melancholy-roman-holiday/2011/04/08/AFeAlb7D_story.html. Interesting review with a take on the whole literary fiction thing.
Re: The Token LIterary Fiction Reader Sez...
Date: 2011-04-20 02:39 pm (UTC)From:Do you read much non-fiction (apart from textile/costume, I mean?)
Re: The Token LIterary Fiction Reader Sez...
Date: 2011-04-20 02:54 pm (UTC)From:Re: The Token LIterary Fiction Reader Sez...
Date: 2011-04-24 04:00 pm (UTC)From:Are you on Goodreads or the like?
no subject
Date: 2011-04-19 10:12 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-04-19 10:24 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-04-19 10:16 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-04-19 10:25 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-04-19 11:06 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-04-19 10:25 pm (UTC)From:I give this a resounding, "Meh" and I suppose there are people that find this sort of thing a good read. But, I wouldn't be so crass as to make snide comments about those that like this sort of thing being narrow minded, pseudo-intellectual snobs. I'd say something like, "If you like stories about women in college or women's coming of age stories in modern (or whatever timeperiod) Illinois, then this is a books you should check out."
no subject
Date: 2011-04-19 10:44 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-04-19 11:13 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-04-20 03:32 am (UTC)From:(Fantasy. Written by a woman (Jo Walton). About a Welsh teen girl going to an English boarding school after her twin dies, who is constructing her identity by reading every science fiction/fantasy book she can get her hands on. Also, with fairies and witches.)
no subject
Date: 2011-04-20 11:04 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-04-20 10:41 am (UTC)From:I think it's also worth noting in the context of the GB article, that I absolutely don't think the things that makes Moore's introductary section overwrought, pretentious and dull (to me) are gendered - it is dull for exactly the same reasons that that sort of fiction by a man about a male student is often overwrought, pretentious and dull. It's just that Moore's is more likely to be dismissed as ChickLit (it's clear that she isn't writing sex and shopping books), and the man's to be heralded as "the next Roth". In that sense, though GB looks at her only as a woman writing books for women (and thus probably about shoes), the fact that a quick Google tells me that though I've never heard of Moore "A Gate at the Stairs" was positively reviewed by the major British papers as a literary novel (and by men) suggests that within the confines of the genre she writes in, she is clearly very good indeed.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-20 11:10 am (UTC)From:Even worse, the students who actually want to write commercial fiction are winnowed out early. That many of today's classics started out as commercial fiction that proved too popular to ignore doesn't seem to register....
no subject
Date: 2011-04-20 03:26 pm (UTC)From:There are exceptions, such as the UEA Creative writing MA (particulary the 70s - early 90s), but even it hardly sees the majority of its students go on to become Ian McEwan and Tracy Chevalier, and concentrates and a particular sort of fiction.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-20 03:39 pm (UTC)From:Also, I think one major problem is that a LOT of writers have forgotten that, above and beyond everything else, readers want an entertaining story. If I pick up a book and don't like the characters, the prose style, or the plot, I'm going to put that book back down and pick up something else. All too many authors, especially the ones coming out of college programs, seem to have forgotten this. Fine technique and quirky characters will not compensate if the plot is boring or the characters are composed of nothing but their quirks.
My reaction
Date: 2011-04-20 04:01 pm (UTC)From:Some of her details made me go "Huh?" (Umm... cloudy plasma from eating cheese? Really? Also, I can state from experience someone being two inches taller than you is NOT enough of a height difference to see up their nostrils - not that most of us would even try....)
Plus, having *not* read the introduction I had no idea what this book was about. I mean, I don't even have an idea as to genre. In my (maybe not-so-humble) opinion, one should give a clue to that in the first few pages, right?
So, yeah.