I'm very surprised I finished this novel. I believe it suffers from the all-too-common arrogance of some literary fiction writers. The belief that they can write about anything, no matter how boring or inconsequential, no matter how difficult the stretch to make their point, because they believe they are such great writers. I also place Updike in this category, with his Rabbit novels. Of course, they are successful, and I am not, so who am I to criticize them.
Ford is very good at dialog, dialog "tags", and the interplay between characters around dialog. Turn to any page and you can get excellent examples of the right way to do things.
Ford is very bad at telling a compelling story, though, and that ruins the whole thing for me. I don't sympathize or empathize with any of the characters. I don't identify with the story, which is what? I'm still not sure. I suppose it's just the mid-life crises of a rich, introspective, former writer. But I could be wrong. The novel didn't speak to me in any way, and certainly said nothing profound that I could find. I can't imagine spending so much time and effort writing something so banal.
And another thing - politics. The author obviously has a political leaning and it shows. I hate when the authors personal politics show.
So I am going to rank it pretty low in the pulitzers. About on a par with where I rank the Updike novels, which is pretty low, and for pretty much the same reasons.
No comments:
Post a Comment