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• Current

Type: documentary

Status: neutral

Author: Ada Louis Huxley

Tags: history biography art american historical chicago illinois victorian america nonfiction architecture aynrand true midwest arizona wisconsin

2008-04-26

  & 70 users

• Current

Type: fiction

Status: liked

Author: Ayn Rand

Tags: women psychology fiction art american classic philosophy america literature novel objectivism aynrand

2007-11-27

• Current

Type: documentary

Status: liked

Author: Sarah Churchwell

Tags: women history psychology art american historical love america nonfiction death true mothers sixties

2007-10-22

• Current

Type: fiction

Status: disliked

Author: Susan Minot

Tags: women fiction american romance love america literature death overrated novel

Description: AN ODE TO A FOOLISH AND UNSUSTAINABLE SORT OF LOVE.
"After all, how unbelievableAN ODE TO A FOOLISH AND UNSUSTAINABLE SORT OF LOVE.
"After all, how unbelievable death was! -- that it must end; and no one in the whole world would know how she had loved it all; how every instant..."

Were Virginia Woolf to return and read Minot's tiresome novel, I have little doubt that, pockets laden with stones, she would once again throw herself into the waters of the River Ouse. What a tragedy that the modern feminist movement should have produced such a grandaughter as Minot!

What a headache I had at the end of this book!

Minot depends too much on a well-worn formula which assumes that in order to be profound, all you need is a disastisfied upper-middle class woman chaffing at the constraints of an inflexible and unsympathetic society.
We've travelled down that road several times before, thank you very much.

A tired and unoriginal plot coupled with a set of unlikeable characters, this novel makes for a truly tedious exercise in writing. The book reads like a roster of the main character's less-than-satisfactory love affairs. For Woolf, the real tragedy of death comes from her character's insatiable joie de vivre. All of Woolf's beautiful and original insights stem from this desperate and stubborn joy in the face of ultimate death and decay. Minot's book is hollow, lacking in substance. What we have here, my friends, is soap opera. Pure, unadulterated schmaltz.

And please, gentle reader, Don't be fooled into thinking that her creative license with punctuation or use of stream of conciousness make her an original. These are simply parlour tricks to distract you from her story's inherent averageness.
Artistic license does not an artistic writer necessarily make. Perhaps these devices fall more into the category of pretention than art.

Minot, while she can certainly can tell a story, offers no fresh perspectives. Therein lies the main difference between genius and mediocrity in writing. Minot is a storyteller; Woolf, an artist.
This novel is perfect for a Lifetime original movie, but completely undeserving of any place of honor in a library of modern literature.

Vacuous, empty, asinine, unoriginal, pretentious, whiney, tired. Take your pick.

...

2007-07-17

  & 6 users

• Current

Type: fiction

Status: neutral

Author: Tobias Wolff

Tags: history fiction art american classic humour historical america literature novel aynrand ernesthemmingway robertfrost

2007-07-01