Is M&D as good as GR???

[Joe Varo]

On Fri, 12 Sep 1997, the Robot Vegetable wrote:

> Is it necessary for a novel to be explosively eye-opening to be great? 
> This isn't the case for me, but I can grant that it may be for others. 

Well...maybe not *explosively* eye-opening, but at least to some extent. 
My own (ond only my own) measure of greatness in a novel has always been
whether or not, when I've finished a book and closed the back cover, do I
have this urge to sit back, take in some oxygen, and say to myself "whoo
... now *that* was a book. And then for some indeterminate length of time
I'll have the themes of the book bouncing around in my head, which will
spur other thoughts of my own.

The first reading of M&D didn't do this for me. When I closed its back
cover I was merely relieved that it was over. 

> I consider this [The Recognitions] the best book I have read. 

I'm reading this one now.

Joe