Mamet on Patrick O'Brian

[MalignD at aol.com]

It's difficult to come up with a writer of similar skill who works as poorly 
as Mamet when he steps outside his chosen medium.  His essays are as 
regularly lame as his plays are notable.  The essay on O'Brian no exception.

It isn't news that there is good and better than good writing to be found 
among genre novels; he mentioned John LeCarre as another example.  But the 
near-total dismissing of novels other than straightforward and well-told 
ripping yarns was clumsy, forced, and unconvincing.  The odds on  Mamet 
limiting his fictional reading only to novels of that sort are slim and none.

His recent book on acting technique was similarly from this "hold the caviar 
and pass the catsup" point of view; it was equally laborious, worthless, and 
false.