Alexander Theroux

[Ya Sam]

What happened to this writer? Was he overrated after all?

"...any computer search of his surname in a news data bank is more likely to 
spit out reviews of books by his brother Paul than any notice of this master 
of allusion and wordplay and wretched excess" ...

"For those who prefer fiction that's dominated by psychological development 
and uncomplicated by flamboyant language (I don't), An Adultery may seem 
like an improvement over the two novels preceding it. With its dazzling 
vocabulary, play of different voices, and a profusion of forms, 
Darconville's Cat is a 700-page showcase of ornate and meticulous syntax, in 
a variety of styles and modes, mixing the natural with the supernatural and 
romantic fantasy with cynical satire. The names of the characters are verbal 
celebrations; the characters themselves are verbose projections of the 
quirks of the narrator (they are not, thank god, "real" people who threaten 
to jump off the page). Although Darconville's Cat has the breadth of some of 
its ambitious contemporaries (Mulligan Stew, Gravity's Rainbow), its 
digressions keep in close touch with the central story."

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=1443

99 Novels: The Best in English Since 1939:
A Personal Choice by Anthony Burgess


1973
Sweet Dreams, Michael Frayn
Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon

.....

1981
Lanark, Alasdair Gray
Darconville's Cat, Alexander Theroux
The Mosquito Coast, Paul Theroux
Creation, Gore Vidal

http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/grt99.html

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