COL49: Why the Negativity, TRP?

[John Bailey]

I've never really dug COL49, much as I want to. It just doesn't feel
as thick or layered or something. Or maybe it's that I feel like I get
it, and there's not much more to get. Each of his other novels seem
more open and expansive, whereas 49 is, I dunno, short and to the
point. Comparatively.

Or at least short.

On Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 12:06 PM, Robin Landseadel
<robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:
> On Jul 18, 2010, at 6:48 PM, Mark Woollams wrote:
>
>> Hello P-listers:
>>
>> (Pardon the break from V read topic)
>>
>> Does anyone have any thoughts on why TRP is so negative about COL49?
>>
>> Just wondering as I crawl back into this wonderful series of words. Its a
>> gem
>> that COL49...
>>
>> Thanks,
>
> No problem here, as I still haven't really dove back into V. myself.
>
> I suspect the novel in question was, as he wrote somewhere, written for
> cash, very quickly. Look close and you'll find plenty of glib, sophomoric
> humor, cardboard characters  and red herrings.* Meanwhile, he's
> simultaneously writing his "Great White." And after that doorstppper sees
> the light of day he's effectively enveloped in radio blackout for seventeen
> years, save for twenty-one enticing pages in "Slow Learner."
>
> *And how is this day different from any other day?
>