GR Overrated?

[David Morris]

Saying one didn't enjoy a (supposedly) great work is quite different
that saying it isn't all that great.  The first is an honest
confession.  The second is egotistical.  Even worse is to denigrate
those who profess a (supposedly) great work's greatness.

David Morris

On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 1:40 PM, Henry M <scuffling at gmail.com> wrote:
> "Authors, critics, and editors on 'great books' that (they say [hm])
> aren't all that great"
> http://www.slate.com/id/2301312/
> .
> .
> .
> Amy Bloom, author most recently of Where the God of Love Hangs Out:
>
> Gravity's Rainbow
> Critics and regular (and erudite) people and the three members of the
> 1974 Pulitzer Prize jury on fiction admire the hell out of this book.
> (The other 11 members of the board disagreed violently and no fiction
> prize was given that year.)* Gravity's Rainbow did win a National Book
> Award and it did make Time magazine's list of the All-Time 100
> greatest novels.
>
> If you like it, you say: This all fits together like the cleverest and
> most tessellated of rainbows. You love the circular plot and the way
> its structure echoes the rainbow-shaped trajectory of a V-2 rocket,
> and the recurring motifs of those same rockets, plus dense dialogue
> broken up by bits of silly poetry and chunks of Tarot, a rash of
> paranoia and, of course, a lot of kazoos. I myself admire the 400
> characters and the numerous special effects. The riffs on behavioral
> psychology and sexual slavery almost did me in.
>
> For people who like this sort of thing, as Muriel Spark wrote, this is
> the sort of thing they like. I prefer Muriel Spark.
> .
> .
> .
>
> AsB4,
> ٩(●̮̮̃•̃)۶
> Henry Mu
> http://www.urdomain.us/kcuf.htm
>