NP - NYT's Review of Ten Thousand Saints

[Tom Beshear]

Hmmm -- that's in my library request queue.

It is not unusual for critics to overpraise the overwritten novel.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Morris" <fqmorris at gmail.com>
To: "P-list" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2011 6:08 PM
Subject: NP - NYT's Review of Ten Thousand Saints


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/books/review/book-review-ten-thousand-saints-by-eleanor-henderson.html?pagewanted=all

NYT's Stacey Dermaso reviewed Ten Thousand Saints by Elenor Henderson 
thusly:

"she writes the hell out of every moment, every scene, every
perspective, every fleeting impression, every impulse and desire and
bit of emotional detritus. She is never ironic or underwhelmed; her
preferred mode is fierce, devoted and elegiac."

and:

"If there is sometimes, perhaps, a little too much here, if the volume
gets a little high, it’s understandable: the writer seems to want to
make sure that we can hear the sound she presumably hears so clearly
herself."

I'm nearing the end of this book, and this is about as far from the
way I would describe it as could possibly be.  Everything about the
book is adequate, never more, never less.  I was never bad, but it
never flew.  So I had to go back to this review and wonder if some
form of payola is afoot here?