So, I just can't get into John Cheever. So far he reads the way an English professor tries to teach you to write.
The details, one must record ALL the details! The sights, the smells, the tastes!
Granted, I'm only on page 10 of the Wapshot Chronicles. But if it doesn't improve soon I'm packing it in. Turning to my crisp new PG Wodehouse. Or I'll reread Edie Sedgwick's biography for the third time.
The last great book I read was given to me by Stuart. It was This Is Not a Novel, by David Markson, whose work I had never read before. I felt a bit like that person reading it on the L train, by virtue of the avant-garde-ish title & the nearly verselike layout of isolated lines upon the page, but about a quarter of the way thru I didn't care anymore. It was amazing. I gave it to Sara when I finished because great books are dying to be shared.
So Markson's no Nancy Mitford, but then who is? I mean, besides Shakespeare. Shakespeare could be a pretty great Nancy Mitford sometimes.
