I am an Amateur Reader and have been following your blog for over 6 months or so hoping to find some where in literature to take a swim. Unfortunately, nearly all the books you write about are not available in my library, and being a good citizen I try to keep the library’s costs down by not ordering anything that I won’t get 25 pages in before not being able to go on with it. I made the mistake of reading an Ann Patchett novel because she was on the shelf and on NPR and her novel was blurbed (blurbbled?)positively in the usual suspect places. I should have known better. I read it any way and wish I hadn’t. Her cut and dried approach to the cut and paste style of fiction still leaves ashes in my mind.

I managed to find a copy of a Denis Johnson book in the library and was thoroughly entertained. Imagine my delight to find ‘The Tree of Life’ by Malick DVD listed in the library. The librarians and I searched and searched and couldn’t find it. Since this is a back to the bible area I assume it was stolen and destroyed because it contains an ‘unauthorized’ fiction about the creation. Alas, there is no book store here except a ‘Christian’ ‘bookstore’. Such is life in otherwise bucolic nature. I am wont to buy a book I haven’t tried a few chapters of before because I have my clothes closet shelves lined in the back with books I haven’t read yet.

There is a nicely bound volume of ‘The Prairie’ by James Fenimore Cooper I bought a long time ago because I wanted some literature that would give me a feel for the American prairie before the machine age. Right before I planned to read it I read a review of that same work by Mark Twain. If you are looking for a way to criticize a work without feeling bad about slamming it, you should read his review. With much charm and élan, Mr. Twain managed to totally bitch slap Cooper and his works in a very humorous way. Should be read by any one who has to write a book report after having to read a book they totally didn’t like. As my neighbor Elmer Fudd said after I gave him it to read and he squirmed when I asked him how it was going, ‘it takes him 3 pages to say something that could be in one sentence’. I told him he didn’t have to read it to be polite and he looked quite relieved when he gave it back to me. I gave him ‘Huck Finn’ instead and he liked it so much he read it overnight.

Most of my reading away from the computer screen is non-fiction. I do not read anything that is not well written no matter how interested in the subject I am. Pete Theroux seems to totally dislike whatever exotic place he is traveling through and writing about, so I have stopped reading him. John McPhee is such an accomplished writer that I I learn about all kinds of subjects that I would not ordinarily be interested in, such as growing oranges, contemporary homesteading in Alaska, geology, designing airplane wings, making the mirrors for the Hubble telescope. He has a style that takes me into some one’s mind and into whatever work it is that they are performing. I am looking at a row of books lining my desk cabinet of works I haven’t read – Tantric and Tibetan Yoga, physics, Siberian travelogue, Cowboy Poetry, early Victorian explorers works, with a collection of the volumes published about Shackleton. All of them apparently very good reads as such outside their subjects. At the moment my bedtime reading is a modern rendition of the Vedic creation poetry. But, I really want to find contemporary literature that sucks me in, both in style, the wording constructs, and most importantly, in story. I can remember how much I enjoyed reading Patrick White’s ‘The Tree of Man’ so many years ago because he evoked the feel of rural Australia and the lack of verbal emotion of its residents. That last phrase is not quite right, but I guess I am lacking verbally, too.

The purpose of this ramble is an attempt to communicate to biblioklept that the difference between his review above and his ramble today seems to tell me that he needs to find some fresh meat. It really is hard to write creatively about something that you are only telling yourself that you find worthwhile writing about. I don’t think he is burned out, but he has plowed the same field too many times, and he needs to let it lie fallow while turning the pasture under across the fence. Now that’s the arrogance of giving anyone advice. Probably none of this is true but there seemed to be a conundrum expressed in the blog.

The difference to me between a book review and literary criticism of that same book is that from a book review I hope to get enough sense of the story that I might find it involving and to decide if I like the way the writing is laid out. Literary criticism, to me, is more about how clever the critique author is and how much the author didn’t tell you what his work really means. And how, if you cut the work into phrases and reassemble them at random how they could mean some thing else entirely. My feeling about symbolic and hidden meanings is why didn’t the author just write that instead.

Most book reviews that I have read only give me information about whether I am interested in the time, place, and characters. I never read past ‘coming of age’. And all those superlatives wear me out. I find this is true also for movie reviews, even though they seem easier. I just can’t hack art or music reviews. The whole thing about art and music is that it is pre- or post- verbal, so why spoil it with words. I think quoting lyrical spots and rough edges would be very helpful.

I do not understand what is wrong with finding fault with a work that you might like. You wouldn’t be so shallow as to dislike a woman you just met because of her clothing or a guy because he is wearing aftershave.

“In the fourth to last moment of his life, [Joe] Napier fires another bullet into the marionette silhouetted stars. The word ‘Silvaplana’ comes to him, unasked for.”

As Adam Ewing contemplates his death he recalls “Tilda, waving off the ‘Belle-Hoxie’ from Silvaplana Wharf”. Napier has the final, dying memories of Adam, and Napier is not the one with the birth mark, so Adam must not be the first (and final) soul.

What do you think and are there perhaps 2 or 3 souls through each narrative the reader is encouraged to recognize? No one else I know has read this book and I’m dying to suss it all out!