... I can't take contemporary fiction seriously, and, what's worse, I can't even finish it. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed reading a contemporary nongenre novel, and I've even exhausted my favorite genre, the espionage thriller ...
A quibble: The Silver Swan is the third Benjamin Black novel, but the second featuring Quirke. In between was The Lemur, which I found somewhat disappointing.
The opinions that the writer offers in the Slate article underscore an absolute reality about the singularly personal experience of reading. Rosenbaum's disappointments will be another's exhilarations. His swoons will be your grimaces. That is why it is always so dicey to rely upon book critics, reviewers (including me), and friends for advice about what books you ought to read next. There are some universally acclaimed masterpieces, but that does not mean that all readers will "enjoy" reading them. Thank goodness, interests, tastes, and abilities are so un-universal. This makes discoveries about good books all the more exciting.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking the same thing just today. Just because I don't like something doesn't mean it's bad. It may be bad - I think The Da Vinci Code is an objectively bad book - but it isn't bad because I don't like it. It's bad for reasons of its own.
ReplyDeleteIn a tortured paraphrase of something from Harold Bloom that I read long ago and hope I recall somewhat correctly, I would offer the following thought: All good literature needs no defense or explanation; all bad literature is simply bad, and no defense or explanation will change that absolute reality.
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