What struck me was the personality – the author’s, the character’s, the setting’s. With few words and some simple illustrations Roberts quickly and effortlessly introduces a sense of humor, a style and a tone that connects. A rye, urbane, whimsical upper crust perspective with a touch of the absurd thrown in. The absurd works in a way because it is a reflection of real life and the absurdities it all too often involves.
Modern liberalism likes to think that all our problems are epistemological: we are afflicted by never knowing with sufficient clarity what we ought to do. Our fictions tend to reflect that assumption.
I am not a big poetry person so I was a little worried about reading The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker. The NYTBR review makes me want to read it however: And let’s face it, stories involving poets tend to be hokey or, worse, excruciatingly literary. Maybe the spires of libraries …
Let me state right up front that I am biased on this subject. I own a Kindle (1) and enjoy it. But on the other hand I don’t think I am such a Kindle partisan that I can’t see reasonable criticisms or recognize hype. There are plenty of both in …
