Disappointing Summer Reads

Yesterday I wrote a long post about why I wasn't so crazy about this novel. To summarize: I have a soft spot for the author, because we have much in common, including some mutual friends, but while I loved her second novel, I wasn't so crazy about her other books, and I wasn't so crazy about this one either. Neither the prose nor the plot were that great, but then at the very end I realized that she was trying to rewrite Middlemarch, and it didn't work, because of some fundamental narrative and ethical issues. Anyway, I went on at some length, posted, and then saw that Jenny had just disavowed negative reviewing (albeit in the act of abetting it), and I felt bad, so I deleted the post. (Libby, if you want details on the Middlemarch thing, you can email me.)

I'd actually been planning a series of three posts on disappointing summer reads. There was to be that one. Then there was to be one on this novel which was nowhere near as good as its predecessor. The predecessor is one of my favorite books of the decade, beautifully written and plotted, but this one had unappealing characters, a kind of silly storyline, and a fairly leaden approach to 9/11 (I'm sure someone somewhere I haven't read has addressed the prevalence of 9/11 novels this season, what with Claire Messud and, oh there are so many, but since Jenny hasn't linked to anything, and she reads everything, maybe not).

Then there was going to be one on this memoiristic collection of essays, which I had also been looking forward to, and then found pretty unreadable. I have a bit of an obsession with the author and her sister, which I won't go into, because writing in this euphemistic mode is too hard for me and probably too annoying for you, but I realized when I got this book that in fact I haven't actually read anything by the author because I just find her writing totally annoying, which is too bad, because the topic of the book is quite interesting to me, but somehow she made it immensely dull.

The annoyingness of her writing was actually the occasion for more self-doubt (along the lines of reading Jenny's blog and then deleting my post), because the thing that bugs me most, before we even get to the dullness, is her long, digressive, parenthesis-and-semi-colon-laden sentence structure.

OK, you can laugh now.

But it's that very sentence I just wrote, I hope, that can justify my hypocrisy. I am very conscious about sentence structure, and I know when I am writing endless sentences, and I do it on purpose, and I believe I can say I have a fairly good grasp of grammar, so my sentences generally work. Except when they don't. And then hopefully it's funny. Or maybe not.

And there I'm doing it again: varied sentence structure, people. Sentences that match your content. Parentheses and semi-colons for a reason, not just because it's what you always do.

Exceptions, of course, for Henry James and Dave Eggers.

My point is not that long sentences are bad, or even that writing always in long sentences is bad (note, again, Henry James and Dave Eggers), but neither are long sentences necessarily good, and I guess the bottom line is that I just didn't like her sentences, and I didn't like her book.

Now I think I will go find something I like to read so I can blog about it, because, really, it is not so pleasant to be so negative all the time, nor is it pleasant to read things one doesn't like.