James Wood's Post-War Library

mac

Thank you, this will prompt me to re-read 'The Broken Estate.

(Noticed one error in TEV's list - 'A Dance TO The Music of Time'.)

ndm

Didn't do so well with that list. 26 books read, nearly half of which were in A Dance to the Music of Time. Although much loved by the Booker judges I thought The Siege of Krishnapur to be OK a bit of a yarn. The Crying of Lot 49 is one of the worst books I've read in a long time. A Dance to the Music of Time seemed to slide a fair bit downhill by the end. Of the books recommended by Woods that I've read I would have to give the honours to Henry Green.

I did even worse with Terry Teachout where A Dance to the Music of Time comprised the entire intersection. Not that I particularly trust the criticism of Terry Teachout. For all I know he might be good on opera, but he described as "maniacally funny" an unfortunate and unnecessary revival of a dreadful play that was utterly shite when I saw it a few days later.

And, somehow, there was no place for:

William Gaddis - JR

ndm

I had a coworker whose dad was a fairly successful novelist if success is defined by Booker Prize nominations. His dad told him that he had to write ever shorter novels because of the competition of TV. I guess the 2009 novelist has to compete with twitter feeds.

Now there's an idea for a twitter feed - novel summaries in 140 characters. But then, given that "Count Kirilli Vladimirovich Bezukhov" has 37 characters it is as well that "war" has only 3.

EC

The list demonstrates nothing about the catholicity or otherwise of James Wood's taste. One can put anything on a list. The point is not what he claims he approves but HOW he reads. A critique of this sort is being undertaken at Contra James Wood.