Wednesday, December 07, 2005

What to do with a book after reading it?

Well, it depends on which book are we talking of! Jonathan Yardley in The Washington Post has this article in which he says, he finally "discovered" the novels of John Grisham this year. That after, delivering this judgment on the state of contemporary literature, that is of the artistic, high-brow variety:

By contrast, the "literary" fiction being written in this country nowadays strikes me as so jejune, self-absorbed and lifeless that I am just about unable to read it, much less pass fair judgment on it.

I am not an expert on on what is being written these days and where, but John Grisham...? Really?

I remember that extremely funny scene in Houellebecq's Platform where the narrator puts one of Grisham's books (if I remember correctly it was The Firm) to good use. After relieving himself of the erotic tension using his hands, okay let's just say it, after jerking off, he ponders: "I ejaculated between two pages with a groan of satisfaction. They were going to stick together; didn'’t matter, it wasn'’t the kind of book you read twice."

I was literally rolling on the floor laughing at this ;) I wonder if John Grisham ever read it.

Some very funny and insightful reviews of Platform: Julian Barnes in The New Yorker and one in The Village Voice.

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