First of all, I would read (and have read) Frances Parkinson Keyes, before I would read Miss Prose. I am out to attack her; though, allow me to say one thing in her favor-- anyone who refers to Dickens as an author possessing "remarkable powers of description and graceful language" cannot be entirely bad, in my eyes. No, I am not here necessarily to attack Francine Prose. I am here to attack Evegnia Peretz--Lord, what a name!!!!!!--for writing an article in Vanity Fair about "The Goldfinch," with some snide remarks not only to the Tartt work, but to literature in general. And to attack, once again, Graydon Carter, for allowing this to be published! Go, Graydon! I know what I write will cost me my personal table, across from Fran Lebowitz, at the Waverly Inn, but I don't give a shit!
Now, when "The Goldfinch" came out, last year, no one anticipated it more than yours truly. I expected it would be the book to make the year. If you go on my blog archives, to late 2013, there is a photo of me walking out of Three Lives And Company Book Store, with my volume securely in hand. I rushed home, sat down, and began it avidly, expecting to read the next Literary Masterwork.
As I said, "The Goldfinch" starts out well. But it gets bogged down in several ways. It is overwritten--I still maintain the entire Las Vegas sequence could have been eliminated--and it is victimized by Donna Tartt having written "The Secret History." What the Vanity Fair article does not stop to consider is that some of the backlash over "The Goldfinch" is an expectation that Donna Tartt should write another 'Secret History.' Well, get over it, people, it is not going to happen. Even I have to admit that was part of my disappointment over "The Goldfinch."
I also concede I was surprised Stephen King was chosen to review it. As well as a novel of his, "Lisa's Story," making the cover of the Sunday Book Review, when I found it unreadable.
There is a bit of truth, I concede, to the remark of James Wood that today there is an "infantilization of our literary culture: a world in which adults go around reading "Harry Potter."
Wood should be so lucky. The adults I go around seeing are not even reading Rowling; they are reading "Fifty Shades Of Grey," Jennifer Weiner, and that ilk! 'Potter' is much too sophisticated for them. But there is some truth to what James says; the quality of literary fiction has been dumbed down to where Jennifer Weiner thinks her works constitute being part of it, forgetting that there are more accomplished writers out there, like Julia Glass, Claire Messaud, and even, when she can be stomached, Joan Didion.
Where Miss Peretz gets me is her dissing of authors once thought highly of (according to her) and are now not, according to her. Like Sir Walter Scott, whom no one reads anymore, but the works are still in print, which means that someone is reading them--I have every intention of doing so, if I live long enough, and I have already read "Ivanhoe." If she is so quick to dismiss Scott, what about Fielding, Defoe, and Swift???????? And how about this--she now refers to Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With The Wind" as "a schmaltzy relic, read by teenage girls, if anyone."
You are so out of touch, Miss Peretz. Would that teen girls could handle something like "Gone With The Wind." They could no more do that than Proust. You would probably rather have them read "Beloved," but if they cannot handle straight narrative of the type Mitchell writes, how can they grasp the experimental techniques attempted by Toni Morrison and her crowd?????? Come on, hon, what world are you living in????????????
As I said at the start, regarding Miss Prose, "Fuck You!" For "Harper's Magazine, she wrote an article called "I Know Why The Caged Bird Cannot Read," dissing writers like Maya Angelou, Harper Lee, and Ray Bradbury, many of whose books are clearly masterworks, but whom she feels will destroy reading for high school students forever. Miss Prose, again, if they can't handle this, or at least begin with this, how do you expect them to go on to more complex material???? And I would not call "To Kill A Mockingbird" or "Something Wicked This Way Comes" mediocre books. What is mediocre is your undefined perception of what constitutes serious literature, which you and Peretz fail to outline. Which shows only that you two are as big phonies as everyone else, curling up with your Jennifer Weiner or Jodi Picoult, while denigrating those you see on the subway reading the same thing you are. Only they are honest about it.
I am not here to defend "The Goldfinch," or even Donna Tartt, though I still admire her as a writer. There is much to admire in her latest book; it is just a pity that, unlike Dickens, the whole thing doesn't come together.
Get your fat assess off the Donna Tartt Bash Wagon, and start exploring what constitutes real literature, and come back to those of us--like myself--who care--with some concrete answers. Meanwhile, I am going to finish up my current selection "Holy Orders," by Benjamin Black. When that is done, it is time for my Summer Heavy Reading Project, starting with "Middlemarch," by George Eliot, and "War And Peace," by Tolstoy.
But, then, I supposes the Misses Peretz and Prose would find these passe!!!!!!!
Graphic Novel Bitches!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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