I have been stuck under a cloud the last two days while trying to read Claire Messud's The Emperor's Children. A word of advice: do not try this at home. It is a depressing book about a side of New York that is not worth knowing if it in fact exists at all. Absolutely no lovable characters and no redeeming qualities. Avoid avoid avoid.
3 comments:
Hi Armistead! I found your blog through Anne's site. I love hearing about all these books. Jonathan felt the same way about Messud's book, though he said the characters sort of become a little more interesting as the book goes on - but he found them (and the book) really perplexing - in terms of what the fuss was all about. Except that he said (I think) that it was written in a really consciously old-fashioned way.
Anyway, I love the blog and I just wanted to de-lurk. :)
Hey Maura, so good to hear from you! Yes, what IS the fuss over this book? Anne and Elena warned me off it from the get-go. Maureen Corrigan says (on back cover) it was modeled after Wharton, Fitzgerald, and Waugh, but maybe she was paid to say that. Any resemblance seems pretty thin.
I'm sort of a glutton for punishment so maybe I will skim through and see how it ends...
armistead, don't you ever listen. it's shit. pure shit. crap. dung. poop. stop now. the end is worse than the beginning. just stop. i just started The Road. more depressing, for sure, but also more promising.
headed to michigan tomorrow. ahh, me, the open road, a snoring dog, and 21 hours of harry potter!
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