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| See Hemingway influence here? Died age 55. Alcoholism. |
What I wanted to say in this entry is something about an impression I have about a couple of published writers. I just finished Whistle by James Jones. Now I'm reading a book written by a writer whose name will not be mentioned. The second book won a Pen/Faulkner Award sometime within the last 15 years. That's a prestigious award offered by the top people in the world of MFA programs for one group. The award winning book is all you "expect" it to be. It's well researched and offers snapshots of many people in many fields of work and play, all of whom talk and act as if the writer knows about or has researched those fields. Phillip Roth, anyone? It's glib and polished and well constructed compared to Jones's novel. You can see that Jones put his poor damn passion in his book for better or worse while the award winning book reveals an easy handling of memorized tactics for writing an award winning book. And talk about a pile on of praise offered by magazines and newspapers? In short, the novel so far bores me. It's got no pizazz. No passion in it. Cooly intellectual, I'd say, and that's all I'm saying here. Detachment? Is that the modern mood? Of course, I haven't finished it yet. Who knows how I'll feel after I finish it? Just before Whistle, I read Asleep by Japanese author Banana Yoshimoto [in translation] and it took me 2/3 of the book before I was dragged into an interest in it. I guess I sort of feel saddened by the fact that the passions of my youth for the men who fought WWII is no longer in style. We've all died and gone to heaven.
