Tom's comments (member since Jun 20, 2008)

Tom's comments from the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die group.

OUR MUTUAL FRIEND is a strong dose of Dickens, at his most disturbing and sometimes almost surreal. If your experience with Dickens is limited to GREAT EXPECTATIONS and/or HARD TIMES, I'd suggest going for DAVID COPPERFIELD or even BLEAK HOUSE.

Chel, you'll find that the essay in 1001 BOOKS bears little resemblance to the actual book. The author of the essay clearly hasn't read INFINITE JEST.

I remember when I read the book it seemed to me that everyone was concentrating on the Mahound sections and their supposed insults to Islam, but nobody was saying anything about the section that pretty nakedly attacks Khomeini himself.

Read it in high school, struggled mightily with it, would probably get more out of it now but just haven't felt like revisiting it.

Excellent novel, deeply lame film. Trust Spielberg (and Stoppard, who wrote the unforgiveable script) to completely miss the point of Ballard's work.

INFINITE JEST is a great book, but you can't go by the essay in 1001 BOOKS, which was clearly written by someone who hasn't read it.

I read ATONEMENT and enjoyed it immensely, and was extremely unimpressed with AMSTERDAM. I've thought about trying SATURDAY or one of his others, but the bad taste of AMSTERDAM is lingering.

That's what wins Bookers?

Does it? I've only been able to read a single one of his books, GALATEA 2.2, and it certaily wasn't a book that must be read before death. I've never been able to get past page 2 of any of his others, including that unreadable GOLD BUG VARIATIONS thing.

I remember that I saw the film by accident. I came home really incredibly late one night, and there it was on HBO, and I found myself staying up all night to watch it. A pretty good movie, I thought.

I gave the novel a go soon afterwards, and enjoyed it a good deal, very entertaining. I'm glad I had the experience of seeing the movie, it gave me an idea of the story that I could keep in the back of my mind as I read. I think I'd have been hopelessly lost without it.

I think the novel is much better than the film. I appreciated the film's ending until I read the novel's ending, which seemed much more probable.

The essay on INFINITE JEST is completely incorrect. It gets the story of the book wrong in way too many ways.

Basically, the essay says that INFINITE JEST centers on avant-garde maverick filmmaker James Incandenza, whose film Infinite Jest is apparently so hilarious that viewers expire from laughter. When Incandenza and his film disappear, assorted terrorist groups and governments try to hunt him down.

Nope. Wrong. Not right at all. For a start, the film INFINITE JEST is not so hilarious that viewers die from laughter. Viewers become helplessly addicted to the film, losing all interest in anything else. James Incandenza can't really be hunted by anyone, as he is long dead when the novel begins.

No one who has read the book even once would make these errors. Really shabby.

Who is editor person anyway is a good question. I'd like to ask them why they printed the essay on INFINITE JEST when it is obvious that the author hadn't read the book.

Yeah, I might be mixing up this thread with another one where someone made the same silly comment about being paid by the word in a more negative context. I'll go away now.

I get that way. Too much caffeine.

If they'd said he was too wordy, that would be one thing, a matter of opinion. They chose to hide behind a vulgar and stupid lie as a defense for not liking Dickens.

I'd say that using a LIE to back up an opinion, using something that simply isn't true to back up your dislike of the one of the great artists of the world isn't exactly the act of an intelligent and well-read person.

AUGH!!!!

His novels were published in serial form. They were published in monthly and sometimes weekly installments, and then published complete, with occasional minor changes, in hard covers.

He was not paid by the word. He was not paid by the word. He was not paid by the word.

He was paid for what he wrote. And why not? Should writing be an entirely amateur occupation?

Dickens was not paid by the word. That is a hideous vicious slander/libel on one of the great artists in the English language, used by ignorant fools who wish to denigrate what they cannot understand.

Anything by David Foster Wallace. I laughed helplessly reading INFINITE JEST.