Now don’t get me wrong here, I have nothing against the Lorenzo Reading Society it just never seems to benefit me when I go see it. I mean sure it’s cool to go see the authors read from their book and share their ideas (it isn’t everyday that this kind of thing happens), but there is something magical that happens when you meet an author while you are in the middle reviewing his/her book; You (I) feel that it is kind of mean to not recommend their book after having seen them. It happened with me when I was working on a review for Barbra Gowdy’s Helpless and now again with Colin McAdam’s Fall. I knew it was going to happen, it always does. Last night I went in uncertain of how I felt about the book. It was slow starting and it’s excitement fizzled up pretty quickly. The characters didn’t have the same amount of depth that I was used to and I wasn’t a fan of the three viewpoints on the story. But as I walked out of Ganong Hall towards my car I thought “that book wasn’t all that bad, Come on Tom… What are you? A heartless monster”. I think it has something to do with the fact that without meeting the author and hearing them explain what they intended on accomplishing and their ideas on things I was free to credit them or discredit them as I saw fit. I think that anybody who went to the reading last night lost any hope of being able to critically review that book.
Coming next! Thoughts on Pamela and Anti Pamela
-Tom
