This weeks question: What books have you read that have been hyped as literary and, in your opinion, were not?
Personally I felt that A Visit from the Goon Squad was not literary and should have categorized as being a collection of short stories. I realize that I might get some flack for this choice, but from my perspective, the book had no continuity and no flow to the book. It seemed to me to be a bunch of stories that were loosely connected to each other.
3 comments:
Hopping by...Though I do think Goon Squad was literary, I couldn't agree more with your assessment in how that book should have been classified--the stories were so loosely connected that I had trouble keeping track of characters. Not worthy of the prizes it earned, in my opinion.
I have to disagree as I loved this book. I thought the connections of concept and character, and the drawing of the story over time, was thoughtful and literary. This book surprised me as I'm not sure Egan's other two works can be considered literary although I enjoyed the Invisible Circus. But to each his own -- no one book works for everyone!
not read this, so cannot comment, but the idea of a collection of tales loosely connected is not new & can sometimes work.
Post a Comment