I really like Ian Rankin, he is my crime/light reading sanctuary in a busy world of literature.
The Wind-up Bird Chronicle is superb, and I sit at the feet of Susan Sontag, who must have been the smartest person ever. I'm reading her essays, Against Interpretation.
My co-worker, Irene, tells a Susan Sontag story. Her sister's husband was the only person at a camera company who Annie Leibovitz would deal with. They were invited to dinner at Annie's house, and her sister remembers being introduced to "Susan someone" and having an enjoyable dinner together. Irene tears her hair out, moderately, in a New York kind of way.
Yeah, I have to thank you for turning me on to Rankin, Benny. And Wind-up Bird Chroncile, if I'm not mistaken.
Sontag is brilliant -- no doubt. My problem with On Photography is that she at no point makes a coherent argument. It's like reading a very, very smart creative person writing something that has the cadence of an argument, but is actually a bunch of near-related assertions.
It's doubly frustrating, because it makes it hard to tell what's profound insight and what's pretentious word play.
I don't find it a problem - I think of it as an exhaustive meditation on a cultural phenomenon rather than an argument, so if feels like my perspective is deepening...
5 comments:
I quite like Ian Rankin. Genre fiction at its finest.
Me too. I also love the strong sense of place that grows in his later novels.
It's interesting reading "Knots and Crosses" (the first one) after reading several more recent ones. He's become a much better writer since then.
I really like Ian Rankin, he is my crime/light reading sanctuary in a busy world of literature.
The Wind-up Bird Chronicle is superb, and I sit at the feet of Susan Sontag, who must have been the smartest person ever. I'm reading her essays, Against Interpretation.
My co-worker, Irene, tells a Susan Sontag story. Her sister's husband was the only person at a camera company who Annie Leibovitz would deal with. They were invited to dinner at Annie's house, and her sister remembers being introduced to "Susan someone" and having an enjoyable dinner together. Irene tears her hair out, moderately, in a New York kind of way.
Yeah, I have to thank you for turning me on to Rankin, Benny. And Wind-up Bird Chroncile, if I'm not mistaken.
Sontag is brilliant -- no doubt. My problem with On Photography is that she at no point makes a coherent argument. It's like reading a very, very smart creative person writing something that has the cadence of an argument, but is actually a bunch of near-related assertions.
It's doubly frustrating, because it makes it hard to tell what's profound insight and what's pretentious word play.
I don't find it a problem - I think of it as an exhaustive meditation on a cultural phenomenon rather than an argument, so if feels like my perspective is deepening...
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