Great Disappointments
Ten LRC contributors warn of “classic” books with over-sized reputations. December 2007
Gore Vidal once described Moby Dick as “a very bad masterpiece,” and most readers will understand exactly what he meant. Notwithstanding the book’s mythic grandeur, that huge chapter on “the whiteness of the whale,” for instance, has to be one of the most indigestible bits of fiction ever written.
It was in the same spirit as Vidal’s observation that the LRC editorial staff planned this December’s holiday…