We are living in a glut of cheap accessible books - just look at the books section of eBay. I recently picked up a complete 8 volume Gibbon's Decline and Fall for only a fiver - hardback and boxed!
What happened to Rowling-mania? Classes could compare her rather uneven style with Anthony Buckeridge's Jennings stories. Charteris and Chandler, Wodehouse and White (TH, not EB!).
It amazed me how much modern rubbish people read - the 'literate middle-class' - who are totally unread in great literature.
Another hate of mine is Phillip Pullman. Of course, he weighed in (in his jealous way) on Dahl. Dahl is a great writer- Pullman is a terrible one. His clunking prose is awful, and he cannot write dialogue. All his novels have interesting ideas, but he just name-checks them, without showing even basic understanding of the science. The idea that he took on C.S. Lewis is absurd - compare Lewis's astounding Cosmic trilogy with Pullman's feeble Dark Materials garbage. It's like comparing Bob Dylan with Sam Smith.
Thinking of Pullman and Lewis made me remember this quote from 'That Hideous Strength' - where Mark Studdock is commenting on teh suitability of another academic/writer:
"P.S.--Laird wouldn't have done in any case. He got a third, and the only published work he's ventured on has been treated as a joke by serious reviewers. In particular, he has no critical faculty at all. You can always depend on him for admiring anything that is thoroughly bogus."
How odd - I've just started this third volume. Of the first two, I preferred the first. I got a bit bored towards the end of Perlandra, though much of the stuff on Venus works very well. Just thought it went on too long! But Lewis is such a great writer, just for his prose (more then that, of course).
That's why Pullman is so poor - his prose is horrible, it reads so badly. And his inability to control the elements in his stories - The Amber Spyglass is truly terrible! I can't even remember (or care) how it ends.
I agree - I reread the original Holmes stories constantly, but have recently taken refuge in so much excellent genre fiction - especially Lovecraft and M. R. James. I can't be bothered with some dreary nonsense by a spoilt English graduate about bringing up kids in north London and experiencing gluten problems!
We are living in a glut of cheap accessible books - just look at the books section of eBay. I recently picked up a complete 8 volume Gibbon's Decline and Fall for only a fiver - hardback and boxed!
What happened to Rowling-mania? Classes could compare her rather uneven style with Anthony Buckeridge's Jennings stories. Charteris and Chandler, Wodehouse and White (TH, not EB!).
It amazed me how much modern rubbish people read - the 'literate middle-class' - who are totally unread in great literature.
Another hate of mine is Phillip Pullman. Of course, he weighed in (in his jealous way) on Dahl. Dahl is a great writer- Pullman is a terrible one. His clunking prose is awful, and he cannot write dialogue. All his novels have interesting ideas, but he just name-checks them, without showing even basic understanding of the science. The idea that he took on C.S. Lewis is absurd - compare Lewis's astounding Cosmic trilogy with Pullman's feeble Dark Materials garbage. It's like comparing Bob Dylan with Sam Smith.
Thinking of Pullman and Lewis made me remember this quote from 'That Hideous Strength' - where Mark Studdock is commenting on teh suitability of another academic/writer:
"P.S.--Laird wouldn't have done in any case. He got a third, and the only published work he's ventured on has been treated as a joke by serious reviewers. In particular, he has no critical faculty at all. You can always depend on him for admiring anything that is thoroughly bogus."
How odd - I've just started this third volume. Of the first two, I preferred the first. I got a bit bored towards the end of Perlandra, though much of the stuff on Venus works very well. Just thought it went on too long! But Lewis is such a great writer, just for his prose (more then that, of course).
That's why Pullman is so poor - his prose is horrible, it reads so badly. And his inability to control the elements in his stories - The Amber Spyglass is truly terrible! I can't even remember (or care) how it ends.
"I've just started this third volume."
The full one. or the abridged? It is hard to get a full copy, but there is a lot more in it...
Probably the abridged - thanks for the warning.
Link to the (rare) full version: https://gutenberg.ca/ebooks/lewiscs-thathideousstrength/lewiscs-thathideousstrength-00-h.html
Annoy the Woke - buy a Bulldog Drummond book...
I agree - I reread the original Holmes stories constantly, but have recently taken refuge in so much excellent genre fiction - especially Lovecraft and M. R. James. I can't be bothered with some dreary nonsense by a spoilt English graduate about bringing up kids in north London and experiencing gluten problems!