"...as benumbing for an adult to read as almost any story written for the Young Adult market, whose products are about as close to genuine fiction as megachurches are to monasteries where silence is observed."Clute is revealed as a genre snob, and should henceforth be treated in exactly the same way as the commentators who make similar sweeping pronouncements about SF.
Monday, January 21, 2008
A Great Whomping Load of Condescension
From John Clute's current review of Gregory Frost's Shadow Bridge, which was up to that point lucid and on-point for Clute:
6 comments:
Wow.
I second that. Wow. And not in a good way.
I second that this was a was an uninformed and wrong thing to say. But I know John Clute in person (not really well, but somewhat), and I think he's a genuinely nice individual. You might want to try talking to him about how and why he's wrong before writing him off.
....unh.
It may genuinely not be his thing, and you know, he's allowed to have a "not my thing" thing. But if he does and it is THIS thing, then he should probably reconsider a career reviewing the stuff.
On the up side, I now REALLY want to read that book...
I loved the book, actually.
FWIW, the review really made me want to read the book, too. Maybe not quite what the reviewer intended.
Greg seems to attract reviewers who say "not my thing" and then go on at GREAT length about it...
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