esrosedotblog

A controversy over a book.

Imagine.

Books are passé. No one reads them, right?

Well not as many as used to but then there has always been that despair. The minds of our youth rotting. The cheapening of American Literature.

I read, a lot. I do not write about it here because I think that reading about reading is boring as well as redundant.

Besides, I have a special taste, honed over decades of books, which is not really very interesting to others.

I do still read the NYTimes Book Review which now comes as a paid for printed supplement. Also online. And I go through it with my fine tooth comb. Not a lot get picked off the lists. I hardly bother with the Best Sellers. I am not a snob but the list is someone else's preference. I like to go as close to the bone as possible.

In any case, I occasionally succumb and did so recently in the case of Harper Lee's presumed exhumed "companion" novel to her wonderful To Kill a Mockingbird.

Up to now, Lee had been thought to be one of that host of writers who one one off successes. They can't duplicate the first flashes of genius.

When this second book, Go Set a Watchman appeared there was a genuine swell of interest. I ordered the book for my Kindle and I started to read.

It has been a long time since "Mockingbird" but this book did not fit. It is meant to be a sequel but the characters are out of synch and out of time. Boring and flat. Is that the same thing? Yawn.

I quit. Took it off the Kindle and went on with my life.

As it turns out, all of us, the Harper Lee fans, were swindled.

Here it is all summed up for you, if you are still reading.

The Watchman Fraud

It is sad really. An old old lady, Lee seems not to even be a part of this. I hope that she is not. A sad ending if she is or is not. Sometimes a bad case of the "olds" is a blessing. You miss the nasty stuff as well.

Labels: reading