I picked up a book yesterday at Barnes & Noble. It’s a novel, the author’s first. I’ve read his other books–non-fiction memoirs on sports–and I’ve been a fan of the author and his work for a good number of years.<\/p>\n
I want<\/i> to like this book.<\/p>\n
I just can’t<\/i> like this book.<\/p>\n
And that disconnect between what I want and what I have is driving me crazy.<\/p>\n
In some passages the writing is poetic, even profound. But most of the time it’s not. The author has a very distinctive voice, and yet it’s somehow being lost in the shuffle. More often than not I’m reminded of other authors, authors whose work I wouldn’t associate with the novel’s subject matter.<\/p>\n
That, too, drives me crazy.<\/p>\n
I find myself in a dilemma. I’ve passed page fifty, and I’m not hooked. I have a rule–if I’m not hooked by page fifty, I won’t ever<\/i> be hooked, and so I kick out. I’m tempted to suspend the rule. I feel, though, in this case that I should press onward and hope for the best.<\/p>\n
We shall see. I’ll give it another twenty pages or so before bed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I picked up a book yesterday at Barnes & Noble. It’s a novel, the author’s first. I’ve read his other books–non-fiction memoirs on sports–and I’ve been a fan of the author and his work for a good number of years. I want to like this book. I just can’t like this book. And that disconnectContinue reading “On Disappointment”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[4101],"class_list":["post-782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reading","tag-reading","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}