Originally Posted by Not Bob (Post 498061)

To be fair, that has been the critique of each of Wolfe's novels, and is actually one that I tend to agree with to some extent. (Not the "book becomes just awful" part, but the "book starts off great and becomes less great about 50% through" part.) For example, trim the prison-inspired philosophical epiphanies from A Man in Full, for example, and you have a legitimately great book.

My issue is usually more about how unkind, even mean, Wolfe is to his characters. Which is an odd thing to worry about, what with his characters being fictional and all, but I am just weird.

Anyhoo, YMMV, toe-may-toe, etc.

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane? (Post 498063)

I don't think he understands his own characters and routinely has them do things that directly contradict the very nature he just spent 200 pages building.

I just finished Ghostwritten and and am in the middle of Cloud Atlas, and holy crap is David Mitchell talented.

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane? (Post 498063)

I don't think he understands his own characters and routinely has them do things that directly contradict the very nature he just spent 200 pages building.

I just finished Ghostwritten and and am in the middle of Cloud Atlas, and holy crap is David Mitchell talented.

Originally Posted by Not Bob (Post 498071)

I think that Wolfe is more interested in plots and narratives than characters. Which is mostly fine with me. I like plot. As a English teacher once told me, there are plot-driven books, there are character-driven books, and there are writerly skill-driven books. She gave Dickens as an example of the first (and Wolfe would probably identify as a neo-Dickens), Cheever as an example of the second, and Toni Morrison as an example of the third. Obviously, there's overlap and the distinctions are somewhat arbitrary, but I think it's useful.

And speaking of Wolfe, Vanity Fair just posted this great article about him by Michael Lewis here.

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 498072)

what type writer were penske's socks?

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 498069)

Totally, but just a little soulless, no?

I liked all of his books (except the newest one, which I haven't read), maybe Black Swan Green the most, and that one seems the most autobiographical.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 498069)

Totally, but just a little soulless, no?

I liked all of his books (except the newest one, which I haven't read), maybe Black Swan Green the most, and that one seems the most autobiographical.

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall (Post 498080)

http://www.lawtalkers.com/forums/sho...postcount=3610

http://www.lawtalkers.com/forums/sho...postcount=3611

http://www.lawtalkers.com/forums/sho...postcount=3612

http://www.lawtalkers.com/forums/sho...postcount=3613

TM

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall (Post 498055)

I've only recently discovered that The Undefeated was a thing. And I don't get it.

I'm still not clear what ESPN had in mind after reading this article. Did they want a site with black talent writing about sports and pop culture? Seems like they wanted some true substance by the way they were chasing Coates. But then what does the site look like? Black issues in sports and everywhere else written about by black talent (with sports issues pulling people in)? If given the freedom to write about actual issues in a way that would surely offend people that make up a huge base of ESPN's demo, it sounds like a great site, but a terrible business move.

Generally speaking, ESPN sucks for lots of reasons. The two biggest reasons for me are: (1) As the article says, they have fallen into this "Every issue has two legitimate sides" false equivalency bullshit such that whenever one of their small-minded employees who thinks they're brilliant because they're on tv says some stupid, offensive shit, ESPN doesn't know what to do and (2) The people they employ are not journalists; they're fans and they conduct themselves like fans. There is very little impartial reporting. All of the personalities they promote are trying so hard to have relationships with the people they must base their reporting on that it's just one big, incestuous clusterfuck. Either you are legitimate news source or you are E! You can't be both. They try. How can you report on the NFL doing all the dirt it does on the regular and maintain a business relationship with them at the same time? Not possible.

Finally, I've never paid much attention to Whitlock, but that's because I can't recall him saying anything interesting.

TM

Originally Posted by notcasesensitive (Post 498082)

If I may add (3) because they hired Ray Lewis in any capacity, (4) because they've stopped sharing the Monday Night telecast with their network partner, ABC, which means for those of us without cable, we can't watch MNF at home anymore. This might not have been ESPN's decision (I don't know), but I hold it against them nonetheless.