The Corrections..

Don't think that's true in these circumstances as the agents in question were not Frantzen's agents. In fact they represented the opposition! Steve's reading it at the moment - we'll see what he thinks!

He will not be appearing on my Programme. (some of you may get this.....)

haven't finished it yet...i keep leaving it and coming back to it...read about half...quite depressing...but i don;t hate it big time...although it is tres self indulgent....imho...

I didn't like it either. There were a few interesting parts, but it read like he was trying very hard to sound like the result of a union between Tom Wolfe and Philip Roth. Lots of people write like Franzen. This was nothing special. The first 150+ pages were awful....all that yammering and blabbering between the old folks. It gets better in the middle and towards the end when you get away from the old couple, but it never does get particularly good.

Oo er. This novel has been sold to me by two different senior literary agents as the 'best book I've ever read'. I went straight out and bought it in hardback at great expense and I admit that I enjoyed it but it certainly wasn't the greatest book on earth. It was a good read and I whipped through it but didn't feel the need to go back to it again. So what do they see in it that we don't?

they're literary agents tony....

Profit, Tony. Whip up enough hysterical enthusiasm for a book and it becomes like the Emperor's New Clothes: you become embarassed to admit that all you see is a bare shiny bum, not a gloriously attired monarch....