Another way of looking at Jane Smiley

Unlike most American reviewers, it seems, I found Jane Smiley's 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel so irritating I couldn't review it. I didn't know where to start my rant. Her pompous tone. The blithe disregard of Beckett's novels. Her references to her own works as perfect models.

Happily, Sophie Ratcliffe managed to control herself, as the British are wont to do, just enough to rip into it, although just barely: "One is tempted to throw something. Perhaps a copy of the former bus driver Magnus Mills's Booker Prize-shortlisted novel The Restraint of Beasts. The snobbery of this passage nearly disguises the fact that it doesn't make sense. "

Thanks to J.D. for the link.