VIEWS FROM THE OLDEST HOUSE

Rating:
Summary: Rays of brilliance, quagmires of confusion
Review: I'm a reader who happens to think Richard Grant is one of America's greatest living authors. I could go into raptures describing his other books, but this one falls short of the mark for me.

Sure, its full of Grant's amazingly language, stunning metaphors and brilliant descriptions. There are wonderful, groovy, pithy sentences everywhere in this book worthy of being put on a needlepoint pillow. But its also a confusing welter of language that leaves me loster than the book's lost hero. I'm guessing as this is an earlier work, Grant was still learning writerly junk like pacing and clarity. Honest to Gaia I try to follow the story here, but after a few paragraphs am lost again.

I have such high respect for Grant that I will try reading it again to see if it makes better sense a second time. Still, I'll still rate it a 3 because it is after all a Richard Grant book.

Rating:
Summary: A postnatural guide to avoidance of the Settling Out Camp
Review: Richard Grant often teaches by example -- examples seldom drawn from slavishly literal rendition of the reality to which most of us subscribe. _the_Oldest_House_ is plausible; it is not hard to see it in our future, and our obligation to find it in these pages. A mountain, maybe; a maze of flora; a labyrinth in the finest style of Nabokov, Philip K. Dick; an illustration of the Organizing Principle that Dr. Hyata herself would be proud of: the picaresque messiah leading an improbable, contortedly subversive insurrection against the encroachment of the slick, authoritarian, mealy.

Classic Grant: powerful images, poetic language, attention to nuance, detail, sincerely reflexive, wryly astute. No potatoes yet, but we've just ordered his most recent; here's hoping Monksboa survives into Grailnet and beyond, at least in some form.

Rating:
Summary: A postnatural guide to avoidance of the Settling Out Camp
Review: Richard Grant often teaches by example -- examples seldom drawn from slavishly literal rendition of the reality to which most of us subscribe. _the_Oldest_House_ is plausible; it is not hard to see it in our future, and our obligation to find it in these pages. A mountain, maybe; a maze of flora; a labyrinth in the finest style of Nabokov, Philip K. Dick; an illustration of the Organizing Principle that Dr. Hyata herself would be proud of: the picaresque messiah leading an improbable, contortedly subversive insurrection against the encroachment of the slick, authoritarian, mealy.

Classic Grant: powerful images, poetic language, attention to nuance, detail, sincerely reflexive, wryly astute. No potatoes yet, but we've just ordered his most recent; here's hoping Monksboa survives into Grailnet and beyond, at least in some form.