Tilting at Windmills

Rating:
Summary: Looking forward to the Sequel
Review: What a piece of sentimental slop this book is.Looking for flaws is like looking for hay in a haystack. The setting is a rural paradise, a sort of Wordsworthian Eden in contrast with the cruel, wicked city. Oddly enough, despite being set in the historic and beautiful Hudson valley, there is no real sense of place. The river is "beautiful", but no mention of local custom,history, or social climate. Its citizens are idealized native angels who welcome strangers and become trusting lifelong friends after five minutes. The earth-mother sweetheart's daughter is a precocious and sweetly cute Margaret O'Brien clone. The biggest weakness of the book, however, is the main character, a sensitive, self-absorbed man of feeling who spouts cliches and moral platitudes in sentimental plentitude. His first person dialog never allows him to become real or believable. The plot is predictable from the first chapter. Yes, there's plenty of sentimental hay in Joseph Pittman's haystack.

Rating:
Summary: Sentimental Slop
Review: What a piece of sentimental slop this book is.Looking for flaws is like looking for hay in a haystack. The setting is a rural paradise, a sort of Wordsworthian Eden in contrast with the cruel, wicked city. Oddly enough, despite being set in the historic and beautiful Hudson valley, there is no real sense of place. The river is "beautiful", but no mention of local custom,history, or social climate. Its citizens are idealized native angels who welcome strangers and become trusting lifelong friends after five minutes. The earth-mother sweetheart's daughter is a precocious and sweetly cute Margaret O'Brien clone. The biggest weakness of the book, however, is the main character, a sensitive, self-absorbed man of feeling who spouts cliches and moral platitudes in sentimental plentitude. His first person dialog never allows him to become real or believable. The plot is predictable from the first chapter. Yes, there's plenty of sentimental hay in Joseph Pittman's haystack.