I just read The Emperor’s Children over the weekend. Holy crap, was that a shitty book. When the New York Times crowd has multiples over a book, you expect some level of suckage and pretention. This wasn’t some overly pompous writer being coddled, their talent over exaggerated thanks to good publicity and allies in high places. I mean, Absurdistan wasn’t the satirical masterpiece of the century, as NYT would have you believe. But it was funny as hell and, relatively speaking, a fairly good book. See also: Special Topics in Calamity Physics.
No, The Emperor’s Children just sucked. For once, it’s not sour grapes. The writing was terrible, particularly the dialogue, which was trite, pretentious, and more contrived that the chatter of Tom Wolfe’s college kids in I Am Charlotte Simmons. (Yeah, it was totally that bad). Also, all the characters were unlikeable assholes. Now, contrary to popular opinion, it is possible to write compelling prose with not a single sympathetic character. Flannery O’Connor did it, and how. Needless to say, Claire Messud is no Flannery O’Connor.
You could also see the 9/11 gimmick at the end coming on page 3. Did I mention that the writing was really, really bad? Because it was. I haven’t been this disappointed with a book since Rushdie’s Fury.
Anyhoose, next I’ve got David Mitchell’s Black Swan Green.
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