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Title: When a good idea goes bad...
Review: I had heard ravings about Norman Mailer and the controversy around his books for so long, that I finally felt I had to read something of his just to feel like I wasn't missing the boat. Well, I don't know if I just picked the wrong one or what, but I do not understand what all the fuss is about.The Gospel According to the Sonis a self-proclaimed autobiographical story of Jesus' life. There have been tremendous arguments about the validity, taste, and appropriateness of the story. The controversy alone made me want to read it. The controversy may have made for good reading; the book did not. Mailer's writing style was not to my taste at all. The book felt contrived, like he was deliberately trying to provoke rather than story-tell. Now, admittedly, he may have been - in which case he was successful in his own goal. But even so, to me as a reader, that resulted in a very unsatisfying reading experience.
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