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Title: Lit Crit Strikes Out
Review: I enjoy reading Wood's literary criticism, and consider him among the best tilling that particular field today. He is smart, an excellent writer, and usually on the mark. But he is not a novelist. He writes ably enough here, yet there is no life in this novel. It is dead, inert. I won't beat him up because the book is scattershot, aimless, and his narrator is a total jerk. Jerks can be cool. But this BAG guy was insufferable, not to mention boring.When Saul Bellow died, a eulogist said that what he most enjoyed about reading Bellow was the quality of the mind behind his writing. In every novel, and not all of them were good, the reader knew he was in the presence of a captivating mind. As a critic, Wood approaches brilliance. As a novelist, however, his mind is as interesting as a piece of toast. He should stick to what he does best.
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