Dear Valued Patrons,
Am I alone in being mightily underwhelmed by Animal Farm, Burmese Days and 1984? Am I alone in feeling that Orwell's value lies mainly in his pamphlets and critical essays (only a fraction of which I've read, admittedly, but from all of which I came away with a profound new understanding of their topics)? I feel the same, I admit, with Anthony Burgess. Clockwork Orange = underwhelming. Burgess' introductions to the 1998 edition of Titus Groan and the 1992 edition of Ulysses = profound, informative, mini-masterworks of literary criticism.
I like my novels to be, first and foremost, about the story. I like to get into characters and their troubles and bask in the infinite interpretations of the human experience. This business - which I see Orwell and Burgess as being up to their necks in - of constructing a novel out of IDEAS, rather than plot and character, has always left me rather cold. I feel their novels could be distilled into essays without really losing that much. And if that's the case, why make them into novels in the first place?
Am I too old-school for my own good? Is there something about these writers and their novels that I'm just not getting? If I leave my washing in the machine until after lunch, will it get that weird smell again?
And on that bombshell...