Reynolds Price and The Promise of Rest

[bluenix]

In the "Rating the Escorts" thread BuckyXTC wrote:

 

[blockquote]I ... went back to Amazon and did a search on my favorite novel. And, as you might guess, some folks loved it and others hated it, so the star rating had it at about 3 and a half stars. Only about eight persons had given opinions, and for a book, that's not a very big sampling of opinion. Two really negative opinions would drag it down considerably, as was the instance in this case.... By the way, the novel I looked up was "The Promise of Rest" by Reynolds Price... a man I consider one of America's finest living authors...[/blockquote]

 

I agree, so I nipped over to Amazon to have a look see.

 

The two very negative reviews were both written by students, I was amused to find, one an MFA grad student, the other an EngLit undergraduate.

 

In my experience MFAs only read criticism, willingly, so the first was probably just pissed off.

 

Both made me smile, though, because when I was an undergrad I thought "critique" meant to find and say something negative about the artifact in question. I made it all the way to third year before an otherwise disengaged prof was moved to advise, in a very kindly way after I had -- rightly to my mind -- savaged Henry James's "The Golden Bowl" :

 

"Blue, you needn't criticize what you merely don't prefer."**

 

It was a watershed event for me. (Go ahead and make fun, I can take it.) In fact I went on to do an MA, if, like most students, for all the wrong reasons.

 

Oh, I almost forgot: Reynolds Price is unquestionably one of our finest living writers. Good call, BXTC.

 

 

 

* The awkward phrasing is explained by the fact that he was Canadian.

[BuckyXTC]

Hi Bluenix:

 

Glad to see I'm not alone in my high praise for Reynolds Price. I just started reading his latest novel, "Noble Norfleet" last night. Have you read it yet? Would value your opinion on it.

[bluenix]

>I just started reading his latest novel, "Noble

>Norfleet" last night. Have you read it yet? Would value

>your opinion on it.

 

Interestingly (well, interesting to me, at least), I've been leaning toward non-fiction the last few years. But I just ordered "Noble" and will let you know what I think.