(7/15/2001)
Peggy Sterkin
Hello, I finished this book in Arizona, the last place I visited before I returned to Australia. It has wreaked me. I can't read much else, and I keep wondering why this book was so different. The author tells the story, as authors often do, but he lets the reader respond. There is no manipulation of the reader. You read the story, and there aren't bad guys and good guys, and the people in his story make themselves known to the reader as time passes. I can read crime fiction on the airplane to Sydney, where I occasionally work, and in the hotel room, and on the trip coming back. But everytime I pick up a book in a shop and read the first page, or another page , I can see the writer's craft, and some books are well crafted, that is true. I just can't bear the language of the well crafted writer, the clever and expressive use of words that leave me out, or tell me how to feel, or who to care about. I can read William Thackery, because he knows the good and the bad in his people and he lets me know what they have been up to. But I can't read much else at the moment except for children's books - The Phantom Tollbooth is one I always read -- because a perfect children's book is probably the best thing anyone can read. Phantom is a perfect book, and I feel that way about Cold Mountain. Cheers, Peggy