Customer Reviews

The Elements of Style, A Novel

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Many of us have been waiting for a long time for J.D. Salinger to grow up. We love the writing, the sensibility, and occasional magic; but alas, what wisdom it has belongs to the world of adolescence, which is why his books, as beloved as they are, sit (with Winnie the Pooh and Peter Pan)on that peculiar bookshelf of 'not quite literature.' I told a classroom of 15-year olds at Stoneham (Mass) High School in 1962 that they had better read THE CATCHER IN THE RYE before they got much older or it wouldn't work for them. Sarah Hafner's novel is as close as I've come to discovering an adult J.D. Salinger. The honesty and wonderful irreverance is there, much of the sensibility, the gifted writing - it has the feel of the popular, young master. But behold, there is maturity here too, which, of course, costs a little in magic. And for me, the cost is well worth the marvelous and witty wisdom that we gain in its place. Grab a first edition of this book before it disappears. You'll love it and someday it'll make you a fortune! Sarah Hafner is the real thing.

Read it in one sitting; brought tears to my eyes... I rank this with Rebecca Goldstein's The Mind Body Problem and Aldous Huxley's The Genius and the Goddess as one of my favorite novels about the mismatch between the mind and the body, and between intellectual and creative ambitions and real life, if one is too intelligent.