Customer Reviews

Lord Gnome's Literary Companion

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This book is a witty, wide-screen picture of the back-scratching and log-rolling that infest the literary establishment. Since I edited it, and wrote quite a bit of it, I need hardly add that it's compulsive reading. -- Francis Wheen

Exuberantly caustic. To wit, from a review of Michael Jackson's book of poetry (!): "Poetry is sissy stuff that rhymes. Usually, you can't give it away. But this little bundle of bosh is riding high in the bestseller charts, up there with _Diana_ and the Michelin Guide to stuffing your face . . . . 'Course, it's not so easy, as a visit to the book section of any Virgin record shop soon shows. There you see them, the young, in all their glory, patiently holding books up to their ears, or doggedly trying to insert them into the slots of their CD-players . . .". If you've been howling over Joe Queenan's recent bit of bile, you don't know what you've been missing. Check it out.

"Lord Gnome's Literary Companion" is funny and terribly witty and maybe even serves a purpose though I'm not sure what. But after a few minutes of slogging through the huffy sarcasm and personal attacks against succesful authors, you do start to get the feeling that there's more going on here than the need to deflate egos. It's obvious that for the anonymous critics it's so much easier to be clever than to actually say something or even attempt to. In other words it's easier to write an anonymous personal attack, laid thick with cynicism, nihilism, jealousy, hostility and aggression than it is to attempt an actual meaningful work of art. So here the 'writers' of Lord Gnome's companion prove the point that it's not so easy this writing business, is it. If it was then that's what we'd be doing instead of slinging crud anonymously. Because you know what boys, a so-called critique is not really art.