Oops, further to my original post. I have since looked at CW Gortner and apologise as I mistook him for a person that was passing a high brow intellectual article on a particular issue. I now see that it was probably a marketing post to oget his link out there. Theres nothing more sucky to find that you not only read crap, but took the time to respond to it. I saw the link on The Digital Reader and assumed it met some for of worthwhileness criteria.
I again looked on my bookshelf and can find nothing immediatly that looks like any of his books with fancy frocks on it. The hearest I can find is The Gallows girl by Melanie Giffird which I have held for over 10 years and doubt I will ever sell. Copyright 2005, in the front stamped DISCARDED. Clearlt Melanie Giffird chose to dedicate huge amounts of time to writing her 423 page historical fiction albeit set in 1800’s I guess.
I guess Allen Crury’s Return To Thebes overshoots a tthe other end, and I suspect less fictional in the direct sense. 319 pages written in 1977 that no on will ever WANT TO READ.
What about California! by Dana Fuller Ross. The herioc saga of desire, defiance and adventure in a wild country inflamed by the lust for gold. About 350 pages of time captured in 1981 that NO ONE WANTS TO READ.
Modern authors are like sea polluters pollutinthe worlds book oceans with plastic rubbish that will take years to degrade. Is CW Gortner’s grasp on his own mortality something that has failed to realise the enourmaty of the world and the vastness of the space of the written work that he still feels, with limited years ahead of him, that there is more need for his work? Maybe? Or does he find that the prospect of having no tangible meaning to his life is so terrifying that he would rather engage in creating more work as a placebo hedging against the truth and his own sanity?
The modern world is confounded with elderly people taking up writing in their retirement thinking that it is worthwhile, without really realising that their books, often like their driving, and their wit, is slow and terrible and only within the cabals of their own circle do they have any credibility. But to what end, to pollute the book world and distract from true talent that might be emerging and giving cause to people not want to buy crap.
My apologise to CW Gortner if he reads this and thinks my vitriole is directed at him. Its not. Its a general problem, and one that most of us face. Are nay of us actually that great? Personally, I assume humility and offer my words for free with a VERY obscure route to buying them on Amazon.