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.Good foot
I just got a review copy of The Lonely Polygamist and I'm both excited by it (in part because of his short story "Buckeye the Elder" which I finished reading moments before the book arrived in the mail) and partly because of this article.
Bad foot
From before the first page:
I am not a big fan of stories that require massive lists of characters or glossaries or maps or anything else. Not because those stories are necessarily bad (see for example Lord of the Rings and Dune) but because they are presumptuous. They assume that they are sooooo good that I will be willing to put up with needless complications in storytelling just because they are sooooo good. And I hate that presumption.
So I will read it. And I anticipate liking it. But I'm starting out grumpy. Win me over, Udall. Win me over.
Oh, wow, this is exciting. I absolutely loved Letting Loose the Hounds and Edgar Mint, but it has been so long I gave up expecting this book. I'm there, as soon as it comes out in May. I look forward to reading your review.
ReplyDeleteGod article, too. This part was nice:
"From that young juncture, Udall continued to write through high school and into his years as an undergraduate at Brigham Young University, where he feels his writing was truly honed, made full and real through practice and patience and mentoring.
"I had great teachers at BYU, and I have to say that's where I learned, I think, everything I would truly need to go forward as a writer. I mean, I don't want to offend anyone, but I have to say that my writing teachers at BYU were much better than at Iowa. It may sound odd, or seem counterintuitive because the Iowa workshop is so lauded and big, but it's true. Iowa was best for me in that I met so many other writers, made friends and some connections, people who would read my work.""
Uh, a good article, not quite a God article.
ReplyDelete.
ReplyDeleteI doublechecked and no, God did not write that article. It does make me give a lot more credence to BYU's MFA program.
I've no doubt it's an excellent program, btw, just I wonder if it's good at providing ins to New York publishing.
Anyway, I have begun reading it and so far so good.