Re: Weird
Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@geocities.com)
Sun, 10 Jan 1999 17:39:47 +1100
Mike wrote:
> I don't mean to be one to argue about nothing, but Amazon.com isn't
trying to
> give authors that have something in common, but rather, authors that they
feel
> that the reader will enjoy as well. ..Just a couple of cents..
Well, yes ... but the service was actually an `If you like X you'll like Y'
thing. And, assuming they don't pick names out of a barrel (I, like anyone
else, have very diverse reading tastes, and just because someone likes
Danielle Steel doesn't necessarily mean they've never read Ulysses), you'd
have to assume that similarity is at least some of the basis for their
criteria. Exactly what constitutes `similarity' is another matter. For
example, I was expecting to see Thomas Pynchon's name there, as over and
over as we all know the two men get compared. However - we could never
imagine JDS writing a Mason and Dixon, or Pynchon a `Catcher' (although it
would be very nice). On the other hand, I found `The Ice Storm' somewhat
Zen-like; the `tone' is roughly similar in places to JDS - again I'm
stressing I've only seen the movie - but then again, just about every novel
written about disaffected teens has been labeled The New Catcher. Even
Douglas Coupland's `Generation X' - and strangely enough there's probably
more similarities between him and JDS than JDS and Rick Moody.
Camille
verona_beach@geocities.com
@ THE ARTS HOLE www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/6442
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