The Clairvoyant Zoopraxiscope

The Saramago, yes, sure, but I am also adding a book by Ann Patchett called The Magician's Assistant. I was talking about Patchett with a writer friend today and she said Patchett's style was too plain. I guess you could say that, but I find the plainness more exciting than styles that grandstand or call attention to themselves. That sort of thing is to be realized and handled in grad school, I would think. Patchett's work seems, above all else, very honest and very unshakable. You couldn't easily trim it, or skip over passages, nor can you turn away from it easily. Each sentence in Bel Canto, the novel I read before this one, moved forward like a piece of journalism, and it was impossible not to love it for its directness. It's sexual, but it's also friendly. She might scare off a lot of people because she has been so well-publicized; the idea that she's possibly many people's favorite might obliterate any chance of appreciating the actual quality of the work. A sad thing. We should not begrudge fictionists their financial success. And who are we, we poets? Many poets were born rich, anyway--that's the only way they can pursue their ambitions.