Vici!

Finished "A Maggot". I suppose a review is in order - don't want to keep my readers disappointed.

(Sidenote: according to my stealth StatCounter, the only three people who read my blog as of now are my best friend, myself, and Richard Madeley. LOLz.)

Before saying anything about the book itself, I must state that I am of two minds about Fowles in general. As a reader, I find his prose enthralling; as a writer, depressing.

(Sidenote two: I use the term 'writer' broadly to mean someone who gets paid for some form of creative non-technical writing. Which I do - at least until the last check owed to me by the publisher clears. Of course, it might well then turn out that I've also been turned out, but that's beside the point, that point being: I may be, broadly speaking, a writer, but I ain't no auteur.)

Anyway, back to our depressing muttons. Fowles always does this to me. He and James Joyce and that infuriatingly brilliant EFL super-duo, Conrad and Nabokov. Basically, I read a page of any one of these blokes, and it becomes instantly and painfully clear to me that I'll never get there. Never, ever. I'm sure this is a feeling common to young whipper-snappers who are just starting out in the language arts, but that doesn't make it any less dispiriting.

That aside, "A Maggot" is an excellent thing, and everyone currently holding a book ought to drop it - if it's by Dan Brown, into the nearest trashcan - and partake of "A Maggot," for it is juicy and delicious.

(Sidenote three: you might have noticed that I spent far more time talking about myself in this 'book review' than I did about the actual book. Welcome to the world of literary criticism.)