The Wall Street editor of Newsweek is charmed by P.J. O'Rourke's new précis of Adam Smith's ideas:
Before we proceed, a confession. I’ve been a business writer since 1969, I specialize in unearthing journalistic nuggets buried in lengthy financial documents that even lawyers find dull — and I’ve never been able to get more than 50 pages into Adam Smith. For several years, I took "The Wealth of Nations" with me on summer vacation, vowing that this time I’d finish it. Alas, I never came close.
My own secret is that I've never been able to finish any of Henry James's books. The Golden Bowl was easily the most painful of all those ordeals. (Edith Wharton is a lot more to my taste.) It's a relief to find that someone as cultured as William F. Buckley had similar problems with another of James's tomes:
Many years ago, just graduated from college, just married, I purchased a shelf-load of newly printed "classics" -- to be read sometime, somewhere, or left to grandchildren to read. Such books rest, of course, in the uppermost reach of one's library, but I tipped one out en route to the hospital last month and found myself reading "The American" by Henry James. It is 488 pages long, and it may be the single most boring book ever published. It is at least the single most venerated bad book ever published.
Good. Now I feel slightly less guilty.
Don't feel guilty, Clive. They're both unreadable.
Posted by: james higham | Thursday, January 11, 2007 at 06:30 PM
'Washington Square' is very readable (and short). But I'd rather be in an American prison than ever again attempt 'The Mill on the Floss'
Posted by: mike | Thursday, January 11, 2007 at 08:56 PM
Oh yes, George Eliot does it for me. Middlemarch, indeed.
Posted by: yellerKat | Thursday, January 11, 2007 at 09:22 PM
Of course they're not unreadable. Henry James is the business. I'm afraid the fault does lie with you, but at the same time, it's nothing to feel guilty about.
Posted by: whatsforsupper | Friday, January 12, 2007 at 07:02 PM