From “one” to “us” in two sentences.
Just when one had started mourning the demise of avant-garde and postmodern fiction, buried under the avalanche of historical novels, chick lit and just plain old traditional stories, here comes David Markson’s latest “novel,” “The Last Novel,” which is anything but a novel in any conventional sense of the term. Yet it manages to keep us enthralled during the length of its short 190-page span, and even moved to tears at the end.
Golly, is the word just used twice in the first sentence? Don’t they have editors at the New York Times Book Review? Reviewer Catherine Texier sure needs one.
I’m not sure why, but that first sentence is making me crazy. It’s an incredibly weak lede — an allegation from nowhere, attributed to no one (ok, to “one”), meant to set up this book as an antidote. Find a good quote about the death of postmodern fiction, or cite some publishing industry figure that demonstrates it. Use some language that doesn’t make me snore.
Then, from “one” to “us.” Gah. It makes my grammar gears grind and smoke.
On top of all of that, the first sentence used the word “novel” twice (excluding the one in the title) despite its claim that the book isn’t a novel at all. Bad writing, and inexcusable coming from the purported beacon of the literary establishment.