Have you read A Prayer for Owen Meany (also by John Irving)? That's a bit of a crier, too.

I know it's not like me to be so contrary, but that's actually the book that put me off reading John Irving. Couldn't even finish it, I hated it so much. Sorry.

You know, though, it wasn't the story. It was all the damned block caps.

Small Gods did it for me, too. I also found Clay Feet to be quite poignant. And yes, Feersum Endjinn is pretty extraordinary, even by Banks' standards.

Have you read Stephenson's Baroque cycle?

And no, don't tag me; if you don't have ten blogging friends then I certainly don't, plus I'm one down because of you having done it already!

"Even Stanley Kubrick, a man who loved the book so much he filmed it, still found the final chapter too awful to include": Not quite - what happened was that Kubrick worked from the US edition of the novel, which omitted the final chapter because (depending on which biography of Burgess you refer to) the editor didn't like it, the publisher wanted to save paper and/or it was tried out on readers who said it made no sense. Whichever it was, the excision happened before Kubrick ever read it.
Also (sort of in Burgess's defence), isn't it possible that the novel seems "shallow, trite, obvious, unoriginal, and uninteresting" now, but didn't when it first came out, partly because of all the books, films and TV shows it's influenced in the interim?

Yes, I know about the US publishing excision, and so did Kubrick. The version I heard is that it gave him a handy excuse not to include the final chapter, enabling him to be diplomatic towards Burgess, but the real reason he didn't include it was that he thought it was crap.

This is a bit anecdotal, admittedly, so anyone who knows more about the Great Film Adaptation Chapter Exclusion Decision of 1971, do feel free to butt in.


> isn't it possible that the novel seems "shallow, trite, obvious, unoriginal, and uninteresting" now, but didn't when it first came out, partly because of all the books, films and TV shows it's influenced in the interim?

Possible, yes, but that's no excuse. Good writing transcends its subject matter being dated and its thoughts being copied. You never hear people say, "Yeah, Dickens is shite now, but you should have read him in the 1850s." Not the ideal example, given that I can't stand Dickens, but you get my point. Shakespeare's been copied quite a bit too, I believe.


Stephen,

It's Feet of Clay, but yes, it's one of the best ones. The best Banks sci-fi is probably Against A Dark Background. And I ploughed through the First Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant The Unveliever once, but couldn't face it a second time or any other Donaldson a first. Too slow — I don't need to know the protagonist's every single thought.

OK, be pendantic then! I haven't read Dark Background yet, recently finished Look to Windward.

And while we're correcting each other, I was actually referring to Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, which is made up of Quicksilver, The Confusion and System of the World. It's a very loose prequel to Cryptonomicon but quite a bit more impressive. Never read this Donaldson chap, just didn't appeal.

Ah. Stephenson -- Stephen Donaldson. Oops. It was the mention of a cycle that did it, too: Donaldson never writes anything smaller than a giant trilogy of trilogies. His not appealing to you shows your good judgment.