THE GREENLANDERS by Jane Smiley (Anchor Books, 2005)
Is life too short for big books?
When it comes to novels like Infinite Jest or Middlemarch, I’d say not.
David Foster Wallace was so overflowing with ideas that he needed the space to expand his thoughts while George Eliot used a larger palette to create a world with a world.
Yet, there seems to be a trend (or requirement) for writing 500 or more pages as a demonstration of a writer’s prowess.
Jonathan Safran Foer’s sprawling ‘Here I Am’ is one recent example of a novel that would have greatly benefited from trimming by at least 200 pages.
Jane Smiley’s epic Norse saga is another. Continue reading
