I do the same thing all the time no worries!

Are you implying that you think Colleen Hoover “write[s] amazingly well”? I would actually say her success is due to her melodramatic, over-the-top stories, not due to her prose.

Or are you saying the opposite: that her stories are good but her writing is shit? If you mean that, do you then mean that Gideon The Ninth did not sell well (because of it’s convoluted story, even though it’s written well)? It looks like Gideon the Ninth sold well!

Your title also kinda confuses me. Writing is not “more about” any one thing. Different parts of the same book will do different things for different people. Unless you mean success-in-writing is more about story.

Sorry, just not exactly sure what you’re getting at but i’d really appreciate if you would explain. If you mean to say that general audiences appreciate story over prose then i would agree. Most people tend to care more about story.

So fucking true. Speaking of bookstore i recently found both Laura Warholic & An Adultery by Alexander Theroux in my local used bookstore. Both in great condition for super cheap. And i’m ALWAYS on the search for Joseph McElroy in a bookstore. No luck so far but one day.

Sounds amazing! I have been meaning to get to William Gass. I will absolutely be reading it i have a copy on my shelf. For some reason that book seems so opaque to me: i can’t for the life of me imagine what’s inside. But that’s not so important. When i read it i’ll see.

This is precisely the write-up i have been wanting about The Recognitions, thank you. This has me extremely excited to start it. I listened to Gass introduce Gaddis at some event and (if i remember correctly) he talked of the fun of Gaddis’ writing. To have it all laid out here like this (especially the weekend at bernie’s style scene) is encouraging. I just checked out Maladror from your mention of it: it looks awesome, added to my list.

I want to recommend you another author: Evan Dara. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of them but they are an anonymous author whose work gets compared to Gaddis. William T Vollmann judged and awarded their first novel The Lost Scrapbook. That book is fucking amazing. It’s almost all monologue, and anecdote. It’s like tuning through a radio. Pretty brilliant stuff.

I’ve been meaning to read The Recognitions lately. I’m currently reading The Instructions by Adam Levin & Solenoid by Mircea Cartarescu (solenoid JUST got translated into english, brilliant romanian surreal novel, check it out if you haven’t).

The most detailed writing i’ve read about the experience of reading The Recognitions is from Franzen’s essay Mr. Difficult where he talks about feeling cool because he read it (which was unhelpful, and a little annoying hahahhaha). I love what you wrote about Moby Dick and would love to read a short rundown of what you enjoyed about The Recognitions. I would really appreciate if you would be kind enough to do so: i want to get hyped-up to read it but need a little motivation to push it to the top of my list.