To Me, The Point Of A Novel

The Reader Is A Friend, Not An Adversary, Not A Spectator.

Certain Kinds Of Things That The Novel Used To Do, Which Was, "oh, I'm Living Out Here In West Nowhere, Nebraska And I'm Curious How The Upper Class In New York City Lives, I Guess I'll Read A Novel About It." We Don't Have To Do That Now. You Just Turn On The Tv. Turn On Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous. You Can Get That Information Anywhere. Novels Don't Have To Do That Anymore.

But As Far As Being Popular, Yeah, I Think Dave Barry Is Really Funny.

He And His Wife Loved Each Other And Brought Each Other Daily Pain. Everything Else He Was Doing In His Life, Even His Longing For Lalitha, Amounted To Little More Than Flight From Circumstance. He And Patty Couldn't Live Together And Couldn't Imagine Living Apart. Each Time He Thought They'd Reached The Unbearable Breaking Point, It Turned Out That There Was Still Further They Could Go Without Breaking.

This Wasn't The Person He'd Thought He Was, Or Would Have Chosen To Be If He'd Been Free To Choose, But There Was Something Comforting And Liberating About Being An Actual Definite Someone, Rather Than A Collection Of Contradictory Potential Someones.