(1) You know those books that people gush about, especially in educated circles, but when you push them to explain exactly why they liked it so much you can never really squeeze out a clear, considerable answer? Partly because its reputation, particularly in educated circles, seems to have surpassed its actual quality? Something, among certain educated circles, you're supposed to like more than anyone actually does? Something you'll spend a proud year telling everyone about, all your educated friends, and years later struggle to remember? This is one of those books; (2) Maybe the reason revisiting postmodernist works feels so deeply unpleasant is that time has proven their “things are so fragmented truth no longer exists” theory absolutely, 100 percent correct. One star.

I suppose if you have no interest in how literature is created, there's no reason for you to read this book, a collection of essays and book reviews straddling literature and philosophy. But there's something so thrilling about his writing style, to me, it's a bit of a shame if people don't experience it at least once. The best, most succinct way I can describe it is: it doesn't ever feel cheap, or chintzy or mass produced or even triple-gilded, overadorned, and when you run into writing that doesn't feel cheap your awareness of the sheer amount of cheap writing that surrounds our lives actually begins to feel overwhelming, in a somewhat suffocating way. And! If you happen to already have an interest in how literature is created, what you'll find are a number of stunning insights, too many to list, often philosophically spiked, that avoids aphorism, grandiloquence, inspirational cant, or even equivocation—you really get the impression of a person who's very thoroughly thought through something in an attempt to get as close as possible to the heart of the heart of his subject (he's basically what David Foster Wallace would be if David Foster Wallace were actually as intelligent as he taught himself to sound.) And if that seems somewhat trite—praising someone for actually thinking deeply about something before writing it down—again, you come out of the book feeling like that kind of approach, for whatever reason, isn't actually valued by anyone with a pen. After all, putting on a cheap show, as we've all seen by now, is a fairly easy thing for anyone and their mother to do. Five stars.