A triumph of substance and style Gore vs. They say the only thing declining faster than the quality of serious literature is its audience. Technology is creating a warp-speed world that is anathema to reading's leisurely pace.
Literature is too demanding to compete with TV, movies, the Net and other easy diversions.
The Times tapped hotshot reviewer Walter Kirn to offer a Boschian vision of modern literature through a critique of contemporary book reviewing. No one who has any stake in the issue will ever believe that a negative review was the work of a lone gunman. No, there must be a plot. A web of evil. According to the insiders, if a critic went to extremes in a review, something besides the prose must have provoked him.