Patience, grasshopper—the book does not promise well, but rewards your effort in the end. We spend the first few chapters with Chip, a po-mo literature professor at some small college. Franzen wastes our time with tired tropes: [ ... ]
I'm going to gradually repost some reviews I wrote on Goodreads; hope you find them interesting. I have three things to say about Beowulf. 1) The ballad itself is not only semi-foundational to English-language literature, but [ ... ]