Gator Aid?

As a young teen I went to a prestigious music camp for two summers.  The instruction wasn’t bad, and the opportunity to be a part of a community of talented young musicians was important for me at the time.  I somehow remember a fanciful hand-drawn map of the camp.  Off to one side was a boggy area labeled ‘The Slough of Despond’.  No idea why I remember it now.  I never went there when I was at the camp.  I had no idea until much later that the name was lifted from “The Pilgrim’s Progress”.  Such an evocative name, indeed.

Well, “Swamplandia!”, despite all the good press, despite the Pulitzer nomination, left me in a pretty down place.  Maybe not despondent  exactly, but not buoyant either.  Karen  Russell is young, and we should be grateful that talented people are writing fiction that gets the attention of readers.  But a Pulitzer nomination?  Come on.

The story takes place in the vast swamps of Florida, a region that Ms. Russell clearly knows well.  The exotic setting is the most interesting part of the book, and helps us to suspend disbelief.  Who knows what could really happen in such an odd place?  But the plot is common coming-of-age, the writing isn’t bad but not original either, and the characters are right out of a young adult novel.  Why all the hoopla?  Dunno.

My advice:  skip it.  Read something serious.  There are new books coming out by Tom Wolfe, Louise Erdich, Barbara Kingsolver, Christopher Hitchens, Michael Chabon, and John Banville.  I’ve already started Hitchens’ “Mortality”, and it’s great to be back in the major leagues.  More on that book later.

Yes we need always be on the lookout for promising young writers.  But we don’t have to heed the publishers’ hype and follow sheepishly into the bog.