Grrrrr

I just lost a long post. It was all about how bewildered I am by the NYTimes Book Review naming Claire Messud's The Emperor's Children as one of the top 10 books of the year. My feelings about the book are particularly intense as it uses 9/11 as a plot point and I recently finished reading (with my book group) the excellent Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer which shows the impact of 9/11 on a 9 year old boy.

I'm too damn tired to try and recreate my post, so if you'd like a couple of pithy reviews as to the flaws in Messud's book, I recommend the first two reader's reviews on Amazon, the first titled "A narcissist's view of 9/11" and the second titled "The Emperor's Children have no clothes!" I think most of my problems with the book are shared by these two reviewers.

At some point I'll try and recreate what was so special and moving about the Foer book. Right now I am retreating from the fickle world of blog land to a cup of tea (and a three-year-old girl who thinks she is a tree frog...).