Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder

28 Oct 2002, 21:40 p.m.

I read Midnight's Children. I read Cryptonomicon. And…

Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2002 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.

I read Midnight's Children. I read Cryptonomicon. And now I've read Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White. And now I say to you that a modern author who dazzles you with his witty, ultra-literate prose in a novel of over 500 pages will, without fail, cop out with a wholly inadequate ending. Argh! Such promising introductions and such jaw-droppingly disappointing conclusions, or absences thereof. It's like they're all Kevin Smith.