# books / Less - Andrew Sean Greer

A Pulitzer prize winner. I don’t usually read modern stuff but those are two worthy commendations. I never really bought it. The character didn’t take much real shape. The flashbacks felt a little too arty. He whined around the world and then the guy was there waiting for him anyway. Was it all just for the punchline at the end?

A light, reasonable read.

“There follows, I am sad to say, a very long ride on a very slow road…to your final place of rest.” He sighs, for he has spoken the truth for all men.

Just as a gay couple cannot walk hand in hand down the streets of Marrakech, he thinks, two men, best friends, cannot walk hand in hand down the streets of Chicago.

little children, awakened one morning and told, “Now you’re five!”—don’t they wail at the universe’s descent into chaos?

There is an old Arabic story about a man who hears Death is coming for him, so he sneaks away to Samarra. And when he gets there, he finds Death in the market, and Death says, “You know, I just felt like going on vacation to Samarra. I was going to skip you today, but how lucky you showed up to find me!” And the man is taken after all.

Boredom is the only real tragedy for a writer; everything else is material….Boredom is essential for writers; it is the only time they get to write.