Ron Liddle, writing in the Times Online, argues that fiction has lost its power -- and he doesn't think much of John Updike's Terrorist either:
I realised all this the other day when, finally, exasperated, I threw
aside my copy of John Updike’s latest novel, Terrorist, and decided
instead to watch Deal or No Deal on Channel 4. I had read just 64
pages, and it had been a struggle to get that far. Not because of its
“difficulty”, but because of its bovine stupidity, its desperation to
explore a burning issue at the expense of its hopeless, one-dimensional
characters. Believe me — and please excuse the language — Terrorist is
a f***ing awful book. I can think of no better description for it. And
it dawned on me, as Noel Edmonds asked some halfwit which box he wanted
to open, that it wasn’t just Updike — I hadn’t actually finished a
novel, any novel, for some considerable time. I couldn’t even remember
the name of the last new novel I’d finished. Somehow, fiction had lost
its power to enthral or inform.
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