Sun 26 Jun 2011
Reviewed by Walter Albert: JOHN GRISHAM – The Pelican Brief.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[4] Comments
JOHN GRISHAM – The Pelican Brief. Bantam, paperback, 1993; Doubleday, hardcover, 1992. Film: 1993, with Julia Roberts & Denzel Washington.
A friend showed up on my doorstep and pressed this into my hands, saying only that this was a page-turning read.
Well, it was, if you count skipping about 3/4 of the book as you race forward to the denouement as page-“turning.” I can’t believe that Grisham is as popular as he seems to be currently. The book is long, turgid and sloppily written. Don’t they have literate copy-editors anymore at any of the publishing houses?
I didn’t stop to document any of the linguistic atrocities, but several of them brought me up short. Spare me any more Grisham. Life is too short and time too precious to waste on this pre-digested pablum.
June 27th, 2011 at 6:40 pm
That John Grisham was obviously a flash in the pan.
June 27th, 2011 at 8:43 pm
We often deal with “forgotten” writers on this blog, don’t we?
June 29th, 2011 at 9:47 am
I really didn’t like this, did I? Too bad that I didn’t support my argument with some examples from the novel.
That’s the only Grisham novel that I’ve read. At least I stuck by my guns, however misfired they might have been.
June 29th, 2011 at 12:35 pm
You’re one ahead of me in terms of reading Grisham, Walter. It may have been this review that persuaded me against him, so you have a lot to answer for.
Well, maybe just a little.
Or even — you can go right on sleeping well at night — not at all.
I certainly don’t begrudge him his success. He’s one of those bestselling authors that don’t interest mystery readers all that much — am I wrong about this? — but he’s got what the larger mainstream audience wants, and in spades.