I read in my LA Times this morning that Tom Wolfe, the greatest American writer of his generation, is to make a guest appearance on The Simpsons, the greatest TV show of our, or any other, generation. Gore Vidal, who thinks he's the greatest American writer of his generation, will also be on the show, which is good news in that if he's taping an episode of The Simpsons it means he isn't writing another one of his awful books. An Spailpín Fánach generally operates a one-hundred-page rule, in that if a book doesn't capture my interest after one hundred pages, my conviction that life is short means that I abandon it, and start another.
I had a go at Burr, by Gore Vidal once, and I did not get past the first page. Fact.
Tom Wolfe, of course, is a joy always. I Am Charlotte Simmons is currently sitting proudly on my to-read shelf, and I am looking forward to it hugely. If you haven't read The Right Stuff or The Bonfire of the Vanities of some of Tom Wolfe's collections of journalism, do so at your earliest convenience. You'll learn a lot about the modern world.
In the LA Times interview, Tom Wolfe says that The Simpsons is "the only show of any sort that I watch on television," and gets into the spirit of the thing. Just as his yellow Springfield self is about to be flattened by a boulder, Wolfe shouts "Aaaaagh! My suit - it's gaberdine!"
Gore Vidal, of course, doesn't watch The Simpsons. Which might explain why he writes such awful books.
