Murray Cowell

Just read the first 50 pages of "Lessons" and given up on it. Promising start, but it just descends into such tedious middle class angst, intellectualising and self-satisfied meticulous researching of the topic that it gets really boring. It feels like I've met all the characters before in his other books and nothing exciting is happening to anyone. Add to the mix that two of the main characters are writers. Why do all writers end up writing about writers? Can't they use a bit of imagination instead? And World War II? Again? Really?

Just read the first 50 pages of "Lessons" and given up on it. Promising start, but it just descends into such tedious middle class angst, intellectualising and self-satisfied meticulous researching of the topic that it gets really boring. It feels like I've met all the characters before in his other books and nothing exciting is happening to anyone. Add to the mix that two of the main characters are writers. Why do all writers end up writing about writers? Can't they use a bit of imagination instead? And World War II? Again? Really?