Word: reader
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Melville's short pieces often lack delicacy or intricacy of plot. The focus upon one theme causes the reader to wonder why the author felt compelled to reiterate the same point continuously. At worst, the story lines are predictable and unimaginative, relying principally on the enticing foreign locale for their impact...
Melville's remarkable talent for evocative one-line descriptions is the saving grace of these sketches. For example, in "I Do Not Take Messages from Dead People," the sullen vice president is described as having "the gravitational density of an imploding star." The same story also presents the reader with a memorable image from Guyana at dusk: "a host of bats sewed up the great opal and silver clouds with their flitting, looping trajectories...
...example, does not pretend to be anything more than nostalgia thinly disguised as fiction. Its wistful, reminiscent mood makes for good reading. "The Girl with the Celestial Limb," on the other hand, is a pretentious piece of pseu-do-surrealism that fails to make any impression on the reader...
...Unfortunately, other criteria for engaging a reader's attention also exist: plot, suspense, characterization, dialogue, effective prose. In all these areas, Harlot's Ghost runs into serious difficulties, sometimes intermittently, sometimes over the long haul. No one can deny Mailer's monumental ambition in this novel or his dedication to the hard, slogging work that writing an enormous narrative entails. What can be questioned is whether his fundamental premise -- a fictional history of a real Central Intelligence Agency -- was not misconceived from the beginning...
...reader of the book is compelled to agree with these imaginary detectives. In one's search to understand the mind of a serial killer, the daily newspaper supplies as much fertile material as does The Minus...