A review by jervonyc
The Four Fingers of Death by Rick Moody

1.0

I finished Rick Moody's "The Four Fingers of Death" last night, and thank God, because I'm not sure I've ever been so impatient with a book. Look, I love long books. I generally prefer to read long books. I read quickly, and I love to read, so the more time I get to spend with a book, the better. And the description of this book is totally up my alley - a postmodern literary sci-fi novelization of a schlocky monster movie from the 50s? YES PLEASE. And yet it was beyond tedious. He does this thing, when he gets into the inner monologues of his characters, where everything is just one long sentence, with lots of commas, and he dwells on the tiniest minutia of insignificant thoughts, as if that somehow makes what's happening somehow more meaningful, and he does this on almost every page, and I'm getting tired just trying to copy that style right now, and this is only one paragraph, and meanwhile his book is 736 pages of this shit, and meanwhile there's a sort-of interesting story taking place, which you (as the reader) are wanting him (the author) to get back to, but there's all these meaningless digressions, and there's a meta-reason for all these meaningless digressions, which is funny the first time you realize what he's doing, but, again, there's over 700 pages of this kind of thing, and it's ridiculous, and I'm glad it's over.