Great Books and/vs. the Right Positions

Léon Guérin, La Morale en histoires, 1842. Public domain image via Wikimedia Commons. When a book leaves me feeling vaguely ambivalent, the would-be-writer me should probably ask why; was it something about the book’s style, the subject matter, something else or both or more that had me finish it without experiencing any strong emotion or conviction of any sort? Note, this isn’t a situation in which I’m left unsettled, say by some uncomfortable truth being reflected back at me, being burdened with some unpleasant emotion I want to ignore and avoid. Instead, I might just declare it fine, maybe wonder for a few seconds why it got so many glowing reviews, and move on. This is what’s happened with Karen Russell’s The Antidote, which I picked up at a trusted bookstore last week after I heard two employees gushing about it, then saw it propped up on the staff recommendations shelf. National Book Award Finalist, celebrated as a “national bestseller” on the cover, and apparently featuring…