My book club spent 2 hours debating if the author's footnotes were genius or lazy writing

We read this book last month and the author kept throwing in these random footnotes that were mostly just tangents or jokes. Half of us thought it made the book feel more alive like we were inside the narrator's head. The other half was furious saying it was a crutch and the author should have worked that stuff into the main story. Our moderator actually pulled up a review from some literary critic who called it 'intentional fragmentation' and that just made people more mad. Has anyone else had a book split your group this bad over a writing style choice?

2 comments

2 Comments

jamesm4827d ago

That 'intentional fragmentation' line would've ticked me off too. Our group had the same fight over House of Leaves with the footnotes and weird formatting. We stopped trying to figure out if it was genius or lazy and just talked about how it made us feel while reading.

john_cooper27d ago

@jamesm48 nailed it with that House of Leaves comparison, that book is a whole other beast. It's funny how footnotes or weird formatting can just split a group down the middle. Kinda reminds me of how people argue about open floor plans in houses or how messy a desk should be. Some folks like everything neat and in its place, others think the chaos adds character. That's the thing, what feels like a lazy shortcut to one person feels like a bold choice to another.