Art imitating art

For reasons slightly beyond my control, I have recently finished reading S's bookclub's novel for this month - and hated it - and have no-one to blame but myself ... since I chose it - casting the deciding vote when the group was split. I had had the deciding vote once before (Water for Elephants) - sitting nearby but not participating I had suggested that if the vote was tied, I could cast the decider because I usually listened to their discussions. This time the deal was I could decide as long as I read the book. I agreed and chose the one I had heard about, knew was available in electronic book format, and that I had already been thinking about reading given the publicity it had received after being chosen as an Oprah book. Alas, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle did not live up to my expectations. (Oh no - it has just occurred to me that I have inflicted this read on the bookclub; it will be interesting to see if this is the last choice I get to make.). A mate of mine once said that if you copy someone else's work, it's stealing; if you copy from two works, that's research. In this case though, I don't feel like giving Edgar's author the leniency - not when this, his first novel with a ten-year gestation period, is being touted as the Great American Novel and as a great work of imagination ... a classic in the making. And it could have been all these things - and may be for some - if there didn't seem to be such a reliance on other people's work.