they always seem so terribly pretentious and dreary

I read an excerpt of The Pale King and I felt like clawing my eyes out. It was like something scribbled by a schizophrenic on acid...and not in a good way. And if that was the excerpt chosen as the best example of the novel, imagine what the rest of it is like. I think it's kind of telling that all those authors in the Time magazine article claimed to have The Pale King on their "must-read" list...I wonder how many of them will actually read it?