dear jon
I'm sorry, but we have to break up. I've tried and tried again. You write well, you really do. At two paragraphs in, I had such high hopes that I was recommending your latest book to a friend. Your story lines could be compelling or at least mostly interesting. But your dialogue is just so very precocious. It's as if you want us all never to forget for a moment that you are SO smart. Jonathon, people simply don't talk like that. I've been in the company of very smart people having very clever conversations and still not experienced the kind of dialogue that happens over and over again in your books. Your ten year olds talk like world-savvy intellectuals and your adults never stammer or fail to have the perfect overly-intellligent comeback at the tip of their tongue. Never, ever, do they suffer from l'esprit d'scalier. I throw this french phrase out there because, yes, Jonathon Safran Foer, I am able to carry on an intelligent conversation with the odd foreign phrase thrown in when appropriate. But every single time? Surely I'm not the only one who suffers from an occasional case of "staircase wit" and misses the perfect comeback. I get that writers can write like that, one clever line followed by an even more clever line, over and over again for an entire conversation, but this is not how people talk and after awhile I just find it annoying. I can never forget for a second that I am reading made up dialogue, that your book is peopled with characters in a book rather than real people. I like to be carried away by a book, not constantly brought back to the fact that I'm reading a book. Or, as in the case of your book at times, feeling as if I'm reading something written by someone trying to impress his teacher. .
I'm one third of my way into the second book of yours I've read (I did finish the first one, but I was younger then and felt like I had more time left to live) and I simply can't go on with it. Maybe I sound petty. I knew a man, once, who tried to talk like this, but it was his way of making sure everyone thought he was very smart. He couldn't just let down and have a normal conversation. He had to impress. He had to drop names and dates and facts and snippets of memorized poetry. His insecurity was palpable. Not saying you are insecure, Jonathon Safran Foer, but the way you write your characters *feels* like you need us to know how very clever and smart you are. I completely believe that you are clever and smart, so there is no need for you to shove that in my face in your next book. Not that I've decided whether or not I shall endeavor to read your next book.
That is all. I'm sorry. It's not you, it's me. I've found another book.
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