The story of Less is the story of Arthur Less having this epiphany and seeing his life as a comedy instead of a tragedy. Whether a story is comic or tragic depends on how you look at it.
These terms, “well” and “badly,” suggest that comedy is a matter of perspective. A comedy is a story that ends well instead of badly. The first three words of Christopher Buckley’s review are “convulsed in laughter.” Georgia Rowe considers the novel “so funny, it’s hard to believe it started as a tragedy.” Any serious pedant will tell you, however, that jokes don’t make a comedy. I am therefore not qualified to say whether it was funny or not.Ĭritics found it hilarious. All this is to say there were gaps in my reading of Less, and when I did read I was twitchy and distracted.
I think it has been the busiest month of my life. Since I started his book, I have bought a house, presented a pro wrestling show, repointed the foundation of said house, and billed three extra months’ income. It’s been a month since I started the Pulitzer Prize-winning comic novel Less by Andrew Sean Greer, graduate of the Montana MFA program who came to visit our class and was incredibly nice. Andrew Sean Greer, as photographed by Jose Carlos Fajardo of the Bay Area News Group
