Less by Andrew Sean Greer
WHO SAYS YOU CAN’T RUN AWAY FROM YOUR PROBLEMS?
Arthur Less is a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the post: it is from an ex-boyfriend of nine years who is engaged to someone else. Arthur can’t say yes — it would be too awkward; he can’t say no — it would look like defeat. So, he begins to accept the invitations on his desk to half-baked literary events around the world.
From France to India, Germany to Japan, Arthur almost falls in love, almost falls to his death, and puts miles between him and the plight he refuses to face. Less is a novel about mishaps, misunderstandings and the depths of the human heart.
Literary awards are rarely sufficient motivation for me to choose one title over another — the enjoyment of literature being notoriously subjective — but since Andrew Sean Greer’s Less was already on my wishlist, its recent Pulitzer Prize win firmed up my decision to purchase.
What immediately struck me was the unusual narrative structure… predominantly first-person present tense (identity undisclosed) yet omnipresent.
From where I sit, the story of Arthur Less is not so bad.
