"That was a pretty good movie, but it didn't have enough Citizen Kane in it."
As of late, I've taken to finally wading through Goodreads reviews, just to thumb through other folks' opinions on things I'm reading. It's the closest I can usually get to talking to someone about specific books, except for that rando time when a bunch of my friends read The World According to Garp at once. Or when Luke convinced me to give The Fountainhead another shot. In both cases, much literary symposium was had (in the passive voice) and it was lovely.
Anyways, the vast majority of the reviews of one of the books I'm currently slogging through boiled down to "This book is pretty good, but it doesn't have enough Bible in it." I don't think I get it.
If "not enough Bible" is your primary critique, what's the point of reading best-selling popular fiction? It's like sitting down to a game of Checkers and commenting that it's not enough like Chess. I get that the novel is essentially about a man's relationship with God, but it's trying to tell a story. If you'd really rather that not be the case, why not just read the Bible in the first place?
All I've taken from this experience: when I get around to writing The Great American Novel, it will be jam packed with Ezekiel 23:20. My public demands it.
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