Dear John Dan,
It’s been a while since we first got together. A lot has changed since then. You’ve changed, but so have I. Some might say we’ve grown, but I don’t know if we’ve done that together.
I admit that I saw you first about the same time everybody else started taking notice. I certainly wasn’t the first to spot you but I was in there a bit earlier than many, before super stardom called your name.
You drew me in innocently enough. I wasn’t necessarily looking for something easy and the prospect of loosely interpreted history and social commentary was seductive. The hint of truth which illuminated your work was the bait. I swallowed it and the hook too.
After the first famous one, I read your other novels in fast succession. Then sought the kernel of truth behind the legendary novel. As a semester long student of Christology at university, maybe I wanted to know if what you had suggested could trump that scholar who came to my modest school from the pantheon of Yale. I found a used hardcover copy of your primary source on the internet. Your wildfire fame had not yet pushed it into new paperback editions. As I dove onto the history that was the fount of your thesis, I found was written with a hyperbolic, scattered style that was not interconnected or the least bit persuasive. When questions about the quality of its research arose, I was in no position to defend them.
I was now a sceptic. When asked, I would always praise your compelling plots, your quick pacing, and even your easy style.
Still I knew I wasn’t being faithful. I knew I believed something else, but I wasn’t ready to let go. I always thought myself a man of the people. Certainly, they could not all be wrong. I patiently waited for the chance for us to get back together – to reassemble our codex.
When that chance finally came I resisted the urge to rush back into your arms. I read only one review. Of course it was from the old grey lady – who else? – and her guest reviewer was not entirely unkind.
Still, I decided to be coy. I didn’t buy the first run despite the deep discounts being offered by everybody from the internet to the supermarket. Instead, I decided I would wait and let you come to me in time. I placed my name on the library waiting list. There were only 629 people requesting your company in front of me.
Seven months later my name came up. I picked up my assigned copy with a surprising lack of enthusiasm. You were still a star atop the only bestseller list that really counts, even if not the very top. This book was no fluke. Still I was not excited like I should be. It was a sign.
I am so sorry. I have started and I don’t know if I can finish. It may be trivial but to me there is a difference between foreshadowing and telegraphing. Certainly literary devices are fine, we all use them (this letter may be one), but in the wrong hands they can be…well, hamfisted.
Yes, I said it. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be mean. Really I think I should just stop now. I know that maybe I shouldn’t. Some will say it’s the wrong thing to do. That you should always finish what you’ve started, but I can’t help the feeling that I can’t go on.
I want to believe that my friends on the Capitol Police force are competent and that kids only bend spoons with their mind on The Matrix. Please Dan, just tell me. Will you make suffer another gender bending introduction like that of the CIA official? Is this what your feminist critique has become?
I did it again. I am being mean. I will stop now. It’s not right and I will stop. We have grown apart and I really am more sorry than you know. Please forgive me.
There are others out there for you (252 are still waiting at last glance). It’s time for me to put you down and let them have their turn.
We’ll always have Rome…
Yours,
Rube
