Thanks very much for your review. Coincidently, in the backyard last week, I was having a long discussion with friends about Raymond Carver and what the old term "dirty realism" meant. I think I was arguing the People-Can't-Take-Very-Much- Reality point, although I was probably getting nowhere very fast. But if I've understood some of Mr Shields' manifesto -- that "The actuality [of American realism] is continually outdoing our talents" -- it's certainly infuriating when the truth is stranger than fiction: like when you tell people about actual events and they claim that you're (just) making it up. But "his claim that the novel is incapable of generating the cerebral and profound impressions of reality"? Shields seems to be having some real fun here; it's a limb with a big cushion under it after all. There is much bad faith (and bad writing) in the real world, true, and there is much bad faith in some certain kinds of narrative. Then, all at once, one is bewailing the power of "il vero", the paucity of the imagination and the unlikelihood of stumbling upon "il ben trovato"? It's good when from time to time we find that someone's exposition rings our bells; but there is hardly a crisis in realism. Moreover, the novel is not dead -- nor is it ailing. Believing it won't make it real. Only my opinion.