Bookplanet: novels extremely big & incredibly fat

'When it comes to art, we are a nation of extremists. American writing, painting and music have always swung between the minimal and the maximal, the Apollonian and the Dionysian. We believe with equal fervor in artistic self-effacement and artistic self-aggrandizement. We like tiny, well-made stuff and also great sprawling messes; art that is full of feeling and also art that aspires to a kind of icy perfection.' Former NY Times Book Review editor Charles McGrath holds forth on what used to be called 'Loose Baggy Monster' novels. His examples: Wallace's "Infinite Jest," Pynchon, Eggers' "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius," Franzen's "The Corrections" and Foer's new "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close." He also works in Don Quixote, Tristram Shandy, Robert Coover and John Barth.