I was at a dinner of publishing professionals recently when a book came up that I said I hadn't enjoyed. The response was: "It won the Pulitzer."

Okay, the snacks were great, and so was the wine. But the books were awful. I wanted to have fun, but everyone kept voting for books that were depressing. They called them "classics."

I was reading The Portrait of a Lady -- which many critics consider The Great American Novel -- at 3 AM when I came to the famous Chapter 42.