Shame on You, Fairfax

The A2 section of today's Age contained some great stuff. A fabulous article by Ursula Dubosarsky about darkness and the bleak life of Rudolf Těsnohlídek. A good (if short) review of Philip Pullman's Once Upon a Time in the North. A good start really, including these two profound and achingly beautiful voices in young adult literature.

Then, there was a review of Nam Le's The Boat, an adult novel that apparently contains no lesbian vampires (although why the reviewer chose to point this out, I'm not sure. A good headline, perhaps?). The review was by James Ley, can be found on page 31, and contained the following sentence:

"It reads like an unusually well-crafted piece of teen fiction, the work of a gifted imitator rather than a unique talent."

While I understand that hanging Mr Ley up by his thumbs until he squeals is probably not an option, I would like to take this opportunity to suggest that Mr Ley should try reading some teen fiction (like that written by "unique talents" Dubosarsky or Pullman, as an example). And perhaps The Age could, in future, think twice before publishing such patronising and uneducated drivel.