Why I haven’t gotten around to reading Scott Turow

It’s hard not to be bored by ahem, love stories like the weekend piece in the Times on Mr. Obama’s book deals: The bitter literary agents remembering when nobody knew the guy’s name… the Washington heavies telling the bitter literary agents how it’s gonna be from now on… the repeated declarations that Barack did all his own writing and needed little editing… the teaser about the children’s book to come (giving a new flavor to this MoDo column)…

But taking all these politco-lawyerly types out of their natural habitat has its risks. Here’s Doug Baird, a UChicago law professor, trying to play T.S. Eliot with the allusions:

Professor Baird called Mr. Obama at Harvard and asked if he was interested in teaching. “I don’t remember his exact words, but it was something to the effect that, ‘Well, in fact, I want to write this book.’ What he really wanted was the Virginia Woolf equivalent of a clean, well lighted room.”

Well, what I want is a Hemingway story where Francis Macomber gradually turns into Nicole Kidman over hundreds of years. Yeah. That would be the bomb.