A little while ago, Alex Ross recommended Carl Wilson's Let's Talk About Love
, and based on what he wrote in that post I thought I might as well read it. I don't know much about Céline Dion's music (I don't listen to the radio, and I don't watch much TV), but from what I know her music is the musical equivalent of Annie Liebovitz's photography: It fits perfectly into the kind of stuff churned out by major corporations - blockbuster movies or ads for amusement parks - but beyond that... Which is the same kind of attitude that Carl Wilson had towards Céline Dion's music before he decided to dig into it and to learn about what is behind all it and, especially, to see whether he was maybe wrong and missing something entirely. So I thought that maybe by reading Let's Talk About Love I could learn a little bit more about how to approach tacky kitsch, to move beyond simple reflexes and to maybe discover something. Having made it through about a third of the book, my original intent might prove to be more complicated than anticipated (now there's a surprise), but Let's Talk About Love has already proven to be well worth the money. A truly recommended read, very well written and full of surprises.
