When prose gets too stylized and out of control - and Stein is sometimes a good example - when you don't know what the hell is going on, then it's kind of boring.

While his work remains highly polarizing among readers and critics he is generally praised as a highly ambitious writer and one of the most original literary voices of his generation. Rick Moody (born Hiram Frederick Moody III October 18 1961) is an American novelist and short story writer best known for the 1994 novel The Ice Storm a chronicle of the dissolution of two suburban Connecticut families over Thanksgiving weekend in 1973 which brought widespread acclaim became a bestseller and was made into a feature film of the same title.