spanking thomas hardy

in this week's new york review of books, tim parks compares the works of e.l. james unfavorably to those of nicholson baker and thomas hardy (or, as i prefer to think of him, hummus tardy). apparently she doesn't write as well as they do (sorry about pay wall). next ish: parks will shock the world with his argument that one direction isn't as good as mahler. but, on the other hand, neither e.l. james nor one direction is as pretentious, confused, or boring as tim parks. whatever millions of women have felt reading fifty shades of grey, parks felt reading jude the obscure, the dreariest and most didactic novel ever written.