The author (VS Naipaul) slates Dickens for his "repetitiveness" and cites the experience of reading Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey as a revelatory one.
"I thought halfway through the book, 'Here am I, a grown man reading about this terrible vapid woman and her so-called love life.'
"I said to myself, 'What am I doing with this material? This is for somebody else, really."
Here.
It's funny how the article states that "Naipaul attacks literary giants" when, really, I think he's being perfectly reasonable with Austen. I had the same experience when reading Emma.
