I have long thought Australian author Thomas Keneally writes very badly, at least in his mother tongue. A stunning new example of his poor writing skills is the opening sentence – the opening sentence, mind! – of an invited letter that appears in the latest issue of the Australian long-form magazine, Quarterly Essay (Issue 96, November 2024, page 91):
Keneally’s words:

What I like about Watson’s mind is his capacity to connect the mytho-poetic to the political, and he can do it without hearing from him, generally, any grunt of effort.”

I stumbled at this sentence, and it took me a long time to parse it. Who is the “him” in the second part of the sentence? If it is Watson himself, why would Watson be hearing anything from himself? Eventually, I realized that what Keneally intended to write was, perhaps:

. . . and he can do it without us hearing from him, generally, any grunt of effort.”

As with Graham Greene and David Caute, why Keneally is so feted as an author when he writes so badly has long been a mystery to me.