Reviewing the Review: April 9 2006

A few people told me I’ve been a little rough on the New York Times Book Review regular critics, who are after all just mortal humans doing their literary best. Yes, this is probably true. Thankfully, I liked this week’s edition just fine.

The cover of today’s Book Review is devoted to Suite Francaise, a newly published set of fictional documents by the Ukranian/French writer Irene Nemirovsky, who died at Auschwitz in 1942. Paul Gray’s review stresses the immediacy of these works, which transformed the murderous horrors of Nazi-conquered France into art exactly as they were taking place. Only time will tell if this is an important text, but this prominent review makes a strong case for it.

Thomas Mallon’s lively exposition of Stephen Harrigan’s Challenger Park, a realistic novel about love and marriage and infidelity among NASA space-shuttle staffers and astronauts makes me want to read the book even though I almost certainly won’t. I like lines like: “when desire does get the better of them, Harrigan fast-forwards past most of the sex, as if he knows it would be a waste of fuel.”

Liesl Schillinger does her usual excellent job in making me care about Elinor Lipman’s My Latest Grievance, which is about a teenage girl with unconventional parents who discovers a family secret, and Terrence Rafferty generously strives to place the career of Portugese magical-absurdist Jose Saramago in context. I will be looking for Saramago’s new novel Seeing, based on this review.

Other good stuff: Christopher Corbett on Emily Barton’s Brookland, Eve Conant on Marti Leimbach’s novel about a family with an autistic child, Daniel Isn’t Talking, and Charles McGrath’s enticing introduction to British humorist Alan Bennett’s new collection, Untold Stories. Griel Marcus phones in his review of Jason Shinder’s essay collection Howl: The Poem That Changed America, but D. H. Tracy does a better job with On Earth, the summary collection of the late great Robert Creeley’s final works. “On Earth carries on the emergence of rhyme and form in Creeley’s later work, going so far as doggerel, and there is even an entire poem that scans.”

All the above stuff is good, but it just wouldn’t feel like Sunday if I didn’t complain about something, so let’s talk about the endpaper. This is great journalistic real estate, but it’s wasted, week after week, on one of two things: a predictable attempt at satire that always falls limp (the New York Times Book Review is not McSweeneys nor The Onion and we don’t even want it to be) or a plain, workmanlike sociological essay. Today’s offering, “Where Have All The Strivers Gone,” Joseph Finder’s study of the role of wealth and aspiration in contemporary fiction, is the very model of dullness. It’s not bad; it’s just not exceptional enough for this space, and that seems to be the case week after week.

Maybe the editors should toss out that dusty old rolodex and try to find fresher new voices somewhere entirely new. For instance, I can think of at least fifteen bloggers who could turn out a more dynamic two-thousand words, on a day’s notice.

7 Responses

  1. SomehowI don’t think that
    Somehow

    I don’t think that adding a few bloggers (or even fifteen) is going to make a big dent in the dull dullness of the NYTBR … after all, last I checked “bloggers” are just “mortal humans” as well… if that.

  2. what’s it meanI
    what’s it mean

    I (respectfully) think maybe you’re reading the wrong news page. I saw a few weeks ago where Veterans were marching to join up with Cindy Sheehan; saw on the cover of Time magazine that global warming is frighteningly real. If the people being discussed in the NYTBR are missing these types of issues, um…no wonder it’s boring. They’re missing what’s going on. I realize that relevance is solipsistic; but from a historical view, Stein or Hemingway complained idly about a generation perdue. But what seemed to be lost on all those post-WWI artists, was the reality of doing something to illumine the looming issues leading to WWII. That mighta been a worthwhile endeavor. Spent part of my weekend reading an except (http://www.tarpley.net/bush8.htm) from a Tarpley/Chaitkin book about the Bushes. Now that’s some scary stuff.

  3. NYTBRI haven’t read this
    NYTBR

    I haven’t read this Sunday’s issue because I was in L.A. and busy, and I was considering not reading it. After reading the NYTBR for over 35 years, it kind of feels like a duty, one I seldom felt free for forsake — except for my first year in law school, when I really had no time. I think at my age if the NYTBR was not fairly dull, I would get a heart attack.

    But back in the day, there didn’t seem to be an alternative for a kid from Brooklyn who wanted to read about books. Now I’ve got my RSS feed of litblogs like this one. And I’m reading you (and others) right now when I could be doing my duty with the NYTBR.

  4. Richard — I am glad to hear
    Richard — I am glad to hear that! And I bet the NYTBR isn’t.

    Welcome to LitKicks — your books sound quite interesting.

  5. Thanks, Levi. I’ve actually
    Thanks, Levi. I’ve actually been around lurking for quite a while. I’ve admired what you’re doing and like your literary sensibility.

  6. Mr. Grayson, I’ve been
    Mr. Grayson, I’ve been reading about your run for president. Had I known at the time, I could have rigged some voting machines for you and blocked some hippies from getting to the polls, here in Jacksonville, FL.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

What We're Up To ...

Litkicks will turn 30 years old in the summer of 2024! We can’t believe it ourselves. We don’t run as many blog posts about books and writers as we used to, but founder Marc Eliot Stein aka Levi Asher is busy running two podcasts. Please check out our latest work!