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February 16, 2005

LATBR THUMBNAIL - FEB. 13

LatSTATS
Total pages:  12
Advertising pages: 1/4 page of classifieds
Full-length fiction reviews:  4 (includes one graphic novel)
Full-length non-fiction reviews: 5
Additional material: An essay on Elfriede Jelinek (more shortly)

TITLES, AUTHORS & REVIEWERS
The Forgotten Man by Robert Crais; reviewed by Phillip Margolin
The Road to Whatever by Elliott Curie; reviewed by Karen Stabiner
The New Dad's Guide to Survival by Scott Mactavish; reviewed by Chris Erskine
Brief Intervals of Horrible Sanity by Elizabeth Gold; reviewed by David L. Ulin
Gemma Bovery by Posy Simmonds; reviewed by Charles Solomon
Parallel Worlds by Michio Kaku; reviewed by Simon Singh
John Kenneth Galbraith by Richard Parker; reviewed by Steve Fraser
Essay: A fire that burns within (Elfriede Jelinek); by J.S. Marcus
Seven Types of Ambiguity by Elliott Perlman; reviewed by Thomas Meaney
Before the Frost by Henning Mankell; reviewed by Eugen Weber
In the Discoveries column, Susan Salter Reynolds covers three titles: The House in Good Taste by Elsie de Wolfe; Milk by Darcey Steinke; The Jewel Tree in Tibet by Robert Thurman.

WHAT WE LIKE
Of all the pieces in this review, Fraser's review of the Galbraith bio is the best read, awfully well written and thoughtful, worthy of the Grand Heights to which we know the LAT powers that be aspire ... We also liked David Ulin's characterization of "Leave no Child Behind" as an "Orwellian rubric" and we wondered why we'd never made that connection ... Solomon's review of the Bovery (not a typo) graphic novel scores minor points for entirely avoiding the tired "comics really are literature, too" discussion.

WHAT WE DON'T
Unfortunately, the dislikes outweigh the likes this week.  First there's the near total absence of literary fiction coverage (if you exclude the Jelinek essay, which isn't a review; arguments can be made both ways on the Perlman but the only genuine LitFic is Milk, which gets the brief treatment.).  Though we know this will get us in trouble with friends, giving over two of four full length fiction reviews to thriller-type stuff seems too much (and Margolin's review is awfully poorly written, to boot, reading much a like a school paper review) ... The coverage of Currie's book is overlong and suffers from previously noted Weighty Tome syndrome.  (The fact that Currie is a UCI profressor probably explains to space given, but it's too much for, again, a book with a small audience at best.) ... Why the Mactavish was included for review at all is a mystery, but if it had to be covered, here's a pefect candidate for an "in brief" look - 2/3 of a page could have found better use ...  Then there's the oddity of the Jelinek essay; fully five months after winning the Nobel, the Times only now trundles around to examining her?   If the essay were brilliant, we suppose we could understand, but it's a fairly workmanlike rendering of her career, centered around a somewhat forced comparison between the trajectories of Jelinek's and Joerg Haider's careers.  And the closing - " ... we forget it at our peril." - is almost unbearably portentous.

GRADE
D-.  Let's see more and more thoughtful, serious fiction, and fewer bloated "think pieces" aimed at rarefied audiences.

Posted by TEV at 12:33 PM in LATBR Thumbnails |

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Comments

As much as I liked seeing the review of THE FORGOTTEN MAN (even though I didn't care for the book myself) I have to agree about the way the review was written. But then, Margolin's known for making pages turn, not for much else...

Posted by: Sarah | February 16, 2005 at 04:32 PM

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