With this installment, we dispense with noting page counts and ad ratios, which don't appear to change. And in an attempt to be a bit more scientific, we now grade each review according to three criteria: the quality of writing of the review; how interesting/compelling the reviewed books seems; and what its relevance to Los Angeles readers is. These individual scores will be averaged out for an overall issue score. We reserve the right to remain totally arbitrary and inconsistent along the way.
STATS
Full length fiction reviews: 3
Full length non-fiction reviews: 3
Special material: Carlos Fuentes essay on Arthur Miller.
TITLES, AUTHORS & REVIEWERS
This Is the City by Ronald J. Schmidt, Jr. Reviewed by Jonathan Kirsch Grade: C-
The eternal theatre of Arthur Miller. Essay by Carlos Fuentes Grade: C+
The Orientalist by Tom Reiss. Reviewed by Gideon Lewis-Kraus Grade: C
It's My Party Too by Christie Todd Whitman. Reviewed by Matthew Scully. Grade: F
The Queen Jade by Yxta Maya Murray; Our Ecstatic Days by Steve Erickson; The Manhattan Beach Project by Peter Lefcourt; and The Devil's Wind by Richard Rayner. Reviewed by Susan Salter Reynolds. Grade: A
A Season for the Dead and The Villa of Mysteries by David Hewson; Conviction by Richard North Patterson. Reviewed by Eugen Weber. Grade: D
First Fiction Column: The Society of Others by William Nicholson; and Give Me by Irina Denezhkina. Reviewed by James Marcus Grade: C-
Discoveries Column: The Quarry by Damon Galgut; Natural Novel by Georgi Gospodinov; and Whore by Nelly Arcan. Reviewed by Susan Salter Reynolds. Grade: B
Nice Big American Baby by Judy Budnitz. Reviewed by Richard Eder. Grade: C+
WHAT WE LIKE ...
The Fuentes essay is a worthy idea and the kind of hifalutin' stuff we usually like. Despite the flabby prose, it's heartfelt and scores points for good intentions ... Both the Reiss and the Schmidt books seem interesting, although the Schmidt seems an oddly quirky inclusion ... Susan Salter Reynolds' cover story on L.A. novelists is an excellent piece, thoughtful in its overview of L.A. lit and offering sharp portraits of at least three extremely interesting soundings books (We can probably do without the Lefcourt) ... Salter's Discoveries columns also rolls out three interesting sounding titles ... and although Eder's lede is just atrocious:
If instead of tracing back to an oxygen-producing single cell our evolution had started anaerobically - with the botulism bacteria, say - the results could resemble many of the characters in Judy Budnitz's baleful short-story collection.
... the review is decidedly less condescendingly parental than Tom Perotta's review of same in NYTBR. Though the best line of the Eder is actually a succinct description of Barthelme's stories:
Many were sinister, but a kind of pleasure ran through them, and beyond the pleasure, a kind of tenderness. The extravagances held a faintly recognizable humanity.
WHAT WE DON'T ...
Let's hit the worst first: Not only is the Scully review of the Whitman book a snarling hatchet job, it's precisely that sort of asinine pairing of reviewer to material that makes most thoughtful readers nuts and makes the LAT look like a cheap outfit. Scully's bio identifies him as a "special assistant and deputy director of speechwriting for President Bush." Now, we have little stomach for these sorts of political bromides but what chance of a fair shake did Whitman ever have? None. Bush-league pairing, if you'll forgive the pun ... Although the Schmidt book does sound interesting, as noted above, it's marred by a lacklusterly written review ... The writing in the Fuentes piece is soggy and flaccid, suffering from cheap rhetorical flourishes (Salesman is described as marking a "growing separation between being and nonbeing, having and not having, belonging and not belonging, loving and being loved.") ... As mentioned, the inclusion of the Reiss seems odd, quirky and not hugely relevant, especially given that the LOS ANGELES Times felt the need to jam four authors together into one profile, instead of using the space to expand coverage of these writers ... And Eugen Weber's review is just awful, a poorly written look at three atrocious sounding books.
GRADE: C+ Would have been higher without the dreadful Whitman review. Overall, a better issue than we're used to seeing but we'd still like to see more thoughtfully written reviews - more clarity, more sharpness. Too many reviews are still surprisingly difficult to plod through.
No grade inflation here...can I go back to Harvard, Daddy?
Posted by: Jimmy Beck | February 22, 2005 at 07:27 AM
I really have no idea why Eugen Weber gets to review mysteries more often than Dick Lochte, who has shown that he can actually write....
Posted by: Sarah | February 22, 2005 at 08:29 AM
I'd like to see two different grades assigned to each review: one for relevance and the other for writing. Some of the reviews this week may have been irrelevant, like the one about the Orientalist, but that one in particular was really well-written, I thought, even if the book didn't deserve to take up so much space in the LATBR.
Posted by: More Ambivalent than You | February 22, 2005 at 08:31 AM
I thought this was, with all the warts you've noted, better than usual. The thing that really irks me is what Sarah points out -- Dick Lochte is a fine, fine reviewer and Eugen Weber...isn't. I mean, he doesn't even review the books in this week's column.
On a seperate note, I'd also like you to grade whatever self-published book is advertised as well. You don't have to read it, I'd just like you to literally grade it based on its cover and title.
Posted by: Tod Goldberg | February 22, 2005 at 11:14 AM