Sometimes you've just got to wonder ...
Just the other day, Michiko Kakutani called Julian Barnes' Arthur and George "clumsy" as well as "serviceable but decidedly sluggish" ... Contrast that with this Sunday's NYTBR cover story (not yet available online), in which Terence Rafferty waxes rhapsodic about the same title, calling it "extraordinary" and "a deeply English novel, in the grand manner." (Rafferty also provided a more reasoned counterweight to Kakutani's snarling review of The Sea.)
Given her propensity toward crankiness of late, don't you wonder if anyone at NYT raises an eyebrow or two over stuff like this? Or do you think they encourage it? It's one thing to disagree with Janet Maslin - we'd actually be likely to take Kakutani's side in that match up (which should give you a pretty clear idea of where we hold her in our esteem). But Rafferty is a consistently smart reviewer, certainly far more thoughtful that MK's scorched earth reviewing style. Is no one over there looking back and forth between the two and ... well .... you know, thinking ... Time to switch the nameplates?
Maybe it is a New York thing. Be beligerent and don't agree with anyone. Since Ulin took over the LA Times Book Review, I now like it so much better than NYT, except that it is so SMALL.
Isn't somebody writing a chick lit novel about working for a NYT book reviewer?
Posted by: Judy Krueger | January 18, 2006 at 10:43 PM