The Elegant Variation: THE REAL CRISIS IN BOOK REVIEWING ...

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August 03, 2008

THE REAL CRISIS IN BOOK REVIEWING ...

... is that embarrassing ledes like this one are allowed to run, and at the New York Times, no less.

I really wanted to pan this book. First of all, with the exception of Walker Percy’s “Moviegoer,” I tend to dislike literature about New Orleans (oh the decadence! the quaintness!), and publicity copy for “The House on First Street” boasted about Julia Reed’s “colorful” critique of the city’s “rich flavor.” It’s also a Hurricane Katrina memoir. I’d considered writing my own Katrina memoir, and now I realize I probably never will. True, my own house in New Orleans was reduced to a moldy ruin, and Reed’s had nothing but a broken window, but hers — previously owned by Percy’s brother Phin (fun fact) — is a 6,000-square-foot Greek Revival landmark in the historic Garden District, while my house is a 1,400-square-foot cottage in the (comparatively) raffish neighborhood of Gentilly. And not only is Julia Reed a lot richer than I, she has better journalistic cred: as an evacuee, I wrote a few columns for Slate, while Reed was bombarded with assignments from Newsweek, The Spectator and Vogue, her main employer, whose editors received an e-mail message from Reese Witherspoon, no less, asking if Reed was O.K.

One is probably not supposed to bite that hand that feeds one, but we cannot imagine that any Times reader is remotely as interested in Blake Bailey as he appears to be in himself.

Posted at 10:48 AM in Reviews, The Conversation | Permalink

Comments

Oh, lordy! Thanks for sniffing this out. The NYTBR sits untouched on the coffee table and I'll leave this lede be. Blech.

(Saw YOUR book in Three Lives recently--felt a rush of pride!)

Best,
Anne

Posted by: Anne Fernald | August 03, 2008 at 11:02 AM

I personally think Slate is a better publication than any of the others listed.

Also, Blake Bailey is probably more interesting than most Times readers anyway.

Posted by: Daniel | August 03, 2008 at 11:19 AM

While I agree with you, semi-celebrities surviving tragedy aren't always very compelling, and Reed's historic house had almost no damage. And she got a book deal.

She ripped in to Ray Nagin and Kathleen Blanco on Air America, and Air America purged her interview from their archives. (Click on my name for info on that.)

My favorite Katrina story was that of the two erstwhile hippiesbohos blissfully waiting out the storm on their fire escape, complete with NYT photo. Then the guy killed and cooked his GF. Now there's a story.

Posted by: Kate | August 03, 2008 at 12:36 PM

Folks, just to be clear, I make no claims whatsoever for the book in question - both it and the author are wholly unknown to me. What I am talking about here is the ongoing, lamentable trend of book reviewers more interested in talking about themselves than dispensing their critical obligations to the books in question. (Go read the whole piece, and find where Bailey starts talking about his dinner party.) If this is the kind of book reviews that are out there, one can hardly deplore their disappearance.

Posted by: TEV | August 03, 2008 at 12:46 PM

I don't know; I didn't think it was so bad. Kind of interesting for a piece to talk about the covert competition between reviewer/critic and writer, a la Harold Bloom's anxiety of influence. I can think of worse examples (including the recently PBS-lauded Christopher Hitchens). I thought the Lee Israel/plagiarism review was good - and more straightforward in the same issue -but I'm okay with writing this one off to lit'ry license. To use it as an argument against book reviews in general strikes me as ad hominem.

Posted by: Paul | August 03, 2008 at 02:47 PM

I agree w/Mark on this. This reads like some kind of teenage book report, crying out "look at me" ...

Posted by: Carol | August 03, 2008 at 05:48 PM

Well, I -- yes me, the ostensible NYTBR hater -- actually enjoyed the strange context within this opening paragraph. I mean, this was baroque batshit crazy stuff reflecting the self-absorbed twaddle that Bailey divined from Reed's book. And then we get the second paragraph in which Bailey contradicts these seeming prejudices (reflective of Reed). There was the wry suggestion that Bailey's own solipsism was a stand-in for what Reed seems to know and empathize about New Orleans. But then you'd have to know that Bailey did lose a good deal of research for his Cheever biography. And then you'd have to have more of a tolerance for the ironic use of first-person like this.

Also, Bailey wrote a terrific Richard Yates bio. So he's okay in my book. I think you missed the humor here, Mark.

Posted by: ed | August 03, 2008 at 08:52 PM

I think you missed the humor here, Mark.

Also possible:

I think you missed the mark here, humor.

In any case, I really enjoyed Bailey's depressive Yates book (as in causes depression) and am looking forward to his Cheever bio.

Cheers, A

Posted by: Antoine Wilson | August 04, 2008 at 09:11 AM

Damn, you could cut the envy in that review with the proverbial knife.

Posted by: Pete | August 04, 2008 at 10:22 AM

As a book review, I'm not too crazy about it, but Bailey has a great point, and after reading the review, I certainly don't want to read Reed's book, so in a sense, I guess, the review does what it set out to do. Reed sounds like a turd, exploiting the greatest civil disaster in American history for her own ends. Shameless and exploitative. I'm sick and tired of people like Reed, and so is Bailey, and maybe the NYTBR isn't the best place to take aim at people like Reed, or maybe it is.

Posted by: Luke Moody | August 04, 2008 at 10:25 AM

I agree wholeheartedly with this sentiment. The elliptical Times book review, wherein the writer doesn't get around to talking about, you know, the book, until the third paragraph, just makes me want to scream. Get to the point!

Posted by: Joe M | August 04, 2008 at 11:33 AM

Obviously, Bailey needs to get a blog.

Posted by: lisa_emily | August 04, 2008 at 11:56 AM

Let alone the likes of Lisa See writing reviews for the LA Times... anybody heard of the division between state and church? you can't be judge and jury... oh well

Posted by: Chad | August 04, 2008 at 01:22 PM

Mark, ITA. Any reviewer worth their weight in withits knows the first rule of reviewing: Never use the first-person singular when writing about a book, if for no other reason than to achieve aesthetic distance (or, at least, a semblance of same). A review ought to be an informed and educated opinion (and, as we all know, *all* reviews are, by definition, autobiographical), not a self-promo one-hand-clapping off-show. Good for (or on) you for having the head / heart smarts to say so (or, as Alanis sez, Kudo :)).

Posted by: Cogito Ergo Doleo | August 04, 2008 at 08:54 PM

I love Ed.

Posted by: Blake | August 06, 2008 at 02:40 AM

I rather liked this review, given it draws the attention not just to the writing but who exactly got a book deal and why.
You can look at it as envy. Or, you could look at it as putting all the facts out, in a rather snarky way.

Posted by: Ginny | August 12, 2008 at 02:36 PM

The comments to this entry are closed.

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The Elegant Variation is "Fowler’s (1926, 1965) term for the inept writer’s overstrained efforts at freshness or vividness of expression. Prose guilty of elegant variation calls attention to itself and doesn’t permit its ideas to seem naturally clear. It typically seeks fancy new words for familiar things, and it scrambles for synonyms in order to avoid at all costs repeating a word, even though repetition might be the natural, normal thing to do: The audience had a certain bovine placidity, instead of The audience was as placid as cows. Elegant variation is often the rock, and a stereotype, a cliché, or a tired metaphor the hard place between which inexperienced or foolish writers come to grief. The familiar middle ground in treating these homely topics is almost always the safest. In untrained or unrestrained hands, a thesaurus can be dangerous."

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The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

August 03, 2008

THE REAL CRISIS IN BOOK REVIEWING ...

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog. A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog "Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

August 03, 2008

THE REAL CRISIS IN BOOK REVIEWING ...

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE: Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism