The Elegant Variation: SIMIC ON ROTH II

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October 08, 2008

SIMIC ON ROTH II

So, I've had a bit more time with Charles Simic's review of Indignation, and it's prompted this unplanned penultimate entry in my Summer of Roth ruminations.

I include a cursory look at the different responses to the novel in my final post, but two things struck me in particular about the Simic review that I wanted to take up with you. First, on my second, closer reading, I noticed this error in Simic's review:

"Olivia has a scar across the width of her wrist that Marcus noticed the first night."

That's incorrect. Marcus fails to notice the scar, and makes much of this later in the book. In a letter to Olivia, he does write "I did see the scar at dinner," but immediately after the letter, the narrator admits "I didn't know what I was doing by lying to her about noticing the scar ... " (p. 76)

It seems to me there are two ways of looking at this. The first is simply that honest mistakes happen - reviewers are human after all. (Well, most of them are.) And there's also the question of what constitutes a meaningful mistake. I'm reminded of John Banville's hilarious rebuke to John Sutherland, who called him out for fouling up a detail about the squash game in Saturday: "Summoned," Banville wrote, "one shuffles guiltily to the Department of Trivialities."

But on the other hand, this kind of mistake also suggests at least the possibility of a less than attentive reading. In the case of Saturday, I happen to agree with Banville - none of the readers I spoke to could clearly recall the squash outcome. But this mistake seems to strike a bit deeper at something that goes to the heart of book - Marcus's self-aggrandizing delusions. What do you think? Does a mistake like this rise to the level of capital offense? Is it simply that perhaps we all expect more from the New York Review of Books? (And I say that as a great admirer of NYRoB, Simic and Roth.)

The second thing that's grown to trouble me about Simic's review is this: In a 4,000 word review, Simic spends nearly 2,900 of them offering nothing more than tedious plot summary. He simply retells the entire story of Indignation - and within that summary offers only a single extended quotation from the work. Beyond that, there's little of Roth's music to be found. (The entirety of the review only contains one other extended quotation.) Now, I have generally found word-count breakdowns of reviews to be less than illuminating but when you consider that another 700 words is spent in introductory throat clearing, we seem to be left with little that actually takes the book's critical measure. And I wonder, to some extent, if the reason isn't this:

Anyone living in the 1950s could imagine such a destiny. I did, though I'm five years younger than Roth, who was seventeen when the war started. An innocent boy who dies in a war has been such a common occurrence in the history of the world that calling it a tragedy doesn't carry much conviction.

I'm left wondering whether Simic's personal identification with this story diverted him from a more critical approach? Because once you really spend some time with this review, there doesn't seem to be much there there. Did Simic know that on some level and fill the space with plot - (a tendency I've seen before at NYRoB)? Or did he genuinely feel the best service to be offered to readers was a virtual scene by scene recounting of the novel?

How do you find this review? Do you consider it useful, illuminating? Does it strike you as New York Review of Books caliber? I'd love to hear what you think on this one as I try to wrap this all up.

Posted at 08:41 PM in The Summer of Roth | Permalink

Comments

I read the Simic review as well (after having read yours and, cautiously, a few others, as I haven't yet read the novel itself), and found the tedious plot summary strikingly unexpected, to say the least.

I don't at first thought have much to offer, though, other than this: this is a great post, but it would serve well, in some incarnation, as a letter to the editors of the NYRoB as well.

Posted by: AJG | October 08, 2008 at 10:49 PM

I haven't read the review in question, but I just want to say that I find book reviews that are largely plot summary extremely irritating.

Posted by: Rachael King | October 10, 2008 at 01:00 PM

Yup, right on. It was poor by any standard. Had he been restricted to 600 words, maybe he could have said somethng of value. I remember reading Joyce Carol's Oates' review of Rushdie's Enchantress in NYRB and was struck dumb by how, despite a massive word count, she had nothing illuminating to add at all. Just needless quotes and summaries sprinkled throughout.

Posted by: sanjay | October 10, 2008 at 01:12 PM

Is "music" really the right word to use to describe Roth's work? "Strong," sure. "Lean," absolutely. "Sound," okay.

But music? He's anything but lyrical, I think, and the tightness of his focus has a clinical, almost scientific aspect.

Maybe it's because I'm not a fan, but to me he seems among the least musical of writers.

Posted by: Kit Stolz | October 11, 2008 at 08:43 PM

You said, "In a 4,000 word review, Simic spends nearly 2,900 of them offering nothing more than tedious plot summary. He simply retells the entire story of Indignation - and within that summary offers only a single extended quotation from the work."

Sounds like a NYTROB review to me. They're often interesting, but almost never acknowledge the work they're reviewing (I'm generalizing, but not by much.) My impression is usually that the reviewer has retold the story as if he had conceived of the idea himself. Think of that publication's works not as critical reviews, but as stand-alone essays that only use the original book as a reference.

Posted by: travis | October 17, 2008 at 11:33 AM

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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
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October 08, 2008

SIMIC ON ROTH II

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

October 08, 2008

SIMIC ON ROTH II

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