Writes Ron Charles, in "The future of book reviews looks grim/The Associated Press will no longer produce book reviews, though it will pursue stories about the publishing industry" (WaPo).
Let's talk about the tuna salad and the unweeded garden. The unweeded garden is in quotes, but there is no attribution. We're talking about literature, and if you're one of the last remaining Americans who care about actual literature, you're presumably supposed to know "an unweeded garden that grows to seed." But we can all google and find the attribution. I know I did.
I've sat through "Hamlet" a few times in my life — and read it too — and the first soliloquy is familiar to me: "O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!" I know some other lines: "How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, Seem to me all the uses of this world!" But I didn't recognize "Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden, That grows to seed...."
And what of the tuna casserole? How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable seem to me all the tuna casseroles of this world! The tuna casseroles are those books your friends and internet contacts talk about. The comfort food, the genre novels. Bleeh. Makes Hamlet the Book Reviewer want to kill himself. "O... that the Everlasting had not fix'd His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!"
By the way, I find it hard to trust a writer who dresses up the word "nothing" with the dreadful intensifier "literally" and plunks the phrase a few words away from "literary": "After 30 years of summarizing the plots of literary novels, I can do literally nothing else." He's defending his own livelihood. That counts against his opinion. What am I to think of Ron Charles anyway? Here he is, 14 years ago, displaying himself as "totally hip," opining on an author who is, if nothing else, truly striving to produce literary fiction:
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'Tis an unweeded garden That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature Possess it merely. - William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Far be it from me to challenge Shakespeare, but is it the absence of weeding that causes the garden to go to seed? Or was he using "go to seed" figuratively to mean "go bad," rather than literally?
So long as there are writers and readers, there will be reviews, since the writers always need money.
Even when i read a lot more fiction, I wouldn't read "Book Reviews" in the MSM. Almost always, they were puff pieces. The Book reviewers loved everything. They were like movie reviewers - pushing product. The only exception came when someone "Coded" as "rightwing" like Tom Wolfe came along. Then they would dislike the novel.
The TLS used to be good, but then became so political and weird, I would only use it to "weed out" all the books I shouldn't read. Awards would also be good at pointing to well written fiction, but then you had to do additional research to figure out whether it was nominated (or won) because it was part "The X community" or politically correct or whether it was on merit.
I started reading (or listening) to Robert Stone, because he got several National Book Award nominations. Leftwing? Yes. But also a good writer, who wrote stories I found interesting.
I liked the vid, although the nude women were kind of a surprise
I miss the Reader’s Digest Condensed Books. And boy do modern novels need condensing.
In the quoted language (Charles, not his unattributed Shakespearian quote), he (a) craps on his/the readers' friends' lack of literary taste; (b) uses "jeremiad" to demonstrate that he is a complete jackass; (c) reduces his ostensible job - reviewing books - to "summarizing the plots;" (d) literally misuses the term "literally;" and (e) then tries to claim that his job is the "most eloquent" job in journalism. I guess those that can't write critique.
Oprah’s book club did more for Franzen.
Althouse on fire and laying waste to bad writing is my favorite Althouse. I'd go out of my way to find and read an Althouse book review. I'm a white male writer. The New Yorker hasn't shown interest in a story by my kind since the late 1980s, about when I started sending out manuscripts.
Laz he's referring to the weeds that were there so long they went to seed.
If want to know one reason why no one cares about MSM Critics go look at the pulitizer prize on wikipedia for "criticism". Typical winner:
2021 - Wesley Morris - for unrelentingly relevant and deeply engaged criticism on the intersection of race and culture in America, written in a singular style, alternately playful and profound."
Trying to remember the last book critics, I read and liked. Probably Jonathan Yardly of the WaPo. And Terry teachout, although he normally did theater/movies.
LLMs provide excellent book reviews. They are not biased comm majors as well.
Just go into Grok and type "write a book review for Dune" and you can optionally add "with no spoilers" although it knows what a book review is.
I went through Ukrainian history last night from WW1 to present.
Doing Roman history right now with the kids. Did a presentation on Saturn. Working on creative writing now.
The gap between inquisitive and mentally lazy is going to explode. A small number of people are going to integrate with this technology and leave everyone else behind.
Here's another typical well regarded critic and award winner:
Manohla Dargis -2018 - "for writing, both downbeat and uplifting, that demonstrated the critic's sustained dedication to exposing male dominance in Hollywood and decrying the exploitation of women in the film business."
But somehow she missed "Decrying" Harvey Weinstein. Anyone looking at these write-ups of award winners, it seems something Grok could do as well in about 5 seconds. The main thing is to match 2 opposites in your praise. Playfull and profound. Downbeat and uplifting. warm emotion and careful analysis. A desert topping and a floor wax.
"Literary fiction" feels like a kind of weird, artificial construct left over from the middle of the 20th century. The nineteenth century novels students study as "literature" -- Dickens, Hardy, Eliot, etc. -- weren't from a carefully curated walled garden of "literary" fiction. They were just popular! A lot of them were serialised, like weekly TV dramas or Japanese manga today, and with cliffhangers to keep the audience interested. Certainly, popular work isn't always of the same quality -- we read Dracula instead of Varney the Vampire in schools for a reason -- but I doubt whether in an hundred years the literary fiction of the 20th and 21st centuries will be much remembered other than as a niche academic curiosity.
“literally” literally lost its cachet literally five or six years ago.
Only thing I like topping my desert is cacti!
The dominance of the MSM film/Tv critics was destroyed by the internet. Does anyone miss them? Does anyone read them? Why read some NYT film review, when you can go on the net and read a bunch of short punchy reviews giving you a range of opinion?
To seed, or not to seed… that is teh question?
The film reviewers in the past that I really disliked, were the ones that just told you the plot. People still do this on podcast. There's one guy who does "classic film reviews" and all he does is spend 30 minutes describing the movie! OK thanks guy, but I wanted some analysis and opinion. I don't need you to tell me the plot.
"The nineteenth century novels students study as "literature" -- Dickens, Hardy, Eliot, etc. -- weren't from a carefully curated walled garden of "literary" fiction"
IRC, and I could have it wrong, that was Tolstoy's beef against "modern" art. To Tolstoy "true art" spoke to everyone, not just a bloodless elite out for "Something different" and obsessed with technique.
Has Oprah closed her Book Club? What's going on here?
"Iman said...
“literally” literally lost its cachet literally five or six years ago."
Limbaugh frequently used literally figuratively.
Making fun of newscasters and other ignoramuses.
I don't think his critique of Franzen is wrong, but the clip seems like a slap in the face of traditional literary culture -- or maybe its obituary.
Time was bullied into putting Franzen on its cover. They hadn't had a "serious literary novelist" as novelist on the cover for some time (Toni Morrison snuck in because of a movie tie-in, and Stephen King just as a scary face) and they were made to feel bad about it. Since then, Colson Whitehead and Brit Bennett appeared on the cover, but nobody reads the magazine anymore and has anybody heard of Brit Bennett? That week, they published six different covers with people from their 100 rising stars list, so it's not the same as in the old days.
Life's but a walking shadow,
A poor player who struts and frets
His hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more.
It is a tale told by a book reviewer,
Signifying literally nothing.
Well done on the video!
Best review ever of a Franzen novel.
And what of the tuna casserole? How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable seem to me all the tuna casseroles of this world!
Tuna casseroles are great, next all the weary, stale, and unprofitable green bean and mushroom soup casseroles of this unweeded world.
Franzen's book "Crossroads" is jaw-droppingly well written. It is just a joy to read. I let the various high-minded themes go completely over my head and don't feel like I missed anything.
There are book reviews everywhere. What's changing is that people getting paid for them no longer will.
I use Good reads, I have even contributed a few entries,
Hey, I like tuna casserole!
Anyway, there are already far more great books than I can read in a lifetime, so I won’t mind too much if we don’t add more to the pile.
BTW, White Noise by Delillo was good. So was, James Ellroy's White Jazz. Both listened too.
Tuna Casserole can be good, and doesn't have to be bland. But we don't eat it, because we cook much healthier dishes that taste better.
Libra is the only Delillo I really got into, White Jazz was probably due a good adaptation,
The traditional Navy slang for tuna casserole was Dead Japs.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58284091-think-of-me hears a recent entry
Derrida does literary book reviews, indeed it's a large part of his work.
Blanchot The Space of Literature is good. trans Ann Smock I think (checking) yes
Based on the search results, it appears the terms "shit on a shingle" and "foreskins on toast" both refer to versions of the same dish: creamed chipped beef (or sometimes ground beef) served over toast. The dish gained popularity during World War II as a staple for American soldiers,
Generic book review covering most "literary fiction":
"Unlikeable people who don't like each other either."
There is some good fiction being written today, but not under the label "literary fiction".
I tried to listen to Ellroy's book on the Kennedy assassination. Every subsection seemed to end with someone getting punched in the face or kicked in the nuts. It's as if that were punctuation for Ellroy.
My record of being 100% glad I clicked into/watched something you drew attention to like this has been shattered.
Leslie Graves, don't click on the Ebony and Ivory link in the other post.
goggles will do nothing,
Last year at Sligo, Eire, I had a lovely seafood gratin, and it didn't contain an atom of tuna.
Compared to VHS tapes, books have had a remarkably long run. There are people who still read them. I still read "books" but mostly not in book form. I read them on Kindle. If you see a difficult word, you just have to put your finger on it and get a definition. I read a lot of British historians and they're always throwing in a lot of obscure words. Bunch of smart asses in my opinion.......There used to be a time when books like GWTW, The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, A Bell for Adana, Tales of the South Pacific would win the Pulitzer. Iirc, Joseph Pulitzer wanted the winners of the prize to celebrate American virtue. How primitive we were back in those days.
I was reading one recent gomez jurado, a Spanish noir stylist and it had all sorts of exotic terms, Tibetan Indian, because the protagonist is a sliander type super genius,
I never acknowledged the value of literary criticism until I ran across the substack of the Psmiths. It is at my level of interest and I highly recommend it. https://www.thepsmiths.com/
rhhardin said...
Based on the search results, it appears the terms "shit on a shingle" and "foreskins on toast"
Ww2 vets had a hardon for foreskins. As I advanced my illustrious career I was an aide to the VP of manufacturing at hq when I was 30. He had the usual “ you were good in that meeting, you didn’t say anything and you didn’t sound stupid”thing. But at a meeting where we lost something he would pull me into his office and say “we stepped on our foreskins in there, go get me some reinforcements.”
I enjoyed the Hell out of Ellroy’s “American Tabloid”. It was a struggle to put it down, once I started reading it. It was both refreshing and highly entertaining!
The VP was a former captain of artillery in the 3rd army Ww2 era. Motto: The round looked good to me on the way out sir.”
Hah. I just asked ChatGPT for a list of the most highly regarded American literary novels of the 20th century, and after it gave me the list, I asked which of them were written by American born white men. It gave one. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. One.
And people wonder why the literary novel is falling by the wayside. People have always preferred genre fiction, but once the credibility behind admonitions that literary novels were somehow superior has been self immolated by the supremacy of politics in the evaluation of the quality of fiction, well, I don't blame people for rejecting it. It's a great loss, but I don't blame the readers for it.
It's kind of a weird thing that after centuries of writing the greatest fiction the world has ever seen, white men forgot how to write. Bill Shakespeare probably couldn't make it in this environment.
Literary Criticism? Think of the cart and the horse and in which order they should proceed. And as for Lit Crit, I think of the road apples.
Literary Criticism at its highest level, I enjoy. Edmund Wilson, A.N. Wilson, Henry James, Hugh Kenner, Ruskin, Cyril Connolly, F.R. Leavis, George Orwell, Wyndham Lewis, Pound, and Eliot.
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