Thursday, July 21, 2005

They Know We Exist! Just the other day I was saying on Beatrice that the literary skirmishes in the war between old media and the blogosphere were more genteel than the other debates. The Reading Experience offers a stellar example, as James Wood drops by to take issue with Dan Green's criticisms of his take on Cormac McCarthy, and though the debate itself gets caustic as Green digs in his heels, the overall tone leans towards the respectful. Even the chiding turns complimentary: "Your blog is not as obscure as you imagine; and I read you because I take seriously your articulate defence of the postmodern position." posted by ron @ Thursday, July 21, 2005 | Permanent link

Monday, July 18, 2005

Irving Envy What's behind the contrast in this week's NYTBR between the fawning cover placement (not to mention what may be the only flattering André Carrilho caricature in Review history) of John Irving's latest, which even Paul Gray tacitly admits after several long paragraphs of plot summary isn't very good, with the half-page or so, whittling away the ad and the headshot, of commentary on Kathryn Harrison's Envy? While Emily Nussbaum isn't completely won over by Envy, it's clear that she considers it a substantial book and Harrison a significant contemporary writer. So why is Harrison's effort given short shrift in comparison to Irving's, when the paper's own critics seem to believe she's better at handling psychological and sexual themes than he is? I'd like to be charitable and think it's because Harrison's book is just one-third as long as Irving's, or that somebody thought it might be unseemly to lavish too much attention on a writer who's also a regular (and regularly good) NYTBR contributor. Likewise, I can recognize Nussbaum's admirable concision as opposed to Gray's rambling. But maybe it's that being an eminence grise still trumps being a "wonderful writer," enabling a male author to be considered endearing when his protagonist goes through round after round of pre-adolescent sexual activity, while a woman author spends a decade contending with opprobrium for dealing with "narcissism, family violation, sexual taboo and physical suffering" in her fiction and nonfiction. That's Nussbaum's catalog of Harrison's themes, anyway, but it's kinda surprising how well it holds up when juxtaposed with many of Irving's novels, no? posted by ron @ Monday, July 18, 2005 | Permanent link