Slate: “Yellow-dog Democrats like Keillor spend a lot of time whining about how America’s standing in the world has declined of late, but this is how he treats a guest who spends half his time combating anti-Americanism in France. Simply because [Bernard-Henri Levy] mentions a fact that has actually caught other eyes (the tendency of Americans to become riotously fat) he is addressed like this: ‘Thanks pal. … Thanks for coming. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. For your next book, tell us about those riots in France, the cars burning in the suburbs of Paris. What was all that about? Were fat people involved?’ One moans for shame that such a vulgar jerk is thought of, and even known overseas, as some kind of national entertainer.”
Hitch Goes After Keillor
– February 15, 2006Posted in: Hitchens, Christopher, keillor-garrison
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (
Hitch is spot on— Keillor is a pretentious and phony creep. And having him assess Levy’s book is an insult to the notion of honest intellectual inquiry
While Am Vertigo is not without faults—Marianne Wiggins did a smart job pointing them out in the LA Times a few weeks back, Levy is a thinker worth payimg attention to— as his recent piece in the Nation on the dearth of a Left in the US shows.
Assigning Keillor this book to review is a cynical and devious gesture having nothing to do with serving readers. Maybe it was the editor’s sense of entertainment, in which c ase I suggest he get out more often.
I’ve never understood the appeal of Garrison Keillor either. Aside from the fact that his flatline timbre puts me to sleep quite easily, his “humor” is wrapped in the same solipsistic, high thread-count counterpane one finds couples arguing over in the sticks. There is nothing self-deprecatory about the man at all. On general principle, I try to avoid egos like that.
Yes, but he’s such a Poetry Expert!