Comments on: It’s the Books, Stupid

By: Imani

Imani — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 21:04:09 +0000

“That’s not to say that other books shouldn’t get covered. But there is a heirarchy and a pecking order. But the biggest and most important guns deserve a certain amount of play. And if someone is going to be taken seriously, to some degree they should be able to add to the conversation concerning the big books.”

No. No, no no no no no, no no, no no no. I, as a reader, do not need every single book review page, literary magazine and journal to review the same Rushdie-Bloom-Roth-McEwan book, certainly not at the same time, predictably given the front page (whether the darn thing is good or even an interesting failure) days apart. No, I don’t see why a paper has to review the new Didion to be taken seriously. It’s the quality of the reviews, the writing, the diverse, intriguing selection of books that, the pages devoted to fiction that makes me take a book review section seriously. Dare to be bleepin’ different, for crying out loud.

By: Lyn leJeune

Lyn leJeune — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 19:33:26 +0000

The homogeneity of book reviewing follows the homogeneity of the publishing houses’ amount of money for marketing and this flow of money and influence does not necessarily have that much to do with the value of the book in terms of a civilization. I grew up reading Roth and he deserves to be ranked at one of America’s best writers of the last sixty years. But I just don’t know if America wants to read a book wherein the first three pages is about an old guy’s incontinence problems. I get the book, I really do; analogy and parable and all that. Maybe next a book about some old lady’s vaginal prolapse?
Lyn

By: Daniel

Daniel — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 13:33:18 +0000

HAH! I’ve read (and I wrote) similar posts all over the web. Pretty much the entire literary world just wants them to shut up and get back to work. Cowboy up, as it were.

By: charles b

charles b — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 03:31:06 +0000

I would say this: right now, so far this fall, if you are a blog or a big reviewer, you have to deal with Denis Johnson and Junot Diaz and the last Ghostwriter novel by Roth. The Amy Bloom book perhaps as well. Three have made the NYTBR best seller list for fiction, and probably the Roth will as well. In the case of all four you are dealing with novels by celebrated and quite special writers.

That’s not to say that other books shouldn’t get covered. But there is a heirarchy and a pecking order. But the biggest and most important guns deserve a certain amount of play. And if someone is going to be taken seriously, to some degree they should be able to add to the conversation concerning the big books.

By: DrMabuse

DrMabuse — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 01:49:50 +0000

Nope.

By: xensen

xensen — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 00:57:08 +0000

Nice. You were the author?