The Knopf Times Book Review
Written by Edward ChampionPosted on December 3, 2008
Filed Under New York Times, Tanenhaus, Sam
[UPDATE: On the evening of January 21, 2009, I asked Tanenhaus in person about the concerns satirized below, and I was able to get a few answers. I point readers of this post to the direction of my later post, "In Which I Talk with Tanenhaus," where some questions are answered and Tanenhaus's perspective is reported.]
It started with Sam Tanenhaus’s ridiculously uncritical review (and fawning video interview) with John Updike. It continued with Tanenhaus’s lips nearly licking Toni Morrison to a needlessly sensual premature death. But this afternoon, Sam Tanenhaus proved that The New York Times Book Review isn’t an independent organ, but rather a throbbing and dependent organ shoving itself restlessly into Knopf’s moist vagina. The New York Times Book Review selected its top ten books of 2008. Seven of the books were from Knopf. Of the remaining three selections, two were from other Random House imprints under Knopf’s watch. The only other publisher served was Farrar, Straus & Giruoux.
I think it goes without saying that someone is getting a cock sucked here.
My beef here is not with Random House, who has been consistently receptive and helpful to journalists of all stripes, but with Sam Tanenhaus’s embarrassingly tendentious selection process. These are malodorous results that reek as shamefully as the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s “decision-making process” during the Golden Globe Awards. It bears the skunkish whiff of junkets and favoritism. And it certainly doesn’t behoove any “paper of record” that expects us to take it seriously.
If this is a desperate ploy on Tanenhaus’s part to coax Random House to buy more advertising space in the New York Times Book Review, well, the joke here’s on Tanenhaus. Because why should Random House buy an advertisement in the NYTBR when they’re getting all this free publicity?
Look, I love Updike as much as the next guy. But let’s face the facts. By and large, the critics seemed to agree that The Widows of Eastwick didn’t quite cut the mustard. For Tanenhaus to write, in all seriousness, “At 76, he still wrings more from a sentence than almost anyone else. His sorcery is startlingly fresh, page upon page,” suggests very strongly that Tanenhaus assigned the wrong guy to review the book. It is one thing to marvel at Updike’s prose. But it’s quite another to fawn over it like an uncritical and sycophantic lapdog. For all the love and fanboyish accolades that have been granted to Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland and Roberto Bolano’s 2666, I’ve never seen any of these plaudits spill over into Tanenhaus’s unmitigated hero worship.
How can any man live with himself knowing that he is such an unrepentant whore? Thank goodness Dwight Garner got out of this sausage factory when he did for the daily book reviewing gig. Compare Garner’s more adept review of Alison Bechdel’s The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For in today’s edition. It’s just as effusive as Tanenhaus’s Updike review, but at least Garner still has some respect: both for himself and the readership.
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Books To Jump Up and Down Over
Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan. The famed writers behind Smart Bitches, Trashy Books have written a very funny and thoughtful volume about romances, both Old Skool and New Skool. Here is a book that any smug and humorless literary manboy beating his flabby passive chest over Banville or Bolano should probably read pronto, if only for the distant possibility that he might get over himself. While the Choose Your Own Adventure segment at the end caused me to have a very disturbing dream involving Shelley Long (don't ask), Sarah and Candy did have me rethinking many of my own misperceptions when I wasn't busy laughing. They're not afraid to take on the New York Times Bok Review or even the groupthink within certain sectors of the romance community.
Alice Fantastic by Maggie Estep. This wild and highly enjoyable narrative involves two sisters (presumably, the third one was still being rented out by Chekhov), a hippie ex-junkie mother who lives with seventeen dogs, a murder, gambling, and libidinous Hollywood actresses who live in Woodstock. But this is the wonderful Maggie Estep we're talking here. And what seems at first like a quirky yarn becomes something unexpectedly moving about connectivity. What I love about Estep's work is the way that she'll juxtapose an extremely astute observation (now that you mention it, why do cab drivers always have somebody to talk with on the phone past midnight?) with an often outrageous story development.
Generosity by Richard Powers. It doesn't come out until September 29th, but Richard Powers's latest will have anyone committed to books reconsidering their literary fervor. I foresee some animosity from the vanilla critics hostile to idea-driven novels, but book bloggers, YouTube chroniclers, and MFAs would do well to plunge into this chance-taking narrative, which introduces vital questions about what the reader's relationship is with media, scientific dissection, and "creative nonfiction." Are we rats fleeing to happy cities? Or can we find the humanism within the purported plague?
Pieces for the Left Hand by J. Robert Lennon. Lennon is one of the most underrated fiction writers working today. Much as On the Night Plain proved that Lennon had a lot more in the toolbox than heartfelt (and often very funny) suburban satire, this slim but fascinating volume juxtaposes 100 small-town anecdotes -- arranged by category -- in a manner that reads, at times, like Nicholson Baker's passions for minutiae and, at other times, Stewart O'Nan's concern for psychological detail. The result is fiction that makes us wonder about whether one person's subjective view of particulars can entirely be trusted. This book never found a publisher in 2005. But thankfully, Graywolf has released it in the United States, along with Lennon's latest novel, The Castle.
Wonderful World by Javier Calvo. This wonderfully raucous volume has been completely ignored by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. But it's probably one of the most delightful reading experiences I've had this year. Calvo cavalierly mashes up multiple genres and manages to mix up familial subtext with larger-than-life, almost cartoonish characters. (Indeed, one might argue that one mobster's penis is a character of its own in this sprawling novel.). This is not an easy thing to pull off, but Calvo makes it work. And it's helped immeasurably by Mara Faye Lethem's idiom-specific translation. (See longer post.)
The Means of Reproduction, Michelle Goldberg This thoughtful book tackles the complicated (and little discussed) subject of reproductive rights from numerous angles, which includes a number of unpleasant but necessary ones. The upshot is that there isn't a quick fix solution for declining birth rates and fundamentalist abuses. Just about every political faction has contributed to the friction. But you'll want to read this book anyway to refamiliarize yourself with the topic, but also to understand just what's occurred during the past several decades to get us where we are today. (See also podcast interview with Goldberg.)
So Random House is hermaphroditic?
And The New Yorker is running ads from Monsanto Corporation, buying a one-way ticket into an especially fiery circle of hell.
Say what you want about Knopf, but they do put out a lot more important books than many other publishers. Small presses are good for literature but they don’t have the resources to publish as many good books. I tried to send the NYT my top ten list of 2008 but they had already closed the comments. Can I send it to you, Ed? It does have 2 Knopf titles and 8 by major presses. That seems par for the course.
Here are my Top Ten Books for 2008:
1. 2666, by Roberto Bolano (FSG)
2. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, David Wroblewski (Ecco)
3. In the Devil’s Territory, by Kyle Minor (Dzanc Books)
4. Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri (Knopf)
5. Lush Life, by Richard Price (FSG)
6. Oh, Baby, by Kim Chinquee (Ravenna Press)
7. Our Story Begins, by Tobias Wolff (Knopf)
8. Indignation, by Philip Roth (Houghton Mifflin)
9. Say You’re One of Them, by Uwem Akpan (Little, Brown)
10. Serena, by Ron Rash (Ecco)
[...] will certainly not see the sleazy favoritism practiced by Sam Tanenhaus (I have tried to spread the love across multiple publishers), nor the gutless and tone-deaf choices [...]
[...] the issue still carries the stigma of sleazily tendentious decision making, at least it has managed to restore itself with pretty decent [...]
I agree with the author. It’s time to find independent sources for fiction like newfiction.com . It’s all about quality.
[...] was particularly fixated on my “The Knopf Times Book Review” post, in which I had proposed that The New York Times Book Review had been bought and paid for by Knopf. [...]
I always got the impression that NYTBR was beholden to NY publishers. (Fun fact: did you know that NY is no longer the second most populated state in the US?). It is unbelievable that Knopf had so many titles. But here are three mitigating factors:
1)Knopf can afford to send out lots of review copies; smaller publishers are not able to (although I suspect most of them still send it to NYTBR–a person can hope after all).
2)Knopf bids on talent. In other words, they no longer discover talent; they just watch out which writers are making money in the minor leagues, and offer them bigger contracts.
3)NYT is clueless about the ebook revolution. That’s where a lot of groundbreaking titles are coming from . NYT is totally blind about this.
4)Groupthink. It’s hard to read a lot of books these days. And the type of critics who write for NYTBR are already fairly well-known and have traditional highbrow tastes. They don’t strike me as adventurous readers. It’s hard enough just keeping up with what’s coming from NY publishers. I suspect the regular critics just never have the time to venture much further.
Good reporting and an excellent post, which I just stumbled on googling Tanenhaus’s name. I’ve recently done a couple posts at my blog on an unrelated lousy move by Mr. T. Maybe of interest to you?
http://fascinatedcuriously.wordpress.com/2009/07/07/right-wing-loonies-read-my-blog/
Anyway, thanks again for this great post–a little more high-brow than the stuff I do, but great nonetheless…