About Last Night is one year old. We’d have more to say, but then we’d have to unveil the latest draft of the Teachout roast we’ve been working on for six months, which only Sarah’s had the good fortune to read. (Rest assured the roast, which has only recently been cut down to eight hours, isn’t ready anyway. It goes far beyond Terry’s well-publicized endowment and includes a gripping narrative of OGIC’s early days in Lisbon as a flamenco dancer, much of which has yet to be confirmed by our well-paid fact-checking department.) But a happy year nonetheless to Terry and OGIC, hopefully with more to come.

Sara looks at book reviews from an auctorial perspective. She writes, “The reviews can be limp with distaste or bristling with sarcasm or even positive — but one thing is pretty constant: I almost always have the really strong sense that the reviewer didn’t really read the book beyond a casual skimming. Here’s the thing: reviews — even mean spirited ones, even nasty ones — would be easier to take if the process were less opaque.” A good point, but an unfair generalization, I think. To look at the issue from the reviewer’s perspective, the real question is whether “casual skimming” means shifting gears to a level that involves dwelling upon almost every planted nicety that an author has included in her novel. Another suggestion is that the book reviewing climate has been influenced in part by the film review climate (of which more anon). Even if the review climate is willing to give the reviewer the time and compensation for extended contemplation, I’m curious about what constitutes an appropriate in-depth level or whether, indeed, such a level’s actually compatible with the short-and-snappy demands of an editor.

In an ideal review climate, I think we’d see reviewers all propounding passions and theories, discernible to literary folk and laymen alike, with the reviewer trying to compound her copious notes (assuming she takes notes!) into a 1,200 word piece. But I would argue that the reviewing climate has become so lazy and unrewarding that not only are reviewers loath to do the proper work, but the space they receive in current newspapers is equally undervalued. Where a movie is two hours, often with nary a nugget of complexity or a double entendre, and thus very compatible with, say, a formulaic 500 word essay, a book involves more of an abstract experience that runs several hours longer and involves considerably more research. The film critic may watch an auteur’s back catalog (all in the time it takes to read a book!), but is less likely to look up a reference, investigate a phrasing, or otherwise engage in the more invested experience that the book reviewer would, under the right circumstances, need to include.

I suggest that this tonal transformation has much to do with the categorization by necessity of books as “entertainment, not art.” Another factor is the continuing stigma that prevents a popular (and skillful) 1940s author like John P. Marquand from being recognized in the same breath as Theodore Dreiser (depending upon whether Dreiser himself is in favor this year or not). At the present time, we see a situation in which books are either “art” or “entertainment,” but almost rarely joined at the twain. (And when they are to some extent, we see stigmas, such as those levied against Jonathan Franzen, Charles Frazier and Tom Wolfe.) By contrast, movies, by way of being prohibitively expensive and therefore a greater gamble, are by their very necessity a compromise within that dichotomy. There are film snobs, to be sure; but thanks to the mass proliferation of indie and art house films on DVD (through such successful mail order companies as Netflix), the art house film experience doesn’t possess nearly the prominent dichotomy that one sees at almost any literary function (not unlike the opera or they symphony). Indeed, on the film front, art itself has become democratized and it is quite possible that the populace’s standards have raised. (Certainly, the sharper dropoffs for the latest Hollywood crapola blockbuster may point in this direction.)

My real question here, in light of the recent NEA results, is whether we can ever see a similar situation occur in the book world. Would it happen if some enterprising developer was to institute Bookflix, perhaps as an alternative to the dwindling hours and selections at public libraries? Or suppose publishers actually tried to market books to kids at a younger age? After all, if Pepsi-Cola and McDonald’s can be aggressive about hooking kids onto addictive substances while young, why not book publishers?

Going back to some of the transformative causes, what we have, I believe, is a situation in the book review world where enthusiasm has, in part, replaced literary criticism, perhaps an effort by editors to corral the tone of their entertainment pages to a conforming whole. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but one would hope that current book reviews would be predicated on finding a halfway point that invites the lay reader while satisfying the learned sophisticate. Or is the situation so horrid and hopelessly irreversible that we have reached the point of no return?

Thanks in part to Sarah, I just spoke with Linda Yablonsky, who had lunch with Dale Peck when Stanley Crouch confronted him. She told me that as the two of them were dining, Stanley Crouch looked in. He put his hand on Peck’s shoulder and asked, “Are you Dale Peck?” Peck was a little flushed, but prepared. The two of them stared at each other. There was silence. Peck asked, “So what?”

Crouch didn’t know what. He then replied, “I just wanted to meet you. I just wanted to know what you were.”

Peck didn’t react. Then there was a brief beat, and Crouch slapped Peck in the face, leaving a mark.

Everyone in Tartine grew silent. The busboy cowered (which may explain why the restaurant owner knew nothing about it). Crouch said something else — what he said, Yablonsky does not know. Then he apologized and said to Peck, “Now you have something on me.”

Peck then said something along the lines of “If you hit me again, you’ll…”

Crouch then said that he shouldn’t have slapped Peck, but suggested that the two of them step outside. Peck refused and Crouch left.

Yablonsky reminded me that Crouch is, in her words, “five times the size” of Peck.

(Thanks to Linda Yablonsky, whose novel The Story of Junk, can be purchased here.)

Enduring Love, a film adaptation of the Ian McEwan novel, is set to make its world premiere at the next Toronto International Film Festival. The film was directed by Notting Hill/Changing Lanes director Roger Mitchell and penned by Joe Penhall.

Newsday has followed up on the Peck-Crouch smackdown. Crouch declined to comment, but he acknowledges in the article that he saw Peck at Tartine. Newsday did note that Crouch was once fired for hitting a colleague at the Village Voice.

I’ve called the owner of Tartine, the restaurant where Crouch allegedly hit Peck. The owner declined to give his name to me, but he told me that he was unaware of anyone fighting or hitting anybody yesterday. And none of his staff reported the incident to him.

Until we can get a report corroborated from a Tartine employee, I’m inclined to believe that the incident was exaggerated somewhat on Gawker. And Choire did, after all, disclaim that he rooms with Peck.