Chekhov’s Mistess

May 05, 2008

Oh, that’s who he was talking about…Franzen on Troy Patterson

 

Jonathan Franzen recently had this to say about book critics:

“‘The most upsetting thing nowadays is the feeling that there’s no one out there responding intelligently to the text,’ he said. ‘So few people are actually doing serious criticism. It’s so snarky, it’s so ad hominem, it’s so black and white.’”

There’s much to be said about this, but soon after reading it I happen to see a review of Mark Sarvas’s novel Harry Revised in the New York Times Book Review and was amused at how well the review fit Franzen’s characterization.

One way to tell if a reviewer actually has something to say is to see how much space they devote to discussion and how much to description or folderol. Troy Patterson, a boob-tube critic for Slate, spends the first 330 or so pages of his 1024 word review describing the book (which wouldn’t be bad if he’d gone on to draw valid conclusions or make comparisons) and the last 200 pages (inexplicably) talking about blogging. So that’s half of the review devoted to something other than an actual discussion of the book.

Where he does exercise his critical powers he does so entirely without nuance:

“…it is as if Harry were a voodoo doll and his creator eager to wear out a gross of stickpins. The author jabs the hero’s side with ‘a stab of irritation,’ ‘an unexpectedly sharp stab of pain,’ ‘an involuntary stab of jealousy’ and a ‘stab of guilt as it blossoms into anger.’ Harry’s soul is battered by a ‘wave of anger,’ ‘waves of despair,’ ‘a sweaty wave of guilt, remorse and shame,’ a ‘wave of queasy self-loathing’ and, climactically, ‘a tsunami of loss.’”

Patterson never gives any extended quotes from Harry Revised but I’d gather that (besides Patterson’s aversion to the word “stab” in all its potential meaning) these descriptions must be close together in the text or some offense warranting such derision, because in and of themselves these phrases, spread across a 272 page book, indicate nothing.

It’s not clear whether Patterson takes issue with Sarvas’s use of the word “gambit” or his using it:

“I will grant you that these days, only chess players seem to use the word ‘gambit’ properly, but Harry is supposed to be infatuated with the game of kings. Other terms that the novelist is pretentious enough to use despite his not knowing their precise meanings include ‘enormity,’ ‘parameters,’ ‘jumper,’ ‘tortuous’ and ‘petty crime.’”

I am often shocked at the pretensiousness of using the word “parameters,” aren’t you?

To accuse a novelist of pretentiousness should be backed with some more damning evidence and I think it’s not only a signal of intellectual lameness (as in, is that the best you can come up with?) but also something of an emotional bent to the review. Could Patterson be omniscient enough to know that a novelist must share the feelings of his character? “Harry…appraises her naked body with a disgust that the author seems to share..”

And Look at the last very long paragraph devoted to blogging, a subject that has absolutely nothing to do with the novel. Patterson begins: “That you are reading a review of this novel in these pages is a testament to the author’s success as a blogger.” He then discusses Sarvas’s blog posts! This is entirely out of place and shocking (or perhaps not) to find in a review in one of the nation’s leading newspapers.

It must be obvious that any first novel that’s reviewed in the Times gets there because of publicity driven factors (among others, I’m sure), so why would Patterson even bother to say that at all and then devote 20% of his review to blogs and Sarvas’s blog posts?

Now, I have to imagine that an editor at the review read and approved that passage, so it must be true: Mark Sarvas’s book was reviewed in The New York Times Book Review because he has been a successful blogger. If the very Review in question signed off on it, it must be true. Hmmm. That sure does say a lot about New York Times Book Review, doesn’t it.

p.s. For the record, yes of course I’m acquainted with Mark, and indeed, that’s the only reason I happened upon the review because I don’t regularly read the NYTBR. But it was the rudeness of the review and its utter lack of intellect, and of course the amusing coincidence of proving Franzen’s point, that drove me to write, I assure you.

• posted by Bud Parr
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