Notable Reviews

The beginning of Sven Birkerts's review of Brock Clarke's An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England:

Every so often, who knows why, a new literary aesthetic announces itself - an approach, a tonality, a way of setting up scenes and characters that clearly has to do with how the authors, and those readers who embrace them, experience reality. If there is not progress in the arts, there is certainly change.

I first caught wind of what seemed to be a distinct - and unsettling - new literary take on things reading Donald Antrim's short novel, Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World, and then I noted it soon after in work by writers like Ben Marcus, George Saunders, and Colson Whitehead. I'm sure they're not the only ones.

What struck me in all cases was the writers' way of staging reality. To begin with, they all deployed a style of affectlessness, even in presentation of moments when affect is ostensibly being expressed. This by itself dates back at least to Hemingway. What was different here was what felt like a carefully gauged disconnect between an action or event and emotion. I had an ongoing sense that something was "off," but a sense, too, that only a disappointingly dull reader would be looking for the old kinds of resonances. I would liken it to the black humor of decades past, except that it has a different edge; this tone seems occasioned not by the prospect of the Bomb so much as of a world permanently cut off from verities. Post-post-modern.

Brock Clarke's An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England is a paradigm instance of this sensibility. . . .

I sometimes wonder how much the author in question actually appreciates supposedly laudatory comments such as this:

Paul Theroux is something of a throwback. In an era when so many novelists jump up and down with tricks, verbal antics, shock and razzle-dazzle, all the while shouting -- like Baby Roo -- "Look at me, look at me," Theroux just gets on with telling a compelling story, with the smoothness of a confident professional. The Elephanta Suite is his 27th work of fiction. The man knows his business.

Or this:

Some readers might call Ann Patchett’s fifth novel, Run, a “feel good” book. I prefer to think of it as a “feel more” book.

There are no prose pyrotechnics here. Run is all about story: tight plot, generous characterization and compelling coincidence. And if you ever wondered how much feeling could be packed into a narrative that compresses time and space, read Run.

Are these reviewers expressing their honest assessment of what clearly are being labeled "conventional" novels? Do they truly intend to dismiss "verbal antics" and "prose pyrotechnics" in favor of "get[ting] on with a compelling story" and packing as much "feeling" as possible "into a narrative that compresses time and space"? Or are these just euphumisms, a way of signalling to the reader (as they do indeed signal to me) that these are just tedious more-of-the-same books, their authors not so much "throwbacks" to an era when being "straightforward" and "earnest" would do but "professional" writers in the worst sense of the term: repeating their own formulas, adopting the tried-and-true because it lends a vacuous "smoothness" to their work, indicates they know their "business"?

And if the reviewers are being honest, do indeed prefer their fiction free of "tricks"and pyrotechics--which is to say that it not engage in "too much writing"--are Paul Theroux and Ann Patchett satisfied with this sort of back-handed praise? Dirda later says of the novellas comprising The Elephanta Suite that "You could finish one in an evening." Is this a compliment, or might we conclude from Dirda's review that we could just as well watch Bones and House this Tuesday? Does Ann Patchett appreciate the distinction between "feel good" and "feel more"? Would either author like to see in these reviews some indication that what they've written is aesthetically credible rather than excuses for passing some spare time or ginning up some cheap emotion?

Comments

[poingu]

I ponder the same things but have concluded lately that most reviewers in what is left of mainstream review pages are simply unable to discover what their purpose is--to be aesthetic arbiters? to tell people what to buy and what to leave off buying until the paperback comes out? to entertain us with gossip? to make us feel dumb?--so to hide their confusion they grab at things that sound good from the press releases that come with their review copies.

This is why "compelling" is so popular a word in reviews, to be followed closely by "luminous," or, for the daring reviewer, "numinous."