Afterthoughts

On February 7, Mark Athitakis published both a review of Don DeLillo's Point Omega and a blog post supplementing that review. The review (printed in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune) is a perfectly good review of its kind--the kind limited by the newspaper's imposed limitations of space and the need to address a perceived "general" audience--but what struck  me the most is how superior to the review, and ultimately more useful to readers, is the blog post.

The review does an effective job in its first paragraph of locating the new DeLillo novel in the context of his other recent work, and immediately lets the reader know it is a book worth his/her attention. What follows is three paragraphs (out of six total paragraphs) of plot summary, which succinctly enough encapsulate the "story" of Point Omega (succinct plot summaries not being something I normally anticipate in most newspaper reviews, it must be said) and a concluding paragraph that states the reviewer's judgment that the novel manifests an "elegance" and "an artfulness to the prose" that make it more satisfying than DeLillo's previous book.

In the blog post, Athitakis quotes the conclusion of his review, but then moves well beyond the kind of compressed commentary he is able to provide there. The first thing he does is to refer to other critical reaction to Point Omega, a move that is apparently forbidden in most print book reviews. The assumption seems to be that a review must be free-standing, shorn of the useful context consideration of existing commentary on a book might offer. This is a practice that only reinforces the impression of book reviewing as "lifestyle reporting" rather than actual literary criticism, and it's a shame reviewers like Athitakis are not able to engage in real critical dialogue in the reviews they write. In this case, the quotes from the other reviews he includes in his post allow him to express his dissent from prevailing views and to emphasize what he thinks is a misperception of Point Omega.

Athitakis then goes more deeply into what he considers the "timelessness" of DeLillo's concerns, contrary to the notion he's become preoccupied with "abstracted musings on geopolitics" since the events of 9/11/01. He suggests that "the novel’s central tension isn’t between war and peace or American empire and the rapidly approaching apocalypse (though DeLillo hasn’t neglected those concerns), but between differing notions of what it means to be patient. How soon do you perceive somebody’s disappearance as a loss? How long does it take to come around to somebody else’s way of thinking? How much time is required to shift from being concerned about humanity to being concerned about a single human being?" This analysis reflects a level of critical contemplation for which the editors of newspaper book reviews have little patience, but which this blog post presents very cogently.

It isn't that Athitakis's post is much longer than the review, but that it doesn't have to observe the numbing conventions of literary journalism as imposed on the book review. At first it seems like an afterthought to the main business represented by the review, but to me it finally comes to embody the critic's thoughts much more fully. Increasingly, blog-published reviews and criticism in general are more satisfying in this way than what can be found in print publications, especially newspapers.

Comments

[Finn Harvor]

The lot of the freelancer is a hard one indeed; a reminder that no labour-intensive-yet-poorly-paid deed goes unpunished. But if, in the early days of the Plastic Millennium, idealism is getting it in the neck from *all sorts* of directions, why not see the obvious? The world of print coverage is what it is, and, as has been pointed out repeatedly at this site, its trend toward plumbing and/or cut-backing the depths isn't going to change. Economics dictates this as much as anything else.

But -- and here's the fine point of it -- it's difficult to discern, I mean, really truly, how the blogosphere will do better.... I mean, yes, it will do better here and there, in patches and zones, but will it do better overall, qualitatively? I don't see that, and one reason why is I don't see a blogosphere that's in love with its own creative productions. Fade in on the pitiable figure of ThorAu, bent over his desktop while his eyes go and his hopes fade. What was it really all about, then, this lettered life, this life of the mind? Did he produce novels to … mainly get book-reviewing gigs? Did he become a writer to … mainly read? (And, o! The reading that sometimes was entailed; not being born on the right side of the parallel, ThorAu has had to keep up with the holy trinities of *several* national literatures: St. Munro, St. Atwood, St. Ondaatch ...St. Roth, St. DeLillo, St. Deaddike … Monsignor McEwan, Abbess Mantel, Pope Amis ... not to mention the zen masters of the East.)

Sure, the net offers the opportunity for more personal, more detailed criticism. However, as it does so, it still primarily aids and abets a publishing system that has become as insulated as a Tsarist bureaucracy.

ThorAu reaches for a smoke. No, he doesn't smoke. ThorAu reaches for a healthy munchie -- some raw cabbage hits the spot.

ThorAu lives his life, and writes his life and the life of those around him and those that preceded him, and all this is transcribed and dutifully saved with crematorial compactness by a hard-disk.

A friend visits.

"Was it worth it?"

"Sure. I did it for its own sake."

"But was it what you *wanted* it to be?"

The dry, defensive laugh of the disappointed. "*Who* gets things as they *wanted them* to be?"

"But people did, a few decades ago. I mean, people -- people like you, that is -- were at least offered a system of selection that made some kind of sense, that had some degree of fairness to it. I mean, there was a time when publishing houses, too, *read*."

"Publishing houses still read."

"But no one reads the productions of the publishing houses that read. That's the tragedy of it all. All people read nowadays is the Big Lists of the But Bigger Houses -- and they don't read ... they don't read the riff-raff, that is."

"Maybe, then, being part of the riff-raff is what I deserved."

"Yes, yes. But the crit-riff-raff might have at least shared their smokes -- I mean, chunks of cabbage -- with you those days you all huddled under bridge."

"What bridge is that?"

"You remember, the bridge,” ThorAu's friend insists. And at this point he points to the horizon, toward that fantastic construction that stretches from the mainland to the airport, and he says with complete and happy wonder, "the World Wide Bridge."

[August]

Referencing other reviews is completely forbidden in short-form newspaper reviews. I did it once (not realizing it was taboo; it was only my second published review, and I had no idea how newspapers worked, coming as I was from a purely academic background, where you're almost required to cite secondary sources). Those bits were cut, I got my hands smacked, and have never been able to get a paid reviewing gig at that paper again, despite them telling me they were otherwise very pleased with my ability.