The Novels of Kim Young-ha
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It’s amazing that in 2012 The Atlantic can still publish something so clueless as this. Titled “Could the Internet Save Book Reviews?” the posting purports to be an investigation into just that. So, what vital new review sources does intrepid Atlantic reporter Sarah Fay turn up? After the obligatory smack at Amazon reviews, we learn,
But there are also signs of hope from pioneers like Nancy Pearl, the Seattle librarian behind “Book Lust.” Pearl tends to recommend rather than review but does so with the expertise that only a librarian or someone who works in an independent bookstore has. (She was also the inspiration for the first librarian action figure.) Like Pearl, Jessa Crispin of Bookslut.com recommends rather than reviews but where Pearl is earnest Crispin is irreverent and sometimes vulgar. She’s a savvy, hipster reviewer whose site is a haphazard array of literary gossip, sound bites, and reviews. Goodreads is a social network for book reviews, but it’s modeled on a book-club model rather than a journalistic one. For now, Goodreads is basically Facebook with books, but if enough contributors set the bar high with creative, funny, and smart reviews it might become a force of its own. These recommenders offer a vision for Orwell’s hope that there be short reviews of less-worthy titles.
The future of book reviewing isn’t confined to the written word: Podcasts could reinvent or ruin journalistic literary criticism. There currently exist only three podcasts that truly review books: Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust podcast, which also airs on NPR’s Morning Edition, Maureen Corrigan’s reviews on Fresh Air, and Tom Lutz’s Los Angeles Review of Books podcasts on KCRW—all of which are smart, valuable resources. Out magazine’s “Outsider” podcast airs once every couple of months and reviews film and visual art as well. The panel of guests for the show often includes Dale Peck, a writer who reached book-reviewer superstardom (if there is such a thing) with Hatchet Jobs, a collection of his reviews for The New Republic, in 2004. He’s best known for his review of Rick Moody’s memoir The Black Veil, which opened with the lede, “Rick Moody is the worst writer of his generation.” But as a reviewer, Peck was more than just a show-boater who stirred up controversy; he was a whipsmart critic with a fabulous sense of humor.
Yes, that’s right, the future of web-based book reviewing is Nancy Pearl, Goodreads, and NPR. I suppose this is my fault for expecting a posting on Internet book reviewing to actually include reviews of books that are native to the Internet.
Oddly, Fay then begins to talk about creative criticism. That’s good, because this is something that’s quite close to my own interests. So who is the form’s leading practitioner?
Michiko Kakutani is perhaps the best example of a creative critic who publishes regularly.
No. Actually, that’s nothing like what is meant by “creative criticism.”
She sometimes mocks literary characters in her reviews, as she did when she parroted Holden Caulfield in her review of Benjamin Kunkel’s Indecision.
No.
(Kakutani is the only American critic whose name has become a verb. The phrase “getting Kakutanied” means receiving a laudatory review followed by a scathing one, a particularly scathing review, or several scathing reviews in a row.)
That sounds like something you just made up.
It’s worth considering whether or not Kakutani is censured because her reviews thrive on authority and imagination.
No, that’s not the reason.
Seriously, Atlantic? I know the imperative to fill up cyberspace with metric tons of prose never abates, but is this really the best you can do? This post is an insult to anyone who actually gives a damn about literary culture and the honest critics who try to promote it. I know you can do better than this, I really know you can.
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I have to say I often go to GoodReads to see what people say about this or that book. There are some really sharp people there who know what they’re talking about.
Considering what crap fiction they usually publish I’m not surprised at their crap criticism as well.
“Yes, that’s right, the future of web-based book reviewing is Nancy Pearl, Goodreads, and NPR.”
I think you missed the word “currently” in the Atlantic article.
“Yes, that’s right, the future of web-based book reviewing is Nancy Pearl, Goodreads, and NPR.”
I think you missed the word “currently” in the Atlantic article.
I used to subscribe to the Atlantic Monthly. No more. And the problem lies not only in criticism. Overall, for about two years now the quality of the writing in the Atlantic has steeply declined. Their staff is now down to Ta-Nehisi Coates and that one guy who writes about China, and that’s about all I can stand to read.
The A.M, should stick to what it’s best at. Correctness articles touting outlawing the consumption of raw shellfish. The universal sexual mutilation of infant human penises. Advocating consumption of stimulant drugs including anti-depressants. Fab tours of arcane and white elephant mansions. and etc.
I don’t see a shout out for Nancy Pearl, Bookslut, and Goodreads as being that egregious. Those venues certainly lean middle brow, but I can see how they’d be relevant. Of course, I’m missing the context of the entire article. But the Michiko excerpts made the author’s points.
[...] asks Scott Esposito at Conversational Reading, in reply to a new essay by Sarah Fay — “Could the [...]
Kakutani is a great shame. It’s taken decades for the NYT to get one proper film critic and one passably decent one. Who knows how long it will be before their regular daily book critics are worth taking seriously.
Agree about what passes for lit crit in the Atlantic. Though the rest of The Atlantic isn’t a terrible magazine. In some ways it now attracts consistently better nonfiction feature writers than The New Yorker.