October 26th, 2009 / 2:09 pm
 Mean

I’m going to try to be mean now. It’s not really in my nature, but what the heck. Jonathan Lethem’s new book Chronic City is incredibly good, and Michiko Kakutani’s review is one of her bullshit, contrarian, stroke your hair with the right hand, punch you in the kidneys with the left critiques she seems to pull out for ambitious, talented—and dare I say it—”important” novelists every few books because she has some sort of pit in her psyche she needs to fill with displays of her power over them. (Or maybe she just didn’t like a book I liked, and I’m kind of an asshole. Yeah, probably the second one.)

20 Comments

  1. October 26th, 2009 / 6:19 pm Blake Butler—

      way to be mean to Michiko Kakutani, ya big jerk.

  2. October 26th, 2009 / 2:19 pm Blake Butler—

      way to be mean to Michiko Kakutani, ya big jerk.

  3. October 26th, 2009 / 6:21 pm Matthew Simmons—

      You’re right. That was uncalled for. Poor woman is just trying to make her deadlines.

      I hate me.

  4. October 26th, 2009 / 2:21 pm Matthew Simmons—

      You’re right. That was uncalled for. Poor woman is just trying to make her deadlines.

      I hate me.

  5. October 26th, 2009 / 6:30 pm Blake Butler—

      yr totally not off the hook for mean week duties.

      get mean.

  6. October 26th, 2009 / 2:30 pm Blake Butler—

      yr totally not off the hook for mean week duties.

      get mean.

  7. October 26th, 2009 / 7:13 pm Matthew Simmons—

      Stop being mean to me, Blake Butler.

  8. October 26th, 2009 / 3:13 pm Matthew Simmons—

      Stop being mean to me, Blake Butler.

  9. October 26th, 2009 / 7:16 pm alec niedenthal—
  10. October 26th, 2009 / 3:16 pm alec niedenthal—
  11. October 26th, 2009 / 7:19 pm Blake Butler—

      this ain’t yr momma’s htmlgiant, matthew

  12. October 26th, 2009 / 3:19 pm Blake Butler—

      this ain’t yr momma’s htmlgiant, matthew

  13. October 26th, 2009 / 8:25 pm Blake Butler—

      so is Chronic City actually good?

  14. October 26th, 2009 / 4:25 pm Blake Butler—

      so is Chronic City actually good?

  15. October 26th, 2009 / 9:56 pm Charles Dodd White—

      My favorite literary slam from the last couple of years was when Franzen called her the “stupidest woman in New York.” I think it may have been in N+1, but I can’t remember and I’m too lazy to google.

  16. October 26th, 2009 / 5:56 pm Charles Dodd White—

      My favorite literary slam from the last couple of years was when Franzen called her the “stupidest woman in New York.” I think it may have been in N+1, but I can’t remember and I’m too lazy to google.

  17. October 26th, 2009 / 9:58 pm Brian—

      While I found Michiko Kakutani’s review a little inappropriate (use of the word “lame”), it hasn’t received much better reviews elsewhere. Check out what Hari Kunzru has to say about it in BOOKFORUM. Has not fared much better elsewhere. It has not been generally well received.

  18. October 26th, 2009 / 5:58 pm Brian—

      While I found Michiko Kakutani’s review a little inappropriate (use of the word “lame”), it hasn’t received much better reviews elsewhere. Check out what Hari Kunzru has to say about it in BOOKFORUM. Has not fared much better elsewhere. It has not been generally well received.

  19. October 26th, 2009 / 10:34 pm Matthew Simmons—

      And yet the best review I’ve seen for the book so far has come from…The New York Times Sunday Book Review. The Times taketh away and then the Times giveth that shit right back.

      Thanks for mentioning the Kunzru review. I hadn’t read it. I sort of get his drift, but I think maybe he was looking for the book to do something I wasn’t looking for it to do. He found the names irritating—I thought they were strange but they never ejected me from the enjoyment of the book. He ends by saying the book never achieves “real satiric bite.” I didn’t really think it was trying to.

      He says that thing about the two canons: Lethem’s and the one of Salter and Yates, the post-war, muted psychological realism. I may be misreading him, but it seems to me that he is suggesting the inclusion of elements of Lethem’s canon (which he lists as Burroughs, Chandler, Dick, Pynchon, Barth, Ballard, Auster, Marvel Comics) precludes the possibility that some “muted psychological realism” may be available in the book.

      Like elements of one eliminate the possibility of any of the other. I disagree. In absence of “muted psychological realism,” I think he expected a biting, gnashing, blistering satire. And he didn’t find that because that’s not there.

  20. October 26th, 2009 / 6:34 pm Matthew Simmons—

      And yet the best review I’ve seen for the book so far has come from…The New York Times Sunday Book Review. The Times taketh away and then the Times giveth that shit right back.

      Thanks for mentioning the Kunzru review. I hadn’t read it. I sort of get his drift, but I think maybe he was looking for the book to do something I wasn’t looking for it to do. He found the names irritating—I thought they were strange but they never ejected me from the enjoyment of the book. He ends by saying the book never achieves “real satiric bite.” I didn’t really think it was trying to.

      He says that thing about the two canons: Lethem’s and the one of Salter and Yates, the post-war, muted psychological realism. I may be misreading him, but it seems to me that he is suggesting the inclusion of elements of Lethem’s canon (which he lists as Burroughs, Chandler, Dick, Pynchon, Barth, Ballard, Auster, Marvel Comics) precludes the possibility that some “muted psychological realism” may be available in the book.

      Like elements of one eliminate the possibility of any of the other. I disagree. In absence of “muted psychological realism,” I think he expected a biting, gnashing, blistering satire. And he didn’t find that because that’s not there.