Inscrutable NYRB
Oct. 26th, 2005 10:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thedarkagesOn the subject of new writers (youngish or younger), the New York Review of Books is inscrutable. It likes, nay, loves Michael Chabon, and gave him two coveted guest slots to write on Holmes (and someone I can't remember.) On the other hand, the NYRB has strongly admonished Dave Eggers, has absolutely battered Alice Sebold (in a review by the ubiquitous Daniel Mendelsohn, who is trying and failing to be the Gilbert Highet of our age), and now lets its net bag of bear scat loose, in the person of a little-known New York Magazine contributor. on Jonathan Safran Foer. It is worth noticing that in each article, the popularity of each author is held against him or her. Contra the vulgar horde, the reviewer knows better.
The question is whether there is a coherent strategy. The NYRB, for example, is always against psychiatry (in the person of the abominable Frederick Crews), and is always pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel. Has the NYRB turned against new writers? Will anyone who has an MFA, a new book, and more than 100,000 copies sold be the subject of execration?
I am all for the need to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted, but, to my mind, the NYRB is much too comfortable -- clubby, in a word -- and is in the position of old money trying to crowd out arrivistes. Before we shoot our new men and women of letters, shouldn't we be grateful that we have men and women of letters at all?
The question is whether there is a coherent strategy. The NYRB, for example, is always against psychiatry (in the person of the abominable Frederick Crews), and is always pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel. Has the NYRB turned against new writers? Will anyone who has an MFA, a new book, and more than 100,000 copies sold be the subject of execration?
I am all for the need to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted, but, to my mind, the NYRB is much too comfortable -- clubby, in a word -- and is in the position of old money trying to crowd out arrivistes. Before we shoot our new men and women of letters, shouldn't we be grateful that we have men and women of letters at all?
