Look, Michiko, Just Write a Damn Novel Already

When NYT book reviewer Michiko Kakutani took on the voice of Holden Caufield two months ago to review Benjamin Kunkel’s Indecision, we all sort of shook our heads politely. After all, longtime readers knew it was an intermittently recurring tic of hers—remember the time she pretended to be Ally McBeal reviewing Bridget Jones?—and we just figured, okay, it’s out of her system for another year or so.

But, no: It’s only been two months, and she’s channeling Holly Golightly to review Truman Capote’s resurrected Summer Morning. Readers who dare follow this link will be forgiven the urge to claw out their own eyes in horror.

24 October 2005 | theory |

It’s a Theory, Let’s Put It That Way

Earlier this week, I reported for Galleycat (and if you’re not reading that blog every morning, I wish you would!) on Philip Pullman’s harsh words for C.S. Lewis, whose Narnia series was condemned as “a peevish blend of racist, misogynistic and reactionary prejudice.” Well, suggests Reason blogger Tim Cavanagh, when it comes to 20th-century British literature, “racism is a big part of what makes some writers good.”

21 October 2005 | theory |