2nd Opinion: Did the NYTBR Fumble?

By Ron Hogan on May 11, 2006 9:42 AM

Beloved is the best American novel of the last twenty-five years? Say what? And don’t hand me that “any other outcome would have been startling” nonsense, either. While we’re at it, this survey doesn’t prove that “the baby boom, long ascendant in popular culture and increasingly so in politics and business, has not produced a great novel;” it merely proves that out of the people whose opinions you solicited, only two of them gave props to The Things They Carried. And, too, one might consider the possibility of a brilliant boomer novel published before 1980; I’m willing to concede that no candidates are immediately springing to mind, but it’s still pretty early in the morning here…

But let’s consider how the NYTBR reached this decision. They say they reached out to 125 “writers, editors, and critics” for nominees, but if you look at the names on that list, there are only a few I’d call critics rather than writers who’ve written book reviews over the course of their careers—and even fewer editors. (If you read a bit further, you can see if my rough calculations make sense to you.) Furthermore, almost every one of those critics is old school media. Why not include voices from the blogosphere like Laila Lalami, Maud Newton, or Mark Sarvas? Heck, Lizzie Skurnick has even written for the Review already!

Returning to the writers, we have one who might be considered to traffic in genre fiction: Stephen King. Okay, two if you want to count Jonathan Lethem. And speaking of genre, if the Review is going to ask poetry columnist David Orr his opinion, why not check in with Marilyn Stasio and Dave Itzkoff? (Come to think of it, what’s happened to Itzkoff’s science fiction column, anyway? It’s been over two months: Should we start worrying?) I’m not saying that I expected to see Ender’s Game or L.A. Confidential or Masks of the Illuminati on the short-list, but at least they or some other non-mainstream novels might have gotten some votes if Sam Tanenhaus had cast his nets a little wider. And speaking of books that didn’t get votes, I did appreciate the sly dig at “one best-selling author (whose fat novels seem to have been campaigning for inclusion in this issue long before the editors dreamed it up, even though not even he bothered to vote for any of them),” especially since I had been wondering how A Man in Full failed to get a vote from anybody. I had no idea so many people shared my belief that it completely falls apart in the final chapters!

I’ve frequently returned to one of Tanenhaus’s earliest stated ambitions for the NYTBR—to deliver “news about the culture”—and this seems like another opportunity to revisit the question of whether he’s fulfilled that mandate. I don’t have an easy overall answer, because I believe he’s been successful in some ways and unsuccessful in others. But here’s the thing: If the Review really means to suggest that American literary culture peaked nearly two decades ago, shouldn’t there be more to say about what that says about the contemporary culture or the people who are asked to arbitrate it than the tepid generalizations with which A.O. Scott concludes his contribution?

Here’s how I tallied the critics and editors. Your results may vary, and if so, feel free to tell me.

Critics: Sven Birkerts, Harold Bloom, Richard Eder, David Gates, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Frank Kermode, John Leonard, Ralph Lombreglia, Daphne Merkin, Geoffrey O’Brien, David Orr, Liesl Schillinger. Personally, I’m wavering on David Gates, who I’d consider a “writer,” but he has a book reviewing job, so okay then…
Editors: Bill Buford, Morris Dickstein, Henry Finder, Deborah Treisman—three of whom are or have been associated with the New Yorker. If you want to boost the editor count somewhat, you could also add the following writers: Roger Angell (another New Yorker guy), Kurt Andersen (RIP Spy and Inside), Anne Fadiman (American Scholar, but she’ll always be the author of one of the best non-fiction books of the last 25 years to me), and Philip Gourevitch (Paris Review, but I repeat what I said about Fadiman).