Authors Rage Against NYTBR Smugness

By Ron Hogan on October 6, 2006 8:31 AM

This weekend’s New York Times Book Review features a particularly combative letter column, as scorned authors and their colleagues protest their pans at the hands of Times contributors. The conflict starts lightly, with Michael Berubé making a mild counterargument to Alan Wolfe’s interpretation of his position on Middle Eastern studies programs at American universities. I know, I know, but stifle that yawn, because Sidney Blumenthal is mad as hell at Jennifer Senior’s treatment of his How Bush Rules, demanding, “Was this supercilious piece supposed to be a book review?” Then uber-media critic Todd Gitlin gets Blumenthal’s back, claiming that “relentless criticism and cogent analysis of a relentlessly dangerous and hard-to-believe administration make Senior uncomfortable.”

But these guys are just a warmup act. The viciousness really begins with David Thomson, who mock-laments that his book about Nicole Kidman “fell short of [Lawrence] Levi’s snob standards,” then attacks the Review for being “so often caught between spite and boredom.” And Pulitzer-winning poet Franz Wright delivers the death blow: “I cannot bring myself to believe that I am the only serious follower of contemporary poetry who is getting sick of reading reviews by young literary nonentities posing as Randall Jarrell,” he writes, in response to a mixed review of the new collection of poems from Charles Wright (no relation). He goes on to echo Thomson’s complaints about “the still stylishly ironical and arrogant condescension to which even the [NYTBR] remains far too hospitable,” before making the criticism personal again by asking, “Why not assign beginners to review other beginners, and when dealing with the work of proven contemporary masters like Wright, take the trouble to enlist the mind of someone capable of writing intelligent prose?” Ouch.