In the Huffington Post, Anis Shivani published a take-down of the NYTBR, provocatively titled “The Death of the New York Times Book Review: And Why That Is a Good Thing for Books.”
One overarching criticism Shivani makes, at least judging by his language, is that the NYTBR is too elite. He uses the word “elite” seven times as a criticism. But I prefer my book reviewers to be elite. I don’t mean snobby and disconnected, I mean better than, say, a non-elite reviewer on Amazon.
Another claim:
“The Times has been a very important contributor to the formation of recent American literary taste, showering praise or holding it back according to an occult hierarchy of values perceptible only to its elite cadre of editors.”
This is hyperbolic language that says more about the author than the NY Times. Elite is implying pretentiousness. Cadre is implying some kind of sinister cabal. And “occult”? We’re not talking about
Ouija boards here, just a book review. The truth is far more banal. In the genocide of book review sections in this country, the NY Times is trying to maintain a books buy generic drugs cheap section that has a wide enough appeal that it won’t be axed. You can critique that position, but it’s a very pragmatic stance.
Besides, what would you prefer? That the hierarchy of values were listed in a alphabetical order or a manifesto? I don’t know how the values could be made more transparent. I don’t know if I want a books section that tried to have transparent values that applied to every book reviewer, other than fairly broad guidelines.
“It can be safely argued that the fiction the Times editors and reviewers acknowledge as any given year’s best is likely to be some of that year’s most conventional, and that if one wants to discover the cutting edge of fiction, one had better stay as far away from their bland choices as possible.”
This is true by definition. Whatever the paper of record praises, it will become the conventional. And the cutting edge of fiction does not appear cutting edge very long if it appears in the Times. It’s become co-opted by the mainstream. So yes, you will only find the cutting edge of fiction elsewhere, but the same can be said in any field of art — visual art, music, film — because once the art has been knighted by the biggest publication in that field, it has been accepted.
But I’ll admit that I’d like to see more variety from small presses and more unusual selections of fiction in the NYTBR. A lot of coverage seems very safe. But once again, I believe that they’re choosing selections partially based on pragmatic considerations, trying to maintain page counts and revenue and momentum. I don’t want that to be the case, but I understand why they might do that.
There are certainly flaws in the NYTBR, but I think Anis Shivani approaches them with too hyperbolic a tone.
4 comments
There’s no doubt that Shivani’s language is hyperbolic and that he overuses the word “elite” (in effect giving this elite more power than it actually has), but do you really think that the NYTBR occasionally giving attention to “cutting edge” fiction would unduly “mainstream” it? I don’t know that experimental writers seek to be “accepted” by Sam Tanenhaus, but surely some acknowledgment that they exist, and that not everything they produce deserves to be dismissed, from the most prominent book review publication would not contaminate them irretrievably.
My point with the cutting edge/mainstream was only to point out that in all forms of art, as soon as “the man” gives his check of approval, those who enjoy being the outsiders often try to find the new new (to borrow a Robbe-Grillet redundancy).
However, in fiction, I could imagine quite a large contingent being perfectly happy with the fact that more forms of literature were being explored by Tanenhaus and not feel the need to push off into hitherto unexplored regions of literature.
Returning to Shivani’s quote, I think he’s overgeneralizing about NY Times (not ALL is conventional) and that I don’t think the Times will ever be the proper place to discover “cutting edge” fiction. The best place to discover cutting edge fiction will be a smaller circulation publication designed for the sole purpose of pressing the boundaries of the fictional genre.
The problem might be the term “cutting edge,” which gives me the sense of something that other people don’t know about, something that’s still a semi-secret, something underground. That, by definition, cannot remain a secret if it’s publicized in the biggest publication. Perhaps if Shivani had used the word “experimental,” then I wouldn’t have made the claim that the Times’ attention would change the books’ perceived status.
I cannot take Shivani seriously. He has a skill in attracting publicity by making overarching statements, all of which are purely subjective and he garners evidence that backs up his own view, and where there are holes he fills them in with Hyperbole. Look at his ”most overrated writers” section, what’s the point? And then he wrote that long, rambling article about how MFA programs are the modern equivalent to Masonic cults, which again was just babbling. So much of what he writes seems like bitterness. His own story collection won the Black Lawrence Press competition, but since then it’s fallen pretty flat and I’m sure along of his anger comes from that book not getting much attention.
I think it’s ungenerous to judge a critic by their success as a fiction writer. After all, some of our finest critics do not write fiction.
But I agree that Shivani’s skills lie more in provocative marketing than in thoughtful, measured analysis.