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Letters of the Week
July 1, 2006
We recently received the following letters and felt they
were, to some degree, interesting. If you would like to respond
to one of our articles or simply ramble on about your next-door
neighbor's lawn-care practices, email editor@identitytheory.com.
We might publish it on this page.
Response to a reader's progress
From: Howard Dinin
Sent: June 23rd
Re: Birnbaum's latest arp entry
Well, OK.
You got your rocks off.
I'm not disagreeing with you, by any means, but this is entirely
one of those points of view that is taken up by the inner circle-made
up of people largely engaged in full-time ardor for all things
literary.
You don't tip your hand in the second sentence. You've tipped
your hand, and not only tipped it, but slapped it palm open
and with considerable force on a flimsy wooden tabletop, and
innumerable times, (yeah, yeah, a pun), in your conversations
with authors. Indeed, I'd say, any chance you get.
That you have a hard-on, and I don't mean the good kind, for
Sam Tanenhaus (which you've spelled variously in this piece)
is something that even I know, and I don't particularly care.
As you know, I do read the New York Times Book Review.
I think you overstate its significance, but I don't think the
matter of its influence is to be questioned, and it long predates
Tanenhaus. The NYTimes has an obligation, no doubt
first to itself--it is a profit-making public corporation--and
then to its many constituencies. And that is, to uphold its
positioning (one would say in the contemporary jargon, to maintain
brand equity or, simply, to protect the brand) as the newspaper
of record. Not of New York, but of the whole fucking country.
Think about it.
Its indiscretions, solecisms, missteps, boo-boos, blunders
and out-and-out howlers (I could have spelled that Howellers,
but one pun is enough) get just about their proportionate attention
given the status so hard attained by this no-doubt flawed entity.
But attained it is, and constantly assailed, because it is human
nature, if nothing else, to attack the one on top. It is also
in the nature of entities, made by and made up of humans, to
be flawed, and constantly to strive to be otherwise.
It is in the general nature of things that whoever is on top,
if he (or she or it) has two brain cells to rub together, kind
of makes every exertion to stay there. If there are as many
brain cells as there are at NYTimes, they have a tendency
to succeed more often than they do things that truly endanger
their standing.
One of the truisms of life in these United States (as Reader's
Digest, kind of the really dumb uncle of Reader's Progress,
huh?, but with a way of having had a following for a very long
time, even a literary following of a peculiar sort; remember
Reader's Digest editions of best-sellers? I'm surprised
there hasn't been a comeback in this current time where it's
de rigueur to qualify the age as one of attention deficit...
anyway, as they would put it) is that change is good, and change
we must. It's one of the last throes of modernism, wherein we
build things only to tear them down and replace them (you really
should read All That is Solid Melts Into Air, but I've
told you that before). It is axiomatic in marketing long since
to remain sensitive to the dynamics of the marketplace.
Indeed, it is the job of #1 to stay #1 by mere dint of making
things different by changing them. In the meantime, the common
wisdom of the man in the street is still, if it ain't broke,
don't fix it. You could say that about refrigerators built as
recently as 25 years ago (but alas no longer true of the homely
kitchen appliance of any functionality), but that is a strategy
for agonizing death in the marketplace.
And it's in the marketplace, not the private library, that
the New York Times holds sway -- for shaping the public's
sense of the news, for defining the Zeitgeist, for determining
which books are worth buying--and strictly from the point of
view of their reviewers; do you think all readers slavishly
follow what's said? You never mention the books worthy of praise
that get praise, and then still don't sell. It's that damn Mencken
factor. You gonna' blame the Times for not going out
personally and shaking some sense into every reader of every
review?
What has been evident to me is that all those who express,
though not always with such charmingly fiery rhetoric as you,
the base antipathy any serious booklover or intellectual must
display on his sleeve for the New York Times are mainly
evincing their agonizing envy.
It's simply not fair for any one, or any entity, to have that
much influence. But there it is.
One could chart, I suppose, if one wanted to bother, the various
tenures of NYTimes Sunday Book Review editors, though
what metric would be used is not clear to me. The same could
be said of New Yorker editors, but that's a far shorter
exercise, and far less arcane, and, of course, the issues are
different. The only thing that endangering the status of The
New Yorker can effect is the consequent potential danger
to its ad revenues.
Changing the status of the New York Times Book Review
would send temblor-like tremors through the entire retail book
industry, which in many ways we should be far more thankful
is as screwed up as it is or nothing of any merit would ever
see the light of day. Because the book industry produces far
more books that experience a mercifully brief death than they
do best-sellers, we may suppose they need all the help they
can get.
One of the chief aids is the New York Times.
You may complain that they don't review the right books, or
enough books, and yet you marvel, in the same breath, at the
sheer number of books produced in any one year. Sorry, pal,
you can't have it both ways. Not all those books are dreck,
though I agree with you that likely most of them are, but what
do you expect from any human activity?
In that old saw about an infinite number of monkeys with infinite
typewriters producing Shakespeare, have you ever wondered how
many humans would be required? Half-an-infinity? A quarter?
Come on. There so far has been one Shakespeare. What does that
tell you? And you should come to some conclusion that does not
involve monkeys.
Someone had to be Shakespeare, and he faced the assignment,
took it on, and did a splendid job.
Good or bad, something has to be The New York Times Sunday
Book Review (or would you rather they merely stuck to the
daily reviews, by the likes of that malign comely elf, Kakutani,
who rips new ones for newby authors and masters alike, like
the professional she is?), and I'd say The New York Times
Sunday Book Review does as good a job as we can expect.
By the way, any generalization about the thing ("a graduate
student in the NY Times can kill you") is a perilous
declaration. McGuane was overstating it. Who knows if he knew
it? Who cares? Writers are expected to be cranks and eccentric;
indeed, are expected to overstate things. The point is, you
and I know it's not true. The reviews are not by graduate students
as anything more than a very rare rule.
The more apt observation is that NYTimes reviewers
don't, wholesale, like everything they read. The editor is equipped
and empowered, but there are limits to this, as with anything
in this life, and the most he or she can do is change the typeface,
the mix of varieties of genre reviewed, the specific volumes
parcelled out for critical parsing, and, of course, the reader
assigned. But I daresay, no one is instructed to do a hatchet
job, or to praise something unduly.
You pays your two bucks, or whatever the NYTimes Sunday
Book Review costs alone, and you takes your chances.
The funniest experience I had recently related to literary
matters naturally involved you. I have the distinct impression
you eschew reading the NYTimes Sunday Book Review,
with drums and trumpets, so high does it raise your hackles.
It's not worth the effort of doing a search of your myriad conversations
in which the subject has come up to confirm that you have stated
in pixels that, indeed, you simply don't read it. But that's
my impression.
Yet, when I mentioned that I had gone looking for a copy of
The Places in Between, which the NYTimes reviewer
had declared an unqualified masterpiece (thereby causing a small
shock for Harcourt, which obviously had misestimated the potential
interest in this odd little book about a bookish, articulate
adventurer-journalist who decided to walk across Afghanistan
at one of the worst possible times measured in the singular
dimension of the safety of his personal body), you had at the
tip of your tongue, or perhaps it was your typing fingers--all
two of them--the name of the author, the name of the reviewer,
and some of the facts, etc. And you obviously took delight that
the publisher got caught with their pants down (it is a contest
you know, among Birnbaum fans, as to which you hate more: publishers
or the NYTimes Sunday Book Review--and yes, Robert,
we know they're in cahoots).
Perhaps you gained this knowledge about Rory Stewart's book,
and its most influential reviewer, second- or even third-hand,
by hearsay, rumor, or the particular literary drums to which
only a precious few sets of ears are tuned. But it amused me
that you knew, as this singularly unimportant fact demonstrates,
what goes on in the camp of the enemy.
That's the point of the NYTimes Sunday Book Review,
and you know it.
As for your valedictory comment, two last things I want to
say. The reference to "short fingered aspirations"
[and Robert, Robert, typically for you with these typos, gevalt,
those first two words should be hyphenated] is a mite arcane,
and belies the potentially vaster interests of a larger audience
than I suspect you have. Who else among us is aware of the allusion
to the phrase Spy Magazine's publisher consistently
used to describe Donald Trump, lo, these 16 years ago? What
exactly are, if one is clueless as to the reference, short fingered
aspirations?
I'd like to suggest, to make my second, and last point, that
you are missing the point by assailing the aspiration of marketers
and brand optimizers (doesn't need quotes; it's a reprehensible
jargon, but you get your virtual fingers dirty just using it,
and those diacritical marks aren't latex gloves...). The power
of the NYTimes comes from its influence in the marketplace.
You may as well bemoan not only something as frivolous as the
idea of there being only 25 "best" novels in the past
25 years. Incidentally, I think it's not accidental that you
didn't mention A.O. Scott's essay that accompanied the list
(and last I checked he was still writing for the self-same "paper
of record"), because, without reading too far between his
lines, he kind of makes clear it's a silly thing to do, but
that would undercut your, what should I call it?, your mild
fury.
You may, as well, bemoan the "best-seller" lists
they publish each and every week, not for their accuracy, because
who knows? (or would you now be a statistician who can do a
proper forensic assessment of the worthiness of the sources
of the numbers, as well as the numbers themselves), but for
their influence. When you come right down to it, all they report
are the books solid, if not stolid, Americans, just like you
and me, buy in greater numbers than any other books.
The latter, the lesser-selling volumes, no doubt subsume that
not so small sub-set you admire (and, thus, so much for what
sees the light of print; you've admonished me for the lack of
catholicity, if not the severity, of my taste, yet my list would
be even shorter, if I had the time to read a larger number of
books than the ones I ended up liking for their quality), and
I think it's a simple matter of resentment, to go along with
the envy I mentioned above, that there's not more chordal sentiment
(in harmony with your own) expressed in the NYTimes Sunday
Book Review.
So Don Quixote, cool your jets, but not your ardor. Then think
yet again, and a little longer, about this war you have with
the establishment. It's a loser, if there ever was one. It's
called capitalism comrade. Get used to it. Even the Chinese
are taking a shine to the idea.
See you, if not in the NYTimes Sunday Book Review
(and would you turn down the call if it came?), then in the
funny papers...
love
H
PS Who's Matt Borondy again? [just a joke... no offense Matt.
The Great One has only ever spoken extremely highly of you.
I, of course, think the world of you, for publishing his maundering.
It's among my best entertainment.]
____
Response to Susan Orlean Interview
From: Joan L. Neidhardt
Sent: June 25th
Re: Birnbaum's
interview with Susan Orlean
I read with great interest the interview of Susan Orlean by
Robert Birnbam.
For someone writing the biography of Rin Tin Tin, she has very
little knowledge about her subject! Ms. Orlean said their is
no clear ownership and that Rin Tin Tin is somewhat public domain.
How wrong she is! The trademark and continuing direct descendant
genetic line dogs are all owned exclusively by Daphne Hereford
of Texas. A simple online search of the US Patent and Trademark
office database could find that information. Many of her other
"facts" about Rin Tin Tin are unfounded as well, and
I have no idea why she finds herself qualified to speak on Lassie
either!
Her motives came across very clear with this quote-
"Even if it's not done all that well, it's easy to promote
it. It's easy to draw a number of readers to it because it's
ready-made. You have a certain audience who may finish the piece
and say, "It wasn't very good," but they are going
to read it"
The longevity of the trademarks and line dogs of Rin Tin Tin
and Lassie come from years of hard work by dedicated people.
Ms. Orlean seems to want to bypass Ms. Hereford's knowledge
and ownership to latch on to a famous trademark for her own
self promotion and financial enrichment, not the sign of someone
with a great interest in the subject matter of her latest book,
but also not a sign of a professional.
Joan L. Neidhardt
www.lassie.net
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