Monday, August 16, 2010

Michiko Kakutani -- Who Jonathan Franzen Once Called "The Stupidest Person In New York City" -- Loves His New Novel. Does That Mean It Sucks?

In April of 2008, speaking at Harvard University, the novelist Jonathan Franzen remarked that "the stupidest person in New York City is currently the lead reviewer of fiction for the New York Times.”

Franzen was referring, of course, to Pulitzer Prize-winning NYT book critic Michiko Kakutani, who had just blasted Franzen's memoir, "The Discomfort Zone."

In that review, Kakutani described the book as "an odious self-portrait of the artist as a young jackass: petulant, pompous, obsessive, selfish and overwhelmingly self-absorbed."

At the Harvard appearance -- as reported at the time by the Harvard Crimson -- Franzen went on to say of Kakutani:

“The reviews tend to be repetitive and tend to be so filled with error that they’re kind of unbearable to read, even the nice ones,” Franzen said, according to the Crimson. “The most upsetting thing nowadays is the feeling that there’s no one out there responding intelligently to the text....So few people are actually doing serious criticism. It’s so snarky, it’s so ad hominum, it’s so black and white.”

So it was something of a surprise -- or maybe not -- to find Kakutani effusively praising Franzen's new novel, "Freedom," in this morning's NYT.

With a nod to her previous objections, Kakutani wrote:

In the past, Mr. Franzen tended to impose a seemingly cynical, mechanistic view of the world on his characters, threatening to turn them into authorial pawns subject to simple Freudian-Darwinian imperatives. This time, in creating conflicted, contrarian individuals capable of choosing their own fates, Mr. Franzen has written his most deeply felt novel yet — a novel that turns out to be both a compelling biography of a dysfunctional family and an indelible portrait of our times.

Was Kakutani compromised by Franzen's earlier comments? Should she have been allowed to review the book, given his poisonous point of view? Or can a good critic learn to ignore these sorts of predictable broadsides from angry authors?

It certainly isn't the first time that a major novelist has gone after Kakutani. According to Edwin Diamond's 1995 NYT history, "Behind The Times," Norman Mailer once famously appealed to NYT editors to have her prevented from reviewing his books -- on the grounds that Mailer perceived a conflict of interest (read: dislike) regarding his work.

We've contacted Kakutani for comment, and will update when we hear from her. We're also seeking comment from Franzen, whose view of Kakutani has likely softened somewhat in recent years months hours.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Was Kakutani compromised by Franzen's earlier comments?" Huh? "Should she have been allowed to review the book, given his poisonous point of view?" Why? That POV is his problem, not hers. "Or can a good critic learn to ignore these sorts of predictable broadsides from angry authors?" Yes. That. Next time just ask the smart question, and skip the dumb ones.

I like Franzen's work, but given both this and his infamous tantrum about being branded by Oprah, as a person he never seems to have learned the same lesson--that a good author learns to ignore troublesome feedback.

Anonymous said...

I can see how Kakutani could be compromised. Writers, no matter how thick-skinned and hostile they might be, don't like to be hated.

Theophylact said...

It's not just that Kakutani's stupid, it's that she has a real dislike for male writers of fiction. Her reviews of them usually begin with a suggestion that she liked their earlier books, but the current one represents a real falling off.

I'm surprised that she gave Franzen any props at all.

Anonymous said...

Maybe it's because Franzen's book wasn't printed in high enough copy to buy its way on to the nyttimes' bestsellers/mostprinted list?

If then she might've faked liking his consistent copy of the early Norman Mailr formula.

But in general reviewed crying misandry don't get read by an overwhelmingly female readership even if their agent stokes their manhood.

Says who say what?

Anonymous said...

Isn't that "ad hominem"?

Anonymous said...

"Norman Mailer once famously appealed to NYT editors to have her prevented from reviewing his books -- on the grounds that Mailer perceived a conflict of interest (read: dislike) regarding his work."

That be the same Norman Mailer who wrote “Kakutani is a one-woman kamikaze ... Asiatic ... a token." I'm glad he's dead and gone. daisies.

Anonymous said...

What you got on the Kamikazi programming?

Anonymous said...

I think her review speaks well of her intellectual honesty.

Anonymous said...

Now you know.

Anonymous said...

She adds a level of normalcy and natural randomness to a highly artificial phenomenon, which is something to appreciate and hold in great esteem, otherwise there'll be too many people breaking down the process and bothering for crumbs.