Lit Thoughts
A response to the Bank review
By Lauren Baratz-Logsted
Poor Curtis Sittenfeld.
I can’t believe that I of all people am starting an essay with an oxymoron but, really, poor Curtis Sittenfeld. For I cannot remember a time in recent memory when a debut novelist has pulled down so much enmity so quickly upon her head.
The literary community is never overly kind to authors, particularly young authors, who seem to achieve success too soon. Oh, sure, we all like to be the one to herald the latest wunderkind, but it seems sometimes that no sooner have the laurels been bestowed than all the claws come out. Witness what has happened to Jonathan Safran Foer. I mean, no one really believed that, after the astonishing success of Everything is Illuminated, reviewers would go on being kind to him, did they?
We writers, without doubt, are as capable of the twin demons of Jealousy and Envy as anyone working in any profession I know of. This is one of the reasons why I have always tried to take the high ground in at least this one area, because it is simply too self-poisoning to be any other way. In practical terms, what this means is that I bend over backwards to be fair and eliminate all snark when reviewing the contents of books by people I have good cause to resent or dislike.
But before one can even attempt to be fair to Curtis Sittenfeld, there really is just so much baggage that needs to be got out of the way.
First, there was the announcement of her participation in a collection called This Is Not Chick Lit, which I already guestblogged about at http://www.beatrice.com back on April 26, a collection the very idea of which has raised the pink hackles of every single chick-lit author I’ve heard from about this and a number of literary ones as well. It just seems so hubristic, not to mention intentionally insulting, and I cannot imagine that anyone who has been following this story does not realize that we chicks will answer back.
And now comes her wrongheaded review of Melissa Bank’s The Wonder Spot in last Sunday’s New York Times Book Review. Really, the review is so wrongheaded, it’s almost difficult to know where to start.
But, OK, I’ll pick a spot.
Let’s start with that now-notorious first sentence, the one in which she likens writing chick-lit to being a slut. Here’s what I know about chick-lit authors: we work as hard to produce good work as any writers working today. Am I saying that literary novelists don’t work as hard? Absolutely not. Am I saying that every chick-lit book is a masterpiece? Again, absolutely not. But I am saying that a lot of what falls under the heading of chick-lit has a lot more going for it than Manolos and Cosmos – not that there’s anything wrong with that! – and to assume that every chick-lit offering is unremitting crap is the same as assuming that every literary offering is wonderfully edifying. Both assertions are false.
What is true is that both areas have some great offerings. Chick-lit has many books invested with serious theme, literary fiction has many books for which there is no there there, and both have the reverse.Here’s another thing that’s wrong with the review: it reveals a narrow-minded understanding of both chick-lit and what constitutes a good novel.
The appeal of chick-lit, Curtis Sittenfeld writes, “relies so much on how closely readers relate to its characters.”
This is simply untrue. My novels are about women who fake entire pregnancies and all manner of awful things. I don’t write about The Girl Next Door. Believe me, you wouldn’t want to live next door to my (anti)heroines!
So maybe, at least according to Curtis Sittenfeld, I don’t write chick-lit at all! But I certainly don’t write literary fiction, so, really, what do I write??? Oh, hell, even though they’re set in either Europe or New England, let’s just call my books Westerns so at least they’ll have a label.
“Good novels,” writes Curtis Sittenfeld, “allow us to feel what the characters feel, no matter how dissimilar their circumstances and ours.” Wrong! If we follow that definition, we might as well throw out Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol – since I’m not notably greedy, I don’t believe in ghosts and, being Jewish, Christmas just isn’t my main holiday – and while we’re at it let’s throw out the smart novels of Salman Rushdie too.
In truth, the possible definitions of what constitutes a good novel are as various as the readers and writers writing those definitions. So, for what it’s worth, I’ll toss my own out there: a good novel is one that entertains on some level, whether that level is emotional or intellectual. Now, if we want to get into defining an important novel, well, let’s just say we’d be talking about an incredibly small pool of books and let’s save that discussion for another day.
Here’s the first reason I feel sorry for poor Curtis Sittenfeld: poor editing. A good editor at the Times would have eliminated the extraneous snark from her review rather than allowing all of this high drama to ensue. I have nothing wrong with Curtis Sittendeld finding fault with Melissa Bank’s book – or with any reviewer finding fault with any book, including my own – but I’d have more respect for her critical skills if she focused more on the actual novel itself, as Janet Maslin did in her review in the daily Times.
Curtis could have pointed out that the book’s chief flaw is that it can be seen as a retread of the author’s first novel in that it is a book of interconnected stories rather than a novel proper. Maslin pointed this out, wondering if Bank was capable of writing a novel that wasn’t interconnected stories, but I would say that this flaw is more one of marketing or editorial error, rather than a flaw on the author’s part. Yet Curtis chose to focus the bulk of her review on the wrong things and I can’t help but hold the Times partially accountable.
There have been two notable times in my life when, writing reviews or essays, someone tempered the poison in my pen. The first was in a review I wrote for Publishers Weekly many years ago. My editor called me up, laughing, to say, “You know, we are a conventional magazine and I simply can’t run this review as is.” I thought that was a shame at the time and still think it a shame since the book in question was so thoroughly awful, really, there weren’t enough viperous words in the dictionary for me to describe it. The second happened much more recently and had to do with the above-mentioned essay at www.beatrice.com.
The site’s inestimably democratic proprietor, Ron Hogan, edited out two sentences that took unnecessary swipes at two writers in This Is Not Chick Lit. It’s not that what I said was untrue – I always stand behind what I write – but they were extraneous to the piece and thus would have obscured the true focus, with the resulting coverage then reacting to the wrong things rather than the right ones, not unlike the situation with Sittenfeld/Bank.
And this leads me to the second reason I feel sorry for Curtis Sittenfeld: no one is protecting this woman. She is burning bridges all over town and I don’t see a single editor or friend reaching out to stop her. Frankly, she’s too young to have made so many enemies. For myself, I’m 42 years old now, almost 43 – and looking great, thanks! – and I’ve burned more than my share of bridges in my lifetime. But at my age, I am fully conscious of the fact that every time I speak my mind in public – this essay is just the latest example of that – there might be career repercussions. My editor or agent could get annoyed at something I say; readers could become alienated. Certainly, after today, any chances of getting Curtis Sittenfeld to blurb my next novel just flew right out the window.
And yet, knowing all that, I choose to speak my mind honestly, fully cognizant of the risks. And while I would never counsel another human being to be less honest, unless of course that other human being was about to tell me I look fat in this dress, I do not think Curtis Sittenfeld has shown sufficient maturity to persuade me to believe that she grasps the consequences of her behavior. She can dislike the Melissa Bank book, she can even hate it if she chooses and say so, but all the other nonsense just makes her look, well, foolish.
I’d like to add something to the definition I gave above for what constitutes a good novel. To me, a good novel contains both comedy and tragedy, not necessarily in equal parts. I know others may disagree with me on this, but that’s the kind of novel I most like to read and that’s the kind of novel I most like to write.
So, here’s the comic part of this story. I met Melissa Bank at BEA. OK, so maybe that’s not exactly the comic part, but I did wait patiently in her long line for the chance to speak with her. I didn’t need another copy of her book, which I’d already read, but I did want to commiserate over the review, which I’d seen prior to its publication. Understandably, she was upset about the situation. Now here really is the comic part: it is a truth universally acknowledged that a scathing review in the Times can often sell more books than a tepid one can or even, sometimes, a positive one. And it is my best guess that such will prove the case with The Wonder Spot. Readers who may not have bothered with it otherwise will pick up the book in huge numbers, both out of curiosity and out of sympathy, and a cursory glance at Amazon – OK, I did pause briefly to check on my own rankings – reveals that Melissa Bank is currently outpacing Curtis Sittenfeld.
Now comes the tragedy.
Curtis Sittenfeld has herself written a fine first novel but that fact is being obscured by all the sound and fury with which she has surrounded herself. True, in her own words, I am not one iota smarter than I was before reading it. But my own criteria for what constitutes a good book is mercifully not as limited as hers. I’ve always been a sucker for novels set in a private school. And while Prep does not belong on a shelf next to my beloved A Separate Peace, it easily outstrips Tobias Wolff’s Old School, which others loved but which I found tedious, for my favor.
So, basically, Curtis Sittenfeld is a promising young novelist who keeps shooting herself in the foot. I used to get angry thinking about Curtis Sittenfeld, as recently as this past Sunday I was angry with her. Now I find that thinking of her only makes me sad.
But, hey, anytime Curtis Sittenfeld wants to apologize for indirectly calling me a slut, I’m more than willing to shake hands and start again.
Lauren Baratz-Logsted is the author of The Thin Pink Line and Crossing the Line. Her third novel, A Little Change of Face, will be published in July 2005. Her essay, “If Jane Austen Were Writing Today,” is collected in Flirting with Pride and Prejudice: Fresh Perspectives on the Original Chick-Lit Masterpiece, edited by Jennifer Crusie and due out from Benbella Books on September 1.
By Lauren Baratz-Logsted
Poor Curtis Sittenfeld.
I can’t believe that I of all people am starting an essay with an oxymoron but, really, poor Curtis Sittenfeld. For I cannot remember a time in recent memory when a debut novelist has pulled down so much enmity so quickly upon her head.
The literary community is never overly kind to authors, particularly young authors, who seem to achieve success too soon. Oh, sure, we all like to be the one to herald the latest wunderkind, but it seems sometimes that no sooner have the laurels been bestowed than all the claws come out. Witness what has happened to Jonathan Safran Foer. I mean, no one really believed that, after the astonishing success of Everything is Illuminated, reviewers would go on being kind to him, did they?
We writers, without doubt, are as capable of the twin demons of Jealousy and Envy as anyone working in any profession I know of. This is one of the reasons why I have always tried to take the high ground in at least this one area, because it is simply too self-poisoning to be any other way. In practical terms, what this means is that I bend over backwards to be fair and eliminate all snark when reviewing the contents of books by people I have good cause to resent or dislike.
But before one can even attempt to be fair to Curtis Sittenfeld, there really is just so much baggage that needs to be got out of the way.
First, there was the announcement of her participation in a collection called This Is Not Chick Lit, which I already guestblogged about at http://www.beatrice.com back on April 26, a collection the very idea of which has raised the pink hackles of every single chick-lit author I’ve heard from about this and a number of literary ones as well. It just seems so hubristic, not to mention intentionally insulting, and I cannot imagine that anyone who has been following this story does not realize that we chicks will answer back.
And now comes her wrongheaded review of Melissa Bank’s The Wonder Spot in last Sunday’s New York Times Book Review. Really, the review is so wrongheaded, it’s almost difficult to know where to start.
But, OK, I’ll pick a spot.
Let’s start with that now-notorious first sentence, the one in which she likens writing chick-lit to being a slut. Here’s what I know about chick-lit authors: we work as hard to produce good work as any writers working today. Am I saying that literary novelists don’t work as hard? Absolutely not. Am I saying that every chick-lit book is a masterpiece? Again, absolutely not. But I am saying that a lot of what falls under the heading of chick-lit has a lot more going for it than Manolos and Cosmos – not that there’s anything wrong with that! – and to assume that every chick-lit offering is unremitting crap is the same as assuming that every literary offering is wonderfully edifying. Both assertions are false.
What is true is that both areas have some great offerings. Chick-lit has many books invested with serious theme, literary fiction has many books for which there is no there there, and both have the reverse.Here’s another thing that’s wrong with the review: it reveals a narrow-minded understanding of both chick-lit and what constitutes a good novel.
The appeal of chick-lit, Curtis Sittenfeld writes, “relies so much on how closely readers relate to its characters.”
This is simply untrue. My novels are about women who fake entire pregnancies and all manner of awful things. I don’t write about The Girl Next Door. Believe me, you wouldn’t want to live next door to my (anti)heroines!
So maybe, at least according to Curtis Sittenfeld, I don’t write chick-lit at all! But I certainly don’t write literary fiction, so, really, what do I write??? Oh, hell, even though they’re set in either Europe or New England, let’s just call my books Westerns so at least they’ll have a label.
“Good novels,” writes Curtis Sittenfeld, “allow us to feel what the characters feel, no matter how dissimilar their circumstances and ours.” Wrong! If we follow that definition, we might as well throw out Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol – since I’m not notably greedy, I don’t believe in ghosts and, being Jewish, Christmas just isn’t my main holiday – and while we’re at it let’s throw out the smart novels of Salman Rushdie too.
In truth, the possible definitions of what constitutes a good novel are as various as the readers and writers writing those definitions. So, for what it’s worth, I’ll toss my own out there: a good novel is one that entertains on some level, whether that level is emotional or intellectual. Now, if we want to get into defining an important novel, well, let’s just say we’d be talking about an incredibly small pool of books and let’s save that discussion for another day.
Here’s the first reason I feel sorry for poor Curtis Sittenfeld: poor editing. A good editor at the Times would have eliminated the extraneous snark from her review rather than allowing all of this high drama to ensue. I have nothing wrong with Curtis Sittendeld finding fault with Melissa Bank’s book – or with any reviewer finding fault with any book, including my own – but I’d have more respect for her critical skills if she focused more on the actual novel itself, as Janet Maslin did in her review in the daily Times.
Curtis could have pointed out that the book’s chief flaw is that it can be seen as a retread of the author’s first novel in that it is a book of interconnected stories rather than a novel proper. Maslin pointed this out, wondering if Bank was capable of writing a novel that wasn’t interconnected stories, but I would say that this flaw is more one of marketing or editorial error, rather than a flaw on the author’s part. Yet Curtis chose to focus the bulk of her review on the wrong things and I can’t help but hold the Times partially accountable.
There have been two notable times in my life when, writing reviews or essays, someone tempered the poison in my pen. The first was in a review I wrote for Publishers Weekly many years ago. My editor called me up, laughing, to say, “You know, we are a conventional magazine and I simply can’t run this review as is.” I thought that was a shame at the time and still think it a shame since the book in question was so thoroughly awful, really, there weren’t enough viperous words in the dictionary for me to describe it. The second happened much more recently and had to do with the above-mentioned essay at www.beatrice.com.
The site’s inestimably democratic proprietor, Ron Hogan, edited out two sentences that took unnecessary swipes at two writers in This Is Not Chick Lit. It’s not that what I said was untrue – I always stand behind what I write – but they were extraneous to the piece and thus would have obscured the true focus, with the resulting coverage then reacting to the wrong things rather than the right ones, not unlike the situation with Sittenfeld/Bank.
And this leads me to the second reason I feel sorry for Curtis Sittenfeld: no one is protecting this woman. She is burning bridges all over town and I don’t see a single editor or friend reaching out to stop her. Frankly, she’s too young to have made so many enemies. For myself, I’m 42 years old now, almost 43 – and looking great, thanks! – and I’ve burned more than my share of bridges in my lifetime. But at my age, I am fully conscious of the fact that every time I speak my mind in public – this essay is just the latest example of that – there might be career repercussions. My editor or agent could get annoyed at something I say; readers could become alienated. Certainly, after today, any chances of getting Curtis Sittenfeld to blurb my next novel just flew right out the window.
And yet, knowing all that, I choose to speak my mind honestly, fully cognizant of the risks. And while I would never counsel another human being to be less honest, unless of course that other human being was about to tell me I look fat in this dress, I do not think Curtis Sittenfeld has shown sufficient maturity to persuade me to believe that she grasps the consequences of her behavior. She can dislike the Melissa Bank book, she can even hate it if she chooses and say so, but all the other nonsense just makes her look, well, foolish.
I’d like to add something to the definition I gave above for what constitutes a good novel. To me, a good novel contains both comedy and tragedy, not necessarily in equal parts. I know others may disagree with me on this, but that’s the kind of novel I most like to read and that’s the kind of novel I most like to write.
So, here’s the comic part of this story. I met Melissa Bank at BEA. OK, so maybe that’s not exactly the comic part, but I did wait patiently in her long line for the chance to speak with her. I didn’t need another copy of her book, which I’d already read, but I did want to commiserate over the review, which I’d seen prior to its publication. Understandably, she was upset about the situation. Now here really is the comic part: it is a truth universally acknowledged that a scathing review in the Times can often sell more books than a tepid one can or even, sometimes, a positive one. And it is my best guess that such will prove the case with The Wonder Spot. Readers who may not have bothered with it otherwise will pick up the book in huge numbers, both out of curiosity and out of sympathy, and a cursory glance at Amazon – OK, I did pause briefly to check on my own rankings – reveals that Melissa Bank is currently outpacing Curtis Sittenfeld.
Now comes the tragedy.
Curtis Sittenfeld has herself written a fine first novel but that fact is being obscured by all the sound and fury with which she has surrounded herself. True, in her own words, I am not one iota smarter than I was before reading it. But my own criteria for what constitutes a good book is mercifully not as limited as hers. I’ve always been a sucker for novels set in a private school. And while Prep does not belong on a shelf next to my beloved A Separate Peace, it easily outstrips Tobias Wolff’s Old School, which others loved but which I found tedious, for my favor.
So, basically, Curtis Sittenfeld is a promising young novelist who keeps shooting herself in the foot. I used to get angry thinking about Curtis Sittenfeld, as recently as this past Sunday I was angry with her. Now I find that thinking of her only makes me sad.
But, hey, anytime Curtis Sittenfeld wants to apologize for indirectly calling me a slut, I’m more than willing to shake hands and start again.
Lauren Baratz-Logsted is the author of The Thin Pink Line and Crossing the Line. Her third novel, A Little Change of Face, will be published in July 2005. Her essay, “If Jane Austen Were Writing Today,” is collected in Flirting with Pride and Prejudice: Fresh Perspectives on the Original Chick-Lit Masterpiece, edited by Jennifer Crusie and due out from Benbella Books on September 1.
posted at 1:14 PM
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