I Am Even-Handed
I just received a letter from "Josh," a reader, who offers a different perspective on the new Jonathan Safran book I discuss in the post below. I print his letter here, to show that I am fair. This is an interesting discussion, and I'm guessing I've struck a bit of a nerdy literary nerve and will receive some letters. But from here on, it will be relegated to the letters page. Let me set the terms, and you may talk among yourselves, including a discussion of the ironic fact that I'm backhandedly contributing to the unstoppable Safran Foer publicity machine here:
What is the appropriate literary response to 9-11? Or to life during the "War On Terror"? Are these magical-realist times or gritty noir times, or both, or neither? Inquiring minds want to know. Now Josh says,
"I attended one of the New Yorker Festival literary readings here in the Mother City last fall. It was a double-header: Foer and Martin Amis back-to-back on the same stage. Fifteen bucks. And can't you just guess whose name was printed in 38-point font on the Ticketmaster tix, vs 9 or 11 points for his considerably more accomplished and astute and uproarious and accented elder? Hm. The publishing industry, in its Foer - LeRoy - et alia love for boy phenoms, increasingly resembles the music biz. Well, I thought, Amis has been reading to audiences longer than this kid's known English and is going to rip him a new one.
I was wrong. Foer read what sounded like Ch 1 to his new novel, and he had us utterly seduced and did all the good stagey shit with his voice, and Amis was up there droning and soporific. That's honestly how it was. I know the stage tricks are different from the print tricks, but young Jonathon Safran at least had the former mastered and made you want to go read more and more, where Amis left you wanting to reread Money just to make sure it was really quite so nice as you recalled.
I dug the boy-genius character, at least as the young buck realized him live on stage. And as to the diciness of tackling 9/11 so supposedly close to the Event, which your previous commentator deplored, I'm a little shocked. NOBODY can handle it? Maybe not, but the implication that nobody should try -- to write the tough stuff, man, can't honestly be what you, Neal, believe; even if you're sure most of the lugubrious pricks will fail horribly. Right?"