The New Yorker.

[LabelKing]

Quite frankly, I am tired of anticipating anything worthwhile from new editions of The New Yorker. It is full of small advertisments for things I would never buy, cheap accolades towards commercial interests and unfulfilling writing that aims at the pits--and rather resonates with the awful smell as well.

Where is the acerbic incisiveness and poignant fiction, the subtle upcharge against mediocrity? Although I suppose the question is a self-referential one since The New Yorker has become that anthill of mediocrity, with scurrying sycophantic gestures ever like incomptence applauding its brother.

 

[Nantucket Red]

I haven't read the New Yorker in many years, so I don't know what sort of state it's in. My grandfather, FPA, floated it with his own personal money when it was still a young and struggling publication.

Why the apparent downslide?

 

[LabelKing]

Most would attribute the decline to Tina Brown's tenure where she had the particular inclination--no doubt prompted by a corporate entity--to make a profit. And when people say they want to "turn a profit", it then becomes all-out Trumpian with hubristic grandiose gestures and diminishment of quality. Jamaica Kincaid called Tina Brown a vulgar woman with crude tastes--and that certainly showcases itself even subsequent to Brown's leave:

 

[Nantucket Red]

Come to think of it, I did notice a decline in quality around the turn of the century with a number of covers in very questionable taste.

 

[Hartmann]

http://www.amazon.com/Hooking-Up-Tom.../dp/0312420234

 

[LabelKing]

Originally Posted by Hartmann

http://www.amazon.com/Hooking-Up-Tom.../dp/0312420234
I don't particularly like Tom Wolfe; he lacks that wicked pregnant wit that Dorothy Parker and her circle possessed. His new books are seemingly like Greastest Hits Revised and the crescendo towards something incisive is usually premature, dribbling for some content.

 

[Hartmann]

Originally Posted by LabelKing

I don't particularly like Tom Wolfe; he lacks that wicked pregnant wit that Dorothy Parker and her circle possessed.

Yes, but makes up for it in sartorial elegance.

Originally Posted by LabelKing

His new books are seemingly like Greastest Hits Revised and the crescendo towards something incisive is usually premature, dribbling for some content.

True, Hooking Up wasn't breathtaking, but most essays had individual merit. In any case, I only meant to point out that Wolfe came to similar conclusions as yourself in Tiny Mummies! and Lost in the Whichy Thickets.

 

[RJman]

Originally Posted by Hartmann

Yes, but makes up for it in sartorial elegance.
He's dapper, but I hesitate to refer to him as a paragon of elegance. His dressing is closer to costume and a testament to his own postmodern self-invention. Lot of fun to read, though, and when he does talk about clothes he name-drops the right makers... (tongue planted in cheek).

I let my New Yorker subscription lapse years ago. The writer I really can't stand there is Anthony Lane, whose writing is so OTT British camp that they had to export him to the States, apparently. James Atlas whining about how he really can't afford to life the luxurious life he thinks he should lead is a runner up. I rather like the New Yorker's small ads, though, and all in all, it's an entertaining magazine.

 

[LabelKing]

I love how Wolfe's idea of discretion is to adapt the blue blazer and shoes with built-in spats as if American universitiy students appreciated such supplanted sartorialism while publicly intoxicating themselves-- a nasty and unchecked business to be sure, rather like Paris Hilton's sexual orifices or GWB's vocabulary.

Anthony Lane's recent review of that go-between remake of "Dreamgirls" was as insipid as they come--turgid meanderings and dull jabs abound. He is no Pauline Kael.


When that "Devil Wears Prada" scribbler said she wanted to write at The New Yorker, my first thought was, 'How appropriate'.

 

[Patrick Bateman]

The fiction has really become appallingly, excruciatingly bad. I guess it's probably for the best that they usually publish only one story a week, since to inflict anything more on the reader would just be cruel. But when they give that slot to Alice Munro, Ann Beatie, or some other mediocre middlebrow female, it's just depressing. I'd rather read Updike in late (geriatric?) mode.

So for fiction they're lucky to get one or two decent pieces a year, and that's usually in the form of excerpts from novels. Off the top of my head, the only memorable stories from the last 10 years are a couple each by Haruki Murakami, Richard Ford, and Tobias Wolff. Maybe one by T.C. Boyle, about the teenagers who killed their newborn. That was good. But the pickings are slim and compared to the "golden" era (when Updike was still an original voice, they were publishing Nabokov, John O'Hara had something like 150+ stories, etc.) the fiction is a joke.

LK and RJ, re: Anthony Lane, I can only advise: do not read the movie reviews! It's obvious he doesn't take the movies particularly seriously and the reviews are just an excuse to make whatever jokes and puns are on his mind that week. His style is better in larger doses with longer intervals between each reading. Definitely read his criticism on Evelyn Waugh and Andre Gide - absolutely sublime. Or his article earlier this year about that British explorer and adventurer - breathtaking, one of the few articles published this year that I can remember.

Another article, almost at random from earlier this year: an extended account of the Mafia cops trial in Brooklyn. Very well written and the ending is very moving.

But, overall, you guys are right. I'm not sure why I still subscribe given that less than 1% of the content is even remotely memorable or particularly well-written. It must be the triumph of hope over experience.

 

[Stu]

Originally Posted by RJman

He's dapper, but I hesitate to refer to him as a paragon of elegance. His dressing is closer to costume and a testament to his own postmodern self-invention.


I think Gay Talese is much better dressed than Tom Wolfe. He has a real Italian understanding of how to dress and use clothes. I can't post pix here because of a firewall, but do a google image search on him and you will see my point.

 

[LabelKing]

Gay Talese is much more discreet and rather tasteful whereas contrasted with Mr.Wolfe, who seems to take much (ironic?) pleasure in dressing as performance art--the very sort of "art" that he apparently loathes.

 

[Patrick Bateman]

The lapels on many of Talese's jackets seem rather attention-seeking though. I do agree that overall he is more discreet and tasteful than Wolfe. But they're both beacons of light in the sartorial wilderness.

 

[LabelKing]

The New Yorker reminds me more of a Reader's Digest than anything else, really.

Here is what Jamaica Kincaid said:

Didn't you and Gottlieb argue fairly often?

Oh my goodness! I had a great big quarrel with him. Actually the other day I was thinking: I should write Bob Gottlieb a letter telling him that I miss his literary spirit. You certainly can't say about Bob Gottlieb, as you can about the current editor of The New Yorker, that he's not a literary person. He may have had some bad taste and bad judgment, but you can't say he wasn't a literary person. I miss disagreeing with someone on literary grounds.

You didn't get that under Tina Brown?

No, I didn't. It's hard to find an article in The New Yorker now that's not about some one -- a celebrity of some kind. It's a version of People magazine. I'm saddened. The coarseness of it, the vulgarity. But who wants to be in the position of arguing for good taste. Certainly not me! [Laughs.] I like bad taste, but there is a level that even I can't abide. I don't know one person who was there when The New Yorker was actually The New Yorker who hasn't been destroyed by it. But people have their families. I've never felt more sympathetic to people who sell out. People who stay on and try to have some health insurance.

Why exactly did you leave the magazine?

I was horrified, when I learned of it this fall, that my editor thought Roseanne was a source of intellectual interest. A marvelous monster, I think my editor called her. And I thought: Oh dear -- this is unfortunate. The thing I know most about Roseanne is that she fires her writers. And I am a writer. You know, when I crossed the ocean I aspired to be with something grand and really great and better than me. Not in New York with people who only care about other vulgar people of the moment.

How was your relationship with Tina Brown?

Oh, I like her very much. I just wish I could rescue her from her coarseness. She's actually got some nice qualities. But she can't help but be attracted to the coarse and vulgar. I wish there was a vaccine -- I would sneak it up on her.

 

[modsquad]

I can't believe you guys are writing this stuff. The New Yorker is the best it has ever been. It sustains an amazingly high quality considering it's a weekly. Nobody writes better, more entertaining Hollywood stories than Tad Friend. Margaret Talbot is a great writer and very insightful cultural commentator (she's also a casual acquaintance of mine). The New Yorker broke the Abu Graib (sp?) story and Seymour Hersh and George Packer are arguably the most influential reporters working on Iraq. Personally, I like Anthony Lane. He has the right attutide for the types of films he is assigned, which are the more transparently commercial ones, and he's a riot. David Denby is knowledgable, John Lahr is a demanding theater critic while also being generous, Louis Menand apparently knows everything. I don't read the fiction so I can't comment on it, but what else could you want in a magazine?

Tina Brown was necessary; those 50,000 word multi-part pieces on the Law of the Sea treaty and geological formations had to be garroted. Firing her was also necessary; she was destroying the village in order to save it. But it's smack dab in the groove now, the golden mean.