Logrolling In Our Time: Eternal Recurrence Edition

Today, David Brooks tells us how to write a review of a Tom Wolfe novel: Basically, you need to look for reasons that it sucks, even though it doesn't suck. In other words, look for the dung in the diamond heap. This is all by way of letting you know that it is not PC to like Tom Wolfe, and if you would be so gracious, please take the time to commend him for his courage in taking the contrary position. (And Brooks wonders why Red America isn't buying his book. Dude! Your only audience is the one that signs your checks. You are a man caught between two worlds, neither of which needs you much, but one of which keeps you around for entertainment purposes.) If, on the other hand, you wonder how Brooks works his logrolling magic, watch and learn. The approach is really quite simple: Establish that Blue America hates it, then summarize the plot (watch the word-count go up, up, up!) , then reduce it to a hoary cliche that hasn't seen the light of day for, oh, fifteen years or so.

We are not so stupid that we don't realize Updike, Mailer, and Roth can't stand Wolfe, and that they take every opportunity they can to swipe at the dandy in their midst. (Though we don't understand why they waste their time when they have their own grandiose legacies and personal mythologies to service—and, presumably, books to write. Gentlemen: tick-tock, tick-tock!)

We are also not too vain or blue to admit that there have been some pretty memorable Wolfe books—and we do not begrudge the time we've spent with any of them, though we're afraid the same cannot be said of the aforementioned holy trinity of American letters.

They are just writers. They just create books. Some good, some bad, some middling. We feel it is essentially a waste of time for them to take on this extracurricular activity of defending their place in history against the onslaught of hated rivals. They should leave that to someone really good, like Charles McGrath.

We say: Hand to the plow fellows.—The Editor in Cheese