I did make it through this book, but it became
increasingly boring as we crept to the 512th page. For those who didn’t make it, I’ll end the
suspense by saying, Henry got his mojo back [last line of the book].
It was boring to me even though:
-
I’m a male
-
I’m a bachelor
-
and I like
baseball.
I can
only imagine the sheer reading torture this was for those who are:
-
female
-
aren’t into
frat-house gross jokes
or
lives focused around pizzas and beer.
-
and aren’t into
training regimens of athletes.
Where did
this book go wrong?: let me count the ways.
The boredom started a third of the way through the book as the reader
became aware that the cast of characters and their dysfunctional foibles had
been typeset in lead and scenes from that point forward were only going to be
repetitious variations of what had gone on before. After halfway through the book,
disillusionment set in as the reader realized that there would be no steamy sex
scenes, no great moments in baseball history, actually nothing interesting at
all. Maybe we’ve become too jaded or
inured living around Guerneville, but all of the sex lives of these characters
were pitifully abysmal. All this, “Will
he, won’t she, will she, won’t he, will they join the dance?”
A tortuous read – 1 out of 10 for this elitist,
wannabe author, whose only praise comes from the NY Times {see below}.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = =
n+1 began in the Fall of 2004, the project of Keith Gessen, Benjamin Kunkel, Mark Greif, Chad Harbach, and Marco Roth. The magazine, described by
Gessen as "like Partisan Review, except not dead,"
was launched out of a feeling of dissatisfaction with the current intellectual
scene in the United States, with the editors often citing Lingua Franca and the early years of Partisan Review as models for their
magazine. Both of those magazines embodied the age where the little magazine
was a veritable institution and a major centre of innovation in arts and
politics.
Their outlook is most frequently summed up by the last lines of their
first issue where Gessen proclaimed, "it is time to say what you
mean. " Yet in the Third Issue,
critic James Wood responded to criticism of his negative criticism and, singling out this
quote by Gessen, stated, "The Editors had unwittingly proved the gravamen of their own critique: that it is easier to criticize than to
propose."
The magazine has received mixed criticism to date. Generally, n+1's
detractors are irked by the editors' youth and perceived elitism. As the
magazine is purportedly an effort to engage a generation in a struggle against
the current literary landscape, such seeming elitism seems counterintuitive to
the ideals upon which the magazine was founded. The New Criterion critically
asked, "is your journal really necessary?" and accused
them of exaggerating their own importance. The Times Literary
Supplement wryly satirized Kunkel's quote, "We're angrier than Dave Eggers
and his crowd," and compared that quote against their Third Issue's
unsigned article about and titled Dating.
Others have appreciated these very qualities, writing favorably of the
boldness of the project itself and the sincerity and enthusiasm of its
contributors. New York Times critic A.O. Scott commented on this in a feature
article on the new wave of young, intellectual publications in a September 2005
issue of the New York Times
Magazine, saying that n+1 was trying to "organize a generational
struggle against laziness and cynicism, to raise once again the banners of
creative enthusiasm and intellectual engagement" and that it had a feel
that was "decidedly youthful, not only in [its] characteristic
generational concerns — the habit of nonchalantly blending pop culture,
literary esoterica and academic theory, for instance, or the unnerving ability
to appear at once mocking and sincere — but also in the sense of bravado and
grievance that ripples through their pages."
