Look for the Fork in the Essay

In the most recent issue of The New Republic, Ruth Franklin seems to have written a 5,000 word review of David Mitchell’s fourth novel, Black Swan Green. I say seems to, because what she’s actually done is written a literate, 2,000 word unfinished rant about the state of book criticism and the problems with delicately phrased reviews, and then followed it with a 3,000 word book review. It’s an article that announces itself to be one thing, proceeds for a good while to be that thing, and then suddenly decides to veer off haphazardly toward becoming something else.

The trouble starts before the article begins. Titled “The Trouble With Book Reviewing,” the headline seems to indicate that this will be yet another example of TNR’s contrarian posturing. And for a while, Ruth Franklin takes shots at the play-nice attitude of too many book reviewers, transitioning though a few interesting points before finally landing on the “confessional” problems of reviewing books you love. “Falling in love,” she writes, “even with a book, makes you vulnerable, and most of us are not inclined to parade our vulnerabilities in public.”

And then she stops, waylaid in mid essay, and hops off the contrarian essay train and onto the long-form book review ferry, never bothering to really close out the ideas she starts with. And the review she gives us is a fine one, full of close readings and sharp linguistic interpretation, everything that William Grimes failed to conjure up in the last essay that prompted a post hre on book criticism. But, for the all the review’s strengths, it’s not even tangentially connected to the opening essay, except that she generally steers clear of most of her criticisms of book reviewing. Both pieces—for there really are two, distinct essays here—are quite good. But doesn’t it seem fairly self-evident that an article titled “The Trouble With Book Reviewing” should be primarily about, erm, the troubles with book reviewing? Who fell asleep at the editorial meeting and muttered yes to this schizo pitch?