Comments on: Richard Yates — Tao Lin

By: Caleb Powell

Caleb Powell — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 23:16:42 +0000

Franzen seems to be getting beat up, but yeah, he’s a big boy and thus is not vulnerable to criticism. I’m curious to give Freedom a shot…but not much more than that, and your review adds to my lukewarm enthusiasm.

On negative reviews, here’s a good article by Canadian Brian Fawcett about the topic, “On the absence of hatchet jobs amongst Canada’s book reviewers” which also applies to the US: http://www.dooneyscafe.com/archives/1857

By the way, I’ve linked to your review of David Shields’ Reality Hunger (my interview with him just came out on Gulf Coast this week), I’ll post on my blog soon.

By: Biblioklept

Biblioklept — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 21:40:42 +0000

You make a great point here:
“I think reviewers feel a certain pressure to be kinder than they otherwise might be. I feel this same pressure, many lit mags won’t touch negative reviews, many reviewers have relations with publicists and writers, and they do not want to damage this.”

I think you’re more or less right–and I do, as a whole, like Melville House’s vision, the books they put out, and, yes, their publicists are very nice to me (e.g. they send me lots of books).

On the whole though, I try to avoid writing negative reviews, especially for un- or under-established novelists (Tao Lin might be a fame whore but he’s not a big league writer). If I really hate something I’ll go after it (you can see my review of Franzen’s Freedom — http://biblioklept.org/2010/10/22/an-obligatory-review-of-jonathan-franzens-freedom-2/), but on the whole I think that the critic’s job should be to enlarge literature and expand its audience, not to belittle it. I try to keep John Updike’s rules in mind, which basically revolve around the idea that the book should be judged on its own terms, not the individual readers. It might not be a book for *me*, but does it have an audience somewhere?

But of course, we all hate to see naked emperors (*cough*, Franzen).

Thanks for posting your review. I’ll go read it now.

By: Caleb Powell

Caleb Powell — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 19:58:26 +0000

Hi Biblioklept,

Points well taken. There were serious elements and meanings to be taken in the book, and my review at this Canadian site explains my take: http://www.dooneyscafe.com/archives/2315

The book is unique, and it was sort of a hot-cold feeling, on my part, having liked so much Tao Lin’s Internet presence, and then being compelled to read the book, finding myself bored, and then trying to analyze why. (I got the galley in June, it took me two+ months to read, and I probably read ten books in between.)

The book seemed to be written to fans that lap up Tao-Tweets and not so much to the reader who didn’t already “love” him. There are lots of individual moments, but they never were sufficiently explored. I think Lin exhibits no novelistic talent in Richard Yates, but he does create art that speaks to a certain crowd, and he has written very good stuff. I’ll throw out the dictum: the only bad review is no review, and I think he will continue to pick up fans just as he’ll turn people off.

You did address the slower elements of the book, but, and call me a cynic, I think reviewers feel a certain pressure to be kinder than they otherwise might be. I feel this same pressure, many lit mags won’t touch negative reviews, many reviewers have relations with publicists and writers, and they do not want to damage this. At the same time, screw it, I think the lit world needs a little fire, a little more fierce self-reflexive criticism.

You did interpret my comments and your defense successfully negated my cynicism. Thanks for the feedback.

Best,
C

By: Biblioklept

Biblioklept — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 15:12:18 +0000

Hi, Caleb,
Thanks for the thoughtful response.
I think if Lin’s RY bores a reader, that is not the fault of the reader necessarily (in contrast with, say, a reader being bored with Moby-Dick, where I think the boredom *is* a failure on the reader’s part).
As far as my review, I will defend it against what I see to be an implicit idea in your comment (which, if I am wrong, please correct me)–
You seem to suggest that literary blogs/critics are finding in Lin a signal figure in “new writing,” an interesting personality whose books are doing “something new” (e.g. you cite the end of my review and others). However, you seem to suggest that this new emperor has no clothes–that he’s really quite boring–something that my review (and others) fail to adequately address.
I think that’s a fair subjective aesthetic criticism of the book (that it’s boring)–I just disagree. Not that it was a thrill ride, but I found it subtle and horrifying. Also, I have to admit that I had a keen critical interest in *what* Lin was trying to do and *how* he was trying to do it–an interest that may have superseded and interest in character, plot development, and symbolism in my critique.

By: Caleb Powell

Caleb Powell — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 14:20:27 +0000

Redact: “…seem really trying to stretch and findmerit in a very boring book.”

By: Caleb Powell

Caleb Powell — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 14:16:48 +0000

The antics of Tao Lin are what got me interested in reading his books. Specifically this article in The Stranger: http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=449302/ Really good stuff. But Richard Yates, on the other hand, does what bad novels do…bore. I’ve never been so bored, and most reviews such as the one here at Bibliokept conclude with similar sentiments, but seemed really trying to stretch and find merit a very boring book.

Supposedly Tao spent 2,500 hours on the novel. Really? Why? Anyway…have I mentioned the novel is really really really boring?

By: 1hockeychics

1hockeychics — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 04:35:09 +0000

I think the index is the equivalent of a category cloud on a blog, but without a mouse we can’t click on the pages. These are repeated words with significance in our postmodern world.

By: The Rumpus Interviews Tao Lin about Stealing Books (and Other Issues) « biblioklept

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 19:01:31 +0000

[...] Franzen (not really (but sort of)), as well as his new novel Richard Yates (read our review here). Lin answers plenty of questions about Richard Yates, including why he put an index in the book, [...]

By: stephen

stephen — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 03:01:07 +0000

i shouldn’t have used the adverb “undoubtedly.” there’s doubt. i doubt you are a brute. not sure what “pockets of emotions” are. thanks for clarifying. the herzog “wheel of time” reference reminds me of tao’s comment re “shoplifting from american apparel,” that its themelessness, and its not giving added weight to any event in the narrative, was an attempt to enact buddhism. in “wheel of time,” as is mentioned in the book, buddhist monks use colored sand to create a design representing the world of phenomena and then they brush the sand into containers and throw them into the sea. seems bad to try and reduce that reference to a simple interpretation.

By: Biblioklept

Biblioklept — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 00:07:22 +0000

stephen, to clarify, i wasn’t faulting the book with my “no symbols” comment. i also offered the idea that it was “all symbols,” or, to put it another way, concretely referential. but if the violin and the zombies and the puddle and so on are symbols, what is their operational meaning? how do they comment on/function in the narrative proper? what do the allusions to hemingway and herzog add up to? i don’t mean these questions rhetorically (or aggressively, for that matter)–i just read the entire book as a displacement of metaphorical meaning.
as far as the soul/insight thing–yeah, sure. sorry i didn’t define those oh-so-subjective terms (that is a bit of aggressive sarcasm, although trust me that it’s not really too aggressive). i suspect that’s the root of your (considered, thoughtful) comment–my quibble with the book. i don’t know–i don’t have an answer here, certainly not a good one. i find soul where i read it and to me “richard yates” was all surfaces–which might be a definition of soul. i’m not sure. maybe lin’s subtlety is just too uncommon or impressive (or just subtle) for a brute like me.

By: stephen

stephen — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 23:25:54 +0000

there are symbols and arguably symbolic or evocative moments in the book. see: the multiple references to a broken violin dakota is thinking about smashing but “not yet”; the references to zombies; the scene where haley goes on the abandoned bus; the puddle haley jumps over; there are allusions to events in hemingway’s life from a biography; there is a very interesting reference to werner herzog’s “the wheel of time.” i submit to you that tao is uncommonly, impressively subtle. whether there is “soul” or “insight” in the book depends on one’s definition for those words, or expectations for the manifestation of same, but the book undoubtedly has what i will call emotional resonances, pockets of emotion as elusive and mysterious as in real life.