Too Dumb for the New Yorker

Friends,

The end of the year is approaching, so I'll be rolling out the year end mustache awards soonish, but first I'd like to address The New Yorker.

I had never read a New Yorker before this year. I was moved to do so because of Tom's blog, and how he linked to the New Yorker concerning the Raymond Carver/Gordon Lish stuff that's talked about in the current issue (among the items in this magazine is a Carver story called "Beginners" which after it went through the Lish woodchipper, became "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.") Also in this issue, is a great dirty little piece from Junot Diaz called Alma, and a story that every 242 teacher needs to have to give to their students, Natalie by Anne Enright (this story uses a voice that will be very accesible to all the hard-to-reach sororiety-type girls, and yet will show them a great lesson about weight in a story). They also have a review of the Led Zepplin reunion concert and that has to be the most technical music review I have ever read.

Anyway, they also have a book review of J.M. Coetzee's "Diary of a Bad Year." Now, I have never read Coetzee, but I know the name from walking through Barnes & Noble, so that must count for something. And he's won a Nobel Prize, so he's done well for himself (but he only has one more Nobel Prize than I do, so he can't be that good). And in the book review, which I haven't quite finished because I can't get past this once sentence when the reviewer (James Wood) describes Coetzee's prose as "chaste, exact, [and] ashen." Okay, I understand completely what exact prose is (though writing it seems to be a problem for me). But what exactly is chaste and ashen prose? Are those good things?

Think about chaste. Okay, that's a comment on emotional restraint, right? So that's good. And there's kind of a religious undertone to that as well, so the idea of faith in the abstract is a good thing, right? But chaste, that also brings up connotations of virgins. And virgins, in turn, bring up inexperience or fumbling (at least with bra-straps). And who would ever want their writing to be described as the act of not fucking?

Think about ashen. What could that mean? The writing is light, fluffy, and can be smudgy. But, he also called it exact, so that can't by right. Maybe there's a dryness, so that will relate to exact, but it's a dryness because of an intense fire. So his prose is light and dry because of so much passion in it? Does that make sense? But if it's so passionate, what the hell's up with the chaste? I guess you can be passionately chaste, like a religious fervor, but again, is that a good thing?

And the review goes on for another 1,000 some-odd words, and I have no idea if he's taking the piss out of a Noble Laureate or giving him another medal. At least I can't tell by the second paragraph (where the above sentence comes from) because I can't make up my mind if being ashen and chaste is a good thing or a bad thing, or just at thing deserving neither admiration nor condemnation. Plus, I have taught students how to write critiques, so by god, if I can't tell by now what position the writer is taking, this guy is looking down the barrell of a C paper...but it's the New Yorker...so maybe it's in there and I just haven't found it yet. Or maybe this is why book reviews are dying...for the most part, people just want to know if a work is any good or not, and not spend a day puzzling over what exactly "ashen prose" happens to be. Or maybe, I'm just not smart enough for the New Yorker...maybe I'm more of an Atlantic Monthly kind of guy.

Viva el mustache!

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Two extra notes:
A question...if you were to choose words to describe your writing, how would you? Do you think that you are ashen and chaste? Or perhaps fiery and coital? What do you think?

Minneapolis has been found to be the most literate city in America. Hooray for Minneapolis! Also high on the list, St. Louis, MO. Go figure.