I guess you want me to respond to Jonathan Franzen's remarks. [Note: Franzen's comments are reported at: http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=523349]
I'm not sure I want to add to the nastiness, but I stopped reading Michiko Kakutani years ago. Let's just leave it at that. I always read John Leonard in Harper's--actually I usually read all the reviews in Harper's. Here I am claiming I don't read reviews and when I think about it, I actually do read a fair number, but I'm careful, oh so careful who I read, because I really can be furious for a week. I remember a review of some memoir written by Edmund White's nephew that wouldn't have been published if he hadn't been Edmund White's nephew and the reviewer dismissed all--ALL--of Edmund White's work as self-absorbed and autobiographical. The irony was of course beautiful, a memoir that probably shouldn't have been published and wouldn't have if his uncle weren't famous, but here was a chance to discuss why Edmund White's first two novels are so important, and particularly important to young men trying to find their way in the world, whether homosexual or not. In other words, White's work and how the nephew came to be better in the world after living with his uncle are connected. Instead, the review thought it just fine to toss away a lifetime's work with one sentence, and to not even mention White as the extensive biographer of Jean Genet. Just stupidity. That was yet again a New York Times review.
--ML
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