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Friday, Jul 10, 2009
The literary world is abuzz: Does New York Times editor Bill Keller want to take his influential book review section down-market?
Feb 4, 2004 | Bill Keller, the recently appointed executive editor at the New York Times, must have known he'd be embroiled in controversy sooner or later -- a new round of plagiarism accusations, a fight with the White House or the State Department, an arcane scandal involving the financial markets. In high-end journalism, these things happen. He probably wasn't expecting his first public dust-up to be over the fate of the Sunday book review section.
In a Jan. 21 interview with Book Babes, a column written by Margo Hammond and Ellen Heltzel on the Poynter Institute Web site, Keller discussed his ideas for sweeping changes to the New York Times Book Review in the wake of editor Charles "Chip" McGrath's impending departure. In fairness, many observers of the publishing world believe the Book Review has lost much of its oomph in recent years. But it's safe to say that almost as many of those publishing insiders -- and lots of general readers -- were horrified by Keller's ideas. He said he wanted to cut back on the coverage of first novels, and cover more topical nonfiction and mass-market fiction. The section might review more "potboilers," he suggested, to help travelers decide what books to buy in airports.
Steven Erlanger, the Times' culture editor, didn't help matters any by implying that most of the books praised in the section weren't really worth reviewing. "To be honest, there's so much shit," Erlanger told the Book Babes. "Most of the things we praise aren't very good."
The response from the literary world was immediate -- and immediately hostile. Replies to the article on the Poynter site were dominated by appalled readers, some of whom descended into hyperbole: "Great, I hope they include tractor pulls too," one wrote. To some, it seemed as if Tom Buchanan, the glib, ham-fisted businessman mocked by F. Scott Fitzgerald in "The Great Gatsby," had come to life to lord over a frightened and defenseless literary kingdom.
"Never before has someone been so foolish enough to basically say, 'We're dumbing it down,'" one prominent New York book editor notes angrily. "And it showed they don't know anything about the publishing world. Saying something like that is waving a red cape in front of a bull."
Keller and Erlanger have spent much of the last two weeks doing damage control, complaining that their words were taken out of context and insisting that "dumbing down" the Book Review is the last thing on their mind. (For their part, Hammond and Heltzel insist the interview quotes are rock solid.) But the fact remains that these renowned journalists -- Keller won a Pulitzer as a foreign correspondent -- are not literary men. A clearer picture of what they perhaps meant to say has emerged in later interviews, and while the Times leadership does not plan to eliminate the coverage of literary fiction, it does want the Book Review to emphasize titles with topical importance, such as political and foreign policy titles. (Which are probably what Keller and Erlanger grab as reading material, considering their backgrounds.) Author interviews, reporting on the publishing biz, and other format changes are also being considered.
"We're not handing it over with a formula," Keller says about the editorial transition, adding that the Book Review will actually be expanded after he chooses the new editor later this month. "We're going to choose a person because of their high standards, imagination and ideas, and they'll have considerable license in shaping the review." (As recently reported by the New York Observer, the final candidates are believed to include former Book Review columnist Judith Shulevitz, former Newsweek editor Sarah Crichton, Slate columnist Ann Hulbert and Atlantic literary editor Benjamin Schwarz.)
Whatever Keller and Erlanger say now, the Book Babes article conveyed a dismissive indifference to literary books that was almost like a parody of many publishers' and readers' worst suspicions about the Book Review. Except for perfunctory nods, some say, literary coverage has not only been downsized and simplified over the past decade but also undermined from the very top -- and not only at the Times but in other mainstream venues as well. Keller claims that the idea that he wants to demote literary fiction was "badly misread," but some of his Book Babes quotes resist reinterpretation, such as his call for fewer and shorter first-novel reviews and this zinger about the future of fiction coverage:
"Of course, some fiction needs to be done," he said. "We'll do the new Updike, the new [Philip] Roth, the new Jonathan Franzen or Zadie Smith. But there are not a lot of them, it seems to me."
This concept of the pinnacle of world literature -- three American males (two of them over 70) and a young (hot) Englishwoman -- might be reasonable coming from a middle-aged guy with a news background, but it isn't very heartening. Franzen and Roth certainly produce noteworthy books, but for all his incomparable achievement, the idea that Updike is still a vibrant American writer suggests an ossified conception of literary culture. Mentioning no female American writers, when the majority of American fiction readers are women, seems especially unfortunate. And where would Zadie Smith be if publications like the New York Times had passed over her first novel, the international bestseller "White Teeth"?
"When I first read the piece, it sounded like they were being too informal without realizing the importance or reach of what they were saying," says Michael Cader, founder of the online industry newsletter Publishers Lunch. "It gives a pause, if not a chill, to an industry being referred to in that fashion, with such a deeply unsophisticated position. It's just a bad sign of the rigor of the thinking going on at the Times."
