FD has been reading the NYTimes Book Review since the 1970s. Sometimes as part of the Sunday paper, and for some years when getting the paper delivered wasn’t easy here, FD had a separate mail subscription. For many years, it seemed important, even necessary, in order to know about new books. Now of course, there are so many great book blogs and so many other on-line reviewing sources, that no one actually needs the NYTBR. But if you still like to read on paper, it’s one of the few reviews left. And, FD is back to getting the paper delivered, so the review is always in the house.
But lately, FD has been slow to read the weekly issues. Yesterday’s essay by Katie Roiphe about sex in the novels of some old white guys and some young white guys provided a hint as to why the Review is no longer a must read. What a boring essay! (so boring we’re not linking to it, but it’s easy enough to find…) FD read Updike and Mailer and Roth as a very young woman, when those books were new, and even then rejected the idea that the specific male-centered analysis of sexuality these guys were selling could have anything to say to women — or a lot of other males! It’s not clear to FD now why the Times, or Roiphe, thinks there’s any interest in revisiting those very time- and culture-specific musings.
As usual, the attention was on a tiny group of white, male, heterosexual, US-born writers, as if the whole world of literature was that tiny. But it’s not, and that group doesn’t have the power it did, except, perhaps, in the New York Times Book Review.