Two weeks into the Renewed Vilification of Jeff Bezos (his smart downsizing of The Washington Post and less appealing public instances of going down on Donald Trump, presumably in quest of regulatory/tax breaks rather than any ideological agreement) the worst article I’ve read on the subject was in—hold your hair on—The New Yorker, the weekly that dares its owners to keep it alive. The “We Speak Literature to Power” author is Becca Rothfeld, who was laid off from the Post’s eliminated “Book World.” And, not coincidentally, immediately found another job as a staff writer at The New Yorker, probably she’s young (34), can, for better or worse, compose two consecutive paragraphs that roughly make sense, and, unlike so many of the vocal Bezos detractors, didn’t grow up when Ben Bradlee was still editor and Janet Cooke embarrassed that daily.
I don’t mind young (or old) writers laying on the patronization of its readers like a fat Skippy’s Peanut Butter and bacon sandwich, but if that’s the course, make it worthwhile with some legitimate jokes (maybe even self-deprecation) and an attempt at wit. But Rothfeld, in her Revenge Essay before becoming a fulltime employee at David Remnick’s thin weekly, tortures readers with stentorian prose, not dissimilar to an insufferable and self-regarding university professor.
She writes: “Maybe [Post readers] hadn’t expected to be waylaid by a book review when they opened the paper to read about Donald Trump’s latest indiscretion or to check the score of a Capitals game; maybe they didn’t seek out literary criticism because they didn’t realize they liked it, or didn’t even know what it was.”
It’s apparent that Rothfeld doesn’t know what contemporary sports “reporting” is; no one, for years now, picked up the print edition of the Post to “check the score of a Capitals game”; those so inclined found out the game’s results online that night or early in the morning, and likely not in the Post. And, though cavalier about insulting her former readers (undetermined number), it’s bad form to essentially call them idiots. Not that “bad form” is uncommon in today’s media.
Like others, Rothfeld skewers the “robotic” Bezos for his failure to spend more money on his paper (with no acknowledgement of the millions he wasted after buying it in 2013), and then trashes his flagship Amazon. “On Amazon, the glorious inconvenience of browsing shelves or combing through piles has been eliminated. There is no occasion to pick up an unfamiliar book out of sheer curiosity. Every book that the site’s algorithm recommends is similar to one you have purchased already. In this way, you encounter nothing but iterations of yourself forever.”
Rothfeld’s so immersed in her solipsistic world that she doesn’t appreciate the irony of that last sentence. It’s been the case for years that readers seek out media that won’t offend or challenge them, whether it’s in The New York Times or Rupert Mudoch’s holdings. An “inconvenience” isn’t “glorious.” Like many people who grew up in the pre-digital age, I spent a lot of time in bookstores, and, if not in a hurry (as when I combed the row of retail outlets on 8th St. in NYC, usually finding an obscure title, and then getting a slice and Orange Julius across the street before walking to hole-in-the-wall record shops), it was swell. Not so great was getting the cold shoulder from I-know-more-than-you clerks at places like Shakespeare on Broadway and The Strand, when simply asking a question was an imposition.
Meanwhile, at The Atlantic, Adam Kirsch wrote on the same topic—the end of Book World—but his tone was far more polite, and comprehensible, than Rothfeld’s. He’s also dismayed by “the decline of literature” and “literacy,” but lists a number of print and online outlets for book reviews. (As does, in fairness, Rothfeld, but she concentrates her angry lament on the lack of daily newspaper book coverage.) Kirsch writes: “There is also no shortage of enthusiasm for talking about books. Just look at BookTok, Goodreads, Reddit, Amazon, or anywhere else people gather online to react, share, rank, and ask questions about the books they love or hate.”
Kirsch doesn’t mention Bezos once (his one oblique reference is saying that the Post, like other dailies before, found a book section economically unfeasible) and offers a different take on the high-brow hatred of Amazon, obviously glad it exists.
The picture above is of my wife Melissa at a Left Bank café in Paris a long time ago. On that trip, we’d walk for miles, including many stops at inside and outside bookstores, and then get back to the hotel to spiff up for a fancy dinner, the most notable of which was Le Taillevent.
Take a look at the clues to figure out the year: Irvine Welsh’s first published fiction appears in New Writing Scotland; Amy Tan’s The Kitchen God’s Wife, Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho, Madonna’s Sex, and P.J. O’Rourke’s Parliament of Whores are published; Nordine Gordimer wins the Literature Pulitzer; Ben Okri takes the Booker Prize; the Atlanta Braves’ Terry Pendleton wins the N.L. MVP; Jeff Bagwell is N.L. Rookie of the Year; Corey Pavin is the PGA Tour $$$ champ; Trevor Bauer is born and Luke Appling dies; Pan American World Airways files for bankruptcy protection; Eastern Airlines goes out of business; Dances With Wolves (incredibly) wins Best Picture Oscar; and Sonic the Hedgehog is released in the United States.
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023