tiny rant

I don't understand when there's so little inches devoted to reviewing or covering literary fiction in The New York Times why instead they choose to review or cover the same book like 5 times. I understand that there is this idea of "hype," but it seems to me that the media actually generates and fuels this "hype" - aided by two bookstore chains that are fast proving their irrelevance. I have already in the Grey Lady read two reviews of Tea Obreht's The Tiger's Wife, as well as an article today in The Arts section: "Author Earns Her Stripes On First Try," about how young and successful and hyped she is. This is all in the past week. I believe recent statistics generated by VIDA show that many less woman writers are reviewed in the big publications - that does not mean one can compensate for this by writing about the same woman writer over and over again. And what is the purpose of one publication reviewing the same book twice or three times? This happens all the time. I think Jonathan Franzen's Freedom was reviewed like 8 times or something. I didn't count. But it was repetitive, and felt like a constant repetitive trauma, like a machine to the head. Why not have Michiko Kakutani review Tea Obreht's work, say, ONCE, a NOVEL idea, and then have your other reviewers actually try to look around for what else has been published. If you cannot find something that catches your eyes why not go off-Broadway to the indies.

I've decided this all has to do with advertising.