Farewell, London Review of Books

Literary periodicals such as the London Review of Books have more than one role. They provide a bridge between the academic world, which steadily, but perhaps with some justification, encroaches on every area of intellectual judgement in our lives. Was Henry VIII a good or a bad king? Your view will today be largely determined by an academic, or an academic consensus. The consensus will change over time, but it is the academy that makes the decision. Of course, there is disagreement, but in the arts, as well as in science, there is an expert view that we ignore at our peril. Hilary Mantel writes historical fiction, and she can take any attitude she likes – but she would not be taken seriously if she strayed too far from the “official” academic line.

As I have argued elsewhere, one of the challenges posed by the academy is that it is a closed world to outsiders. Not having access to the world of scholarship, we cannot see the reviews written by academics that form such an important part of defining the academic orthodoxy. So the literary periodicals, such as the TLS, the NYRB, and the LRB (to use their common abbreviations), play an essential role. These publications are aimed the perhaps mythical general reader. They enable “common readers” to follow theh debates about history, politics, the environment, and about writers.

If that is the case, why abandon reading one of them, the London Review of Books? I’ve been dutifully subscribing to this publication for several years, but with increasing dissatisfaction. The LRB, like all the literary periodicals that exist on the income they receive from subscriptions, has an element of entertainment to it. Readers don’t just want to read improving literature, they want to enjoy what they are reading.

Unfortunately, the LRB has lost sight, both of the educational role and the entertainment role. I know that Mary-Kay Wilmer, founder of the LRB, has been very heavily involved throughout its life and whatever editorial stamp the LRB has is largely her work. Perhaps then it is significant to discover something of her style in a celebratory piece by one of the LRB staff (presumably appointed by her): 

Mary-Kay once wrote a sign that was taped above the tea station at the paper’s old offices in Tavistock Square. ‘Please wash your cup,’ it said. ‘There’s nobody who doesn’t resent doing other people’s washing-up.’ When Karl Miller saw the sign, he laughed and asked whether she was responsible for its ‘Johnsonian cadences’. If you want a manifesto of an editor’s style, just read those sentences again. In them you will find the LRB’s ideal tone. [LRB, 18 February 2021, p8] 

Well, I read those sentences again, and I don’t find them particularly “Johnsonian”. I find the second sentence unnecessarily overwritten. How about “Why should others do your washing-up?” I’m afraid to say every issue of the LRB contains infelicitous phrases and poor use of English, text that cries out (to my thinking) for a good editor. How about a film review, from the same issue: 

There is plenty of angry talk in Regina King’s One Night in Miami – available on Amazon Prime and adapted from Kemp Power’s play – but the cruellest remark is very discreet … 

If you have two things to say about a film that spring to mind when you start writing your review, you could (as here) just string them together with “and”, even though they don’t have the slightest connection. It’s the sort of thing a good editor should pick up. 

My other gripe is the elitism of the contributors. I frequently feel they are not writing for a common reader, but for each other, or to demonstrate (or to reveal) their superiority from the average reader. Look, for example, at the start of a review by Patricia Lockwood: 

Do you understand what a pleasure it is not to have to begin with this little biographical section? 

We are never told what “this” refers to, but it subsequently becomes clear she is probably talking about the few lines of biography often provided on the cover or in the prelims of a book – and, presumably, the presence or absence of biographical description in the book she is reviewing. I don’t mind an arresting opening, but I object to her hectoring tone. Why not “It is a pleasure not to have to begin reading a book with …”? As it stands, from reading the very first sentence I feel I am somehow in the wrong, and it’s my fault if I don’t know what she is talking about. It might be easier if Ms Lockwood were to state that the book she is reviewing, a book by Elena Ferrante entitled in the English translation The Lying Life of Adults, has an Italian title called Frantumaglia. Would it be too much to explain somewhere that, despite one not being the translation of the other, both titles refer to the same book? We are told, several paragraphs into the review, that the book includes an essay with autobiographical questions from a magazine presented to the author.  Now we begin to understand that first sentence. 

But more important than the poor English and the cavalier approach to reviewing is the freedom given to the writers to drift away from the purpose of their writing to indulge in what can only be described as free association. Giving writers the luxury of several thousand words rather than several hundred is usually disastrous in the LRB, and it is all too common. Here is another example from Patricia Lockwood, complaining that many of the people who interviewed Elena Ferrante were too insistent: 

One journalist was so disgustingly persistent in this attack that I looked her up online. I found a picture of her wearing a green ring I coveted – and then softened, as I imagined a novel about us stealing it back and forth from each other forever. 

Is this a book review or am I expected to be wildly appreciative of Ms Lockwood’s not very relevant dreaming? I’m afraid to say the LRB increasingly appears to me to be a kind of circus, where we are admitted (after paying) to admire the reviewers/performers for their daring skills, but it is clear we are never, ever, to be close to their level of wit, elegance, and skill.  The reviewers may be on a par with the authors of the works reviewed, but they are never on a level with us. So for this reader at least, I will resign myself that I have no aspirations to being anything but a common reader who lacks the patience to remain comfortable in my role as a minor consumer of star writing. 

Most issues of the LRB have an advert (filed under “Writing and Arts Retreats”) for holiday apartments in Greece. These aren’t just holiday lets, however; they are in “the village where the great author Paddy [sic] Leigh-Fermor lived and wrote … read Leigh Fermor’s Mani and follow in his footsteps.” The advert mentions you will have a private swimming pool, no doubt the very pool that Leigh Fermor swam in daily. Yet another opportunity to pay homage to the elite. Perhaps by swimming in Paddy's pool I might learn to accept more uncomplainingly my very limited role in the world of letters as represented by the LRB.