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A well-versed reader alerts me that in the current Voice, David Ng skewers John Updike's May 22 New Yorker review of Michel Houellebecq's The Possibility of an Island:
Mankind asks for everlasting life, and he receives it. But as Daniel25 learns, it's a mixed blessing at best. What does zero times infinity equal? Each Daniel realizes in his own way that life is neither good nor bad; it's just there. And so are Houellebecq's novels, which exist far beyond the realm of morality. Reviewers intent on taking him down (as John Updike attempted in a recent New Yorker) come off as prudish and puny. Houellebecq's infinite void swallows everything and spits nothing back.
The last time I read Ng (who pre-softens his barb with an admiring Kael citation in the lede), he was carelessly misreading Juliette Binoche's character in Caché, but perhaps he's right here; Updike may not have been the ideal critic for this sort of book. These two bloggers ("like a 1st year undergrad in lit class, I'm going to highlight The Important Pointth and Themeth in Updike's critithism") agree ("The catch is that Updike himself offers Hef-style hedonism; it’s exactly his softcore sensibility that is turned off by the dissociated raunch Houellebecq peddles"), mounting the podium in aggrieved defense of Fun. Dissenting opinions welcome.
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Hello! We're a small band of media enthusiasts, culture addicts, and journalists based in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Emdashes, formerly a New Yorker fan site, is our collection of conversations—mostly civilized—about magazines, movies, politics, design, punctuation, and other things that stir us.
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Dashes, some say, “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like an em dash itself—provides a thoughtful pause amid the hubbub.
Emdashes, founded in 2004, is written and drawn by Emily Gordon, Martin Schneider, Pollux, Jonathan Taylor, and Benjamin Chambers, as well as occasional guest contributors. All posts before October 2008 are by Emily Gordon.
The site was designed by House of Pretty with illustrations by Jesse R. Ewing.
Additional drawings are by Carolita Johnson and Pollux (author of our web comic, "The Wavy Rule"). The Emdashes pencil logo is by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
Other writing by Emily Gordon
- Writing on theater: reviews (for Time Out Chicago; imperfect but workable search results)
- Profile: Valerie Casey, Designers Accord founder, is spearheading the design of sustainability (for SXSW World)
- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, bon vivant, New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Slide show: the Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for NYCgo.com)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
- Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Homage: Celebrating lindy-hop legend Frankie Manning (for NYCgo.com)
- Inquiry: Does a New Republic redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Interviews: four up-and-coming designers under 30 (for Print)
- Profile: novelist and dance critic Laura Jacobs (for Newsday)
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Comments
Maybe defense of life more so than fun.
Updike has a visceral distaste for the materialist/secularist worldview and this seems to pervade any criticism he writes of intensely secular authors, whether they indulge in much explicit ribaldry or not. His mindset reminds me of The New Republic’s Leon Wieseltier’s, especially given the latter’s recent review of Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell, in which he approached hysteria in his ill-fated attempts to disprove Dennett.