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Oh, my God, reading reading Michiko Kakutani's review of former President Bill Clinton's memoir, My Life, provided so many laughs in the morning. It's Michiko at her book report bitchiest, calling it "hurriedly written and even more hurriedly edited." Bill was probably feeling the pain while reading it. She's so becoming the secret poster girl of the Republicans this summer. A sampling:
The book, which weighs in at more than 950 pages, is sloppy, self-indulgent and often eye-crossingly dull — the sound of one man prattling away, not for the reader, but for himself and some distant recording angel of history.There are zombies in Haiti? Maybe Bill Clinton can write movies next! The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz says Clinton "is in no danger of getting the Ronald Reagan treatment." The Ronald Reagan treatment - is that Alzheimer's for 10 years, which contributes in most media sources forgetting the terrible things he did, and then having his dead body shuttled from coast to coast?
...In fact, "My Life" reads like a messy pastiche of everything that Mr. Clinton ever remembered and wanted to set down in print; he even describes the time he got up at 4 a.m. to watch the inaugural ceremonies for Nigeria's new president on TV. There are endless litanies of meals eaten, speeches delivered, voters greeted and turkeys pardoned...There are some revealing complaints about missteps at the FBI under Louis Freeh's watch , but there are also dozens of pointless digressions about matters like zombies in Haiti and ruins in Pompeii.
My Life is #1 on Amazon. More on William J. Clinton Jr. at his official site, where you can see video of his remarks at the Chicago Book Expo. And Clinton was on 60 Minutes last night and is on the cover of Time magazine.
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If it looks like a hit-piece, and smells like a hit-piece, the review is probably a hit-piece.
It's disappointing to see gothamist simply jump on a clearly biased review instead of having the confidence to actually read and review the book itself.
Reviewers are the lowest form of human life, even if they have cutesy names.
The book isn't out yet, so there's no way we could have reviewed it. But Gothamist consistently looks at reviews of things we haven't seen/experience (restaurants, movies, products, other books), so this isn't inconsistent. Also, Michiko Kakutani is notoriously strange in her reviewing habits. She's tough, but also questionable.
This review may or may not be a "hit piece" and "clearly biased," but can you tell me what makes you think it is? A hit piece would be something put out to intentionally discredit or undermine an author - can you tell me why perhaps the most well known reviewer for the Times, and one who has trashed (and praised) books on both the right and left, would go out of her way to do that in this case? More likely the book is as she describes it.
The fact that it's pretty scathing doesn't mean anything - are all negative reviews necessarily hatchet jobs? Kakutani is known for her harsh evaluations and no doubt takes some pride in that fact (which may contribute to this particular review - it was a good chance to skewer a high profile book. But that doesn't make it a hit piece).
I'm just a little aggravated by people claiming that reviewers always have it in for particular books or authors. Maybe the book just sucks (and I'm a liberal). Some reviews actually are hatchet jobs meant to hurt the author, that's why people shouldn't just toss out "biased" and "hit piece" at the drop of a hat anytime an author gets trashed.
Drew
I sort of agree with Drew. I love Bill, I really do, but why am I not surprised if the book is a sloppy, confessional mess? So was his administration!
I'd take a sloppy mess with a healthy economy and the world at peace over our current trim, prim scumbag any day, tho'...
Jen, they're not letting you have it easy in the comments on Monday morning, eh?
Criticizing the critics may be of interest and honor if the purpose is to either question the validity of an unfair or biased review (think Hessergate), or if the purpose is to disagree with an opinion. In each case, there's not much of a valid point that you can make (without resorting to fallacies) if you haven't reviewed the original subject material in question. A substitute for your own review, however, would be to cite other credible review sources.
You really never state that this is a hit piece (which is a point in your favor), but you do state in the comments that her reviews are questionable. I can't find much here to convince me of that claim, which makes me curious as to why you would venture to make it. Furthermore, it's a bit on the snarky side to gossip it up a little.
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I know that this piece is in tone with Gothamist content, but that tone is part of the ever-present blog trend of why-write-content-when-I-can-link-to-it. I know generating daily content is a pain in the butt, but it's disappointing when I think of how you could contribute further. I feel that you have a strong opinion and a solid base of knowledge about a lot of things, so I'd look forward to your reviews on the subjects that you frequently discuss.
The claim that you don't have a copy of the book because it's not released yet... well, I have an issue with that. Ms. Kakutani obviously read the book (at nearly 1,000 pages, she's had some time with it too). Where'd she get it from? Certainly not off Amazon. You could almost certainly make yourself available to PR people as a reviewer, receive advance copies, and print reviews. Hell, you don't even have to go through the trouble of pitching them freelance.
So, if you're interested in books, you should write a review sometime. And if you think Ms. Kakutani's reviews have issues, you could counterpoint them as well. It's something to consider.
Yesterday on Meet the Press, Joe Klein said that all presidential memoirs are sloppy and self-indulgent. Then they talked about BJs for the remaining 30 minutes. Shocker.
"...having his dead body shuttled from coast to coast?"
LOL Jen, that scathing tidbit on Uncle Ronnie was even better than the Kakutani filleting of Bill and his book. Nice! ;)
Jennifer! "The Ronald Reagan treatment - is that Alzheimer's for 10 years, which contributes in most media sources forgetting the terrible things he did, and then having his dead body shuttled from coast to coast?" First off, if you don't enumerate these "terrible things" then you shouldn't make reference to them. I don't recall any myself, and unlike you I actually remember his two terms in office, firsthand.
Secondly, it's common practice to move the bodies of dead government officials around. Robert F. Kennedy's funeral train from NYC to DC (after his body was flown from LA to NYC), ran over some mourners, so at least Reagan's funeral procession didn't have a bodycount.
Incidentally, unlike Reagan, who never apologized for his anti-communism, RFK and his biographers have for decades tried to conceal RFK's three-year tenure as assistant counsel to Senator Joe McCarthy during the height of the wacky Permanent Investigations Subcommittee "Red Scare" hearings, including the Army/McCarthy Hearings. Reagan never walked away from any of his principles - he wasn't perfect but in his case no one's trying to conceal actual events.