Gary Shteyngart’s Absurdistan and Philip Roth’s Everyman, two new novels of note, have received some rave reviews, with more sure to follow. Enter Michiko Kakutani, stage right. The Times’ sharpshooter sprays a lot of ammo at both books, here and here.
She seems to have similar problems with Gary and Phil:
On Absurdistan: “Absurdistan tackles…issues like globalization, democracy building and foreign civil wars, and it frequently feels synthetic and contrived.” On Everyman: “The allusions to King Lear…feel labored and contrived.”
On Absurdistan: “Perhaps because Misha feels like such a patchwork doll of a character, he never engages the reader’s interest…” On Everyman: “The problem is, this nameless fellow turns out to be generic, rather than universal: a faceless cutout of a figure who feels like a composite assembled from bits and pieces of earlier Roth characters.”
Consecutive days, consecutive takedowns. It’s hard out here for a novelist.
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