Way back in June, I wrote a quick compare/contrast blog about two reviews appearing in The New York Times. One for John Updike’s novel, Terrorist, and the other for the Janice Dickinson television show “The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency.” At the time, it was a tie. But Updike’s novel went on to become a nice bestseller — and Janice’s TV show, well, I don’t think it’s on anymore.
Today! I was thrilled to see two more wonderful reviews — so here we go again.
Today, the Times ran reviews of two cultural events that I have actually been unaware of: 1) the new book by Jonathan Franzen and 2) the new TV show starring Shannen Doherty. Michiko Kakutani, who reviewed the Updike, reviews Franzen. And Susan Stewart reviews “Breaking Up with Shannen Doherty.”
Let’s compare.
Words: Length
- Doherty Review: Shannen looked nice in her photo.
- Franzen Review: Franzen got the cover lead-in with a long intro and a turn to page 6 for the rest. Book jacket and author photo shown.
Winner: Franzen
Words: Phrases
- Doherty Review: “Breaking up is supposedly hard to do; creating a decent reality show must be even harder”
- Franzen Review: “succeeds in giving us an odious self-portrait of the artist as a young jack-ass…”
- Doherty Review: “This makes [Doherty] about as lovable and layered as the characters she has played on television”
- Franzen Review: “the author’s self-involvement … makes for an incredibly annoying portrait …”
- Doherty Review: “operates on the flawed principle that it is fun to watch relationships come asunder.”
- Franzen Review: “another hellish exercise in self-absorption”
Winner: Franzen
Words: Difficulty
- Doherty Review: tacky, prissy horror, banal
- Franzen Review: solipsistic, self-absorption, odious, petulant
Winner: Franzen
Last Lines
- Doherty Review: “Lacking redeeming social value and cheesy without the grace of campiness”
- Franzen Review: “…the reader has begun to feel every bit as suffocated and claustrophobic as Mr. Franzen and his estranged wife apparently did in their doomed marriage.”
Winner: Franzen
Overall Results: Please. The Franzen review is so awesome, I’m actually going to clip it out of the paper and tuck it into a little box for safe keeping.
