The Grouchy Editor

by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt

Here’s the thing about current-affairs books — they tend to have a short shelf life. What was eye-opening in 2018 can feel ho-hum today. If you happen to be a news junkie, like me, reading The Coddling of the American Mind in 2021 feels like revisiting old news, even though the book is just a few years old.

And yet that’s a compliment to the authors. So much of what they describe in Coddling — concepts that seemed fresh in 2018 — is now omnipresent on media news outlets. That’s a testament to their powers of persuasion.

What Lukianoff and Haidt describe (in case you haven’t guessed from the title) is the concept of “safetyism” and its harmful effects on society in general, and schools in particular. Safetyism, they claim, is introduced by over-protective parents, continued by college administrators, and then spread throughout the greater society. Hence, the “snowflake.” Hence, social problems galore.

But you probably already knew that. You, like me, should have read this book in 2018.

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by Neal Gabler

Gabler spent years researching and writing this mammoth biography of the man who, arguably, influenced 20th-century American culture more than anyone else. And Gabler’s painstaking work clearly shows in the finished book. Disney, a notorious workaholic, would possibly approve. I say “possibly” because the man who gave us Mickey Mouse, Snow White, and Disneyland was also a notorious perfectionist.

I have a few of my own nitpicks, along with some praise:

Pros:

It felt as though two-thirds of the book dealt with two subjects — the creation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and the creation of Disneyland. Along with Mickey Mouse, these were Disney’s milestone achievements, so the attention is welcome and warranted.

Gabler’s biography seems fair and balanced. Over the years, Disney has been accused of sanitizing pop culture by removing its edge. He has also been charged with anti-Semitism, racism, and other isms. Gabler addresses those charges, albeit not at great length, and doesn’t shy from depicting Disney warts and all.

Cons:

I don’t know about you, but what most interests me about Walt Disney is his creative life. Unfortunately, the bulk of Triumph seems more attuned to business majors. There are endless pages about recalcitrant bankers, potential investors, striking employees, and other finance-related matters. You get the sense that Disney was less a creative visionary than a committed capitalist. If so, it was out of necessity rather than desire.

It would have been nice to have more detail about Disney the private man. But really, I got the impression that the man who led “the triumph of the American imagination” was, in day-to-day life, a bit dull. No carousing or womanizing or politics or scandal of any sort. He comes off as someone you’d admire, but probably not care to socialize with.

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by Neil Gaiman

Fantasy, or “magical realism” when the story is aimed at adults, is not my favorite literary genre. For instance, I was unmoved by Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s much-praised, magical-realism-infused One Hundred Years of Solitude. But there are exceptions to my rule.

I find that if I like this kind of stuff, it’s usually because the tale is told from a child’s point of view (or an adult recalling his or her childhood). That’s what I liked about the Harry Potter books, or Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes.

Gaiman’s short novel is a mashup of childhood nostalgia (To Kill a Mockingbird comes to mind) and terrors triggered by something out-of-this-world (as in Something Wicked). Ocean’s narrator, now middle-aged, recalls his 7-year-old self encountering a trio of magical female neighbors. The women help him fend off all manner of demons, both fantastic and all-too-real.

Perhaps I’m just an unimaginative, jaded adult, but I enjoyed the book for its circa 1960s nostalgia. Not so much for its magical mumbo jumbo.

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by Stuart Turton

I can only imagine the time and effort that went into the crafting of this story, in which the hero finds himself charged with solving a murder but with a bizarre handicap: Every time he wakes up, he’s inhabiting a new body, and this new person is also charged with solving and/or preventing death at an old English mansion.

The plot involves too many characters to remember, endless time shifts, and the ever-problematic concept of time travel. Oh, and there is also the body swapping. I get weary just trying to describe it.

I do admire Turton’s self-imposed challenge and his ability, I guess, to successfully weave such an intricate web. But was all that trouble worth it, from a reader’s perspective?

Well, yes and no. Early on, I had to decide whether the book was time-consuming piffle, or if I should just go with the flow. I am predisposed to enjoy murder mysteries, so I chose the latter. There are entertaining, action-packed sequences. But because of that labyrinthine, head-scratching plot, reading the novel was often more chore than fun.

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I wouldn’t presume to call this a “review” of the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution, any more than I would attempt to “review” the King James Bible. But since I finally got around to reading these historic documents (the book includes the Bill of Rights), let me make a few humble observations:

1:  No wonder American society is a mess. The problem is the English language. Nearly every word we use is subject to interpretation — including the words penned by the Founding Fathers. If we could all agree on the meanings of “just,” or “benefit,” or “inalienable rights,” wouldn’t life be peachy keen? Alas, we are an argumentative bunch. 

2:  If we take the original documents at face value, our country is, evidently, saturated with constitutional violations. They say history is written by the winners; constitutional law is all too often defined by those in power. Our judicial system, charged with deciphering the Constitution, is just as susceptible to prejudice as the rest of us.

3:  Those old boys in the 18th century did their best with what they had. So far as I can tell, no other country has done better.

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by Anand Giridharadas

I wanted to know more about the economic and political forces that drove us to this tumultuous moment in time. But I didn’t want to read more Trump, Trump, Trump. And so I chose Giridharadas’s book, published in 2018, about 1 Percenters and aspiring 1 Percenters and their role in creating our current mess.

I like Giridharadas’s approach to income inequality and what it’s led to: rising populism and social turmoil. Rather than interview politicians and the losers of this economic war — as so many journalists do — Giridharadas grills the “winners” and lets their own words condemn them. Each of them claims a desire to do public good, but nearly all of them find reasons to justify the big-picture status quo, which just happens to let them continue to do well.

Ultimately, the book is about rationalization. It details the decades-long shift of big business from community partners to enthusiastic globalists. It explains how throwing crumbs to the hometown public through so-called public initiatives allows the elites to sleep at night. The author’s interview with wealthy heir/philanthropist Laurie Tisch is telling:

Tisch:  “The people who get to take advantage of the system, why would they really want to change it? They’ll maybe give more money away, but they don’t want to radically change it.”

Giridharadas:  Was there anything she could imagine that would convince them otherwise?

Tisch:  “Revolution, maybe.”

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by Tana French

What to say about the ambiguous ending when it pops up in books and movies? Some people like it, others are outraged. I happen to think that when it works, it can be brilliant. Case in point:  1974’s Black Christmas, in which the audience never finds out who the killer is. Hey, isn’t that what sometimes happens in real life? But when the ambiguous ending does not work, well … heavy sigh.

French’s debut novel gives us not one but two mysteries, one about a cold case involving some missing children, the second about a recently murdered girl. If you expect that by the end of the book you will have satisfying answers to both mysteries, well, French does provide one resolution.

Another issue:  The author’s decision to go with first-person narration by one of the protagonists, a male cop, doesn’t always pan out. It occasionally comes off like a female writer’s idea of how the straight man’s thought processes work. For example:  Reflecting on a recent romantic conquest, our man doesn’t think of the actual act; he ponders his lover’s hair, or some such thing. Nice try, but no cigar.

For the most part In the Woods is a compelling read. French is a talented writer whose prose I enjoyed, and I was never bored. Yet that ending simply feels like a cop-out.

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Edited by Sun Yung Shin

I’m not going to pretend that I have any special knowledge about how to improve race relations in this country. But I do think a good place to start is by reading books like this, in which an old white boy like myself (born and raised in Minnesota) hears the stories of people of color who also live here. Editor Shin compiled 16 essays written by Asian Americans, African Americans, Hispanic Americans and Native Americans who are either lifelong Minnesotans or transplants to the state, all of them hoping to break through the stereotype of “Minnesota Nice” to take a deeper, often troubling, look at what makes this region tick.

As you might expect from any compilation of essays, some of the stories are more resonant than others. One essay, “Disparate Impacts,” left me thinking, “This isn’t particularly good. The author isn’t very skilled or talented, and she is blaming systemic racism for her own personal failings.” Another essay, “People Like Us,” had me thinking, “This guy really nails it. ‘Minnesota Nice’ is a misnomer; it’s actually ‘Minnesota Polite’ laced with passive-aggressiveness.”

But most of the stories left this impression: “Wow. I had no idea.”

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by Sidney Lumet

We often hear movie directors described as artists (the good ones) or box-office kings (all too often, the bad ones). But I think that the best of them might better be described as superb “craftsmen.” They don’t just mold the story and the actors; they are on top of every technical detail. Think of Alfred Hitchcock — or Sidney Lumet.

Making Movies is a great book for film students and film nuts (people like me). It is not for you if you are seeking juicy gossip about celebrities. You’ll also be disappointed if you are interested in biographical information about Lumet. Other than a few brief mentions of his wife, there is next to no personal data.

But Lumet, who died in 2011, directed some of my all-time favorite films, including Fail Safe, The Verdict, Dog Day Afternoon and Running on Empty. Behind-the-scenes details about any of those gems are catnip to me. This book is loaded with them.

Some of Lumet’s observations about the trials and tribulations of making films are dated, because this was published in 1996, long before digital movies and streaming services like Netflix became commonplace. But what hasn’t changed is the passion and devotion to a single goal common to most great movies — and great moviemakers. For that sort of thing, this is a book for you.

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by Julie Schumacher

Don’t be misled, as I was, by the blurbs describing Schumacher’s book as a “biting satire” about university politics. The stakes in Shakespeare are too slight (or are treated that way). There isn’t a serious page to be found. It’s more Three Stooges than Catch-22: “verbal slapstick,” I’d call it – but I mean that as a compliment.

I haven’t been this pleasantly surprised by a comic novel since I discovered Janet Evanovich’s One for the Money 15 years ago. Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum novels and their assortment of New Jersey oddballs are somewhat less-sophisticated cousins to Schumacher’s collection of scholars at “Payne University.”

In most novels with a large ensemble of characters, I inwardly groan whenever the action shifts to some of them. There are always at least a few people who bore or irritate me, and I grow impatient to get back to the characters I really care about. Not so with Shakespeare. Every teacher, student, or staff member Schumacher introduces is a comic delight. 

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