53 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing., December 4, 2008
I thought this was a pretty disappointing effort this year. Adam Gopnik's meandering, pretentious introduction is a painful reminder of just how much David Foster Wallace's brilliance, wit, and low tolerance for BS will be missed (DFW was last year's editor).
Really slim pickings this year. I'd break it down roughly as follows.
Brilliant essays:
Anthony Lane on the Leica camera;
Hugh Raffles on cricket fighting in Shanghai
Engaging:
Atul Gawande on geriatric medicine;
Emily Grosholz on necklaces
Moving personal reminiscence:
Separate essays by Patricia Brieschke and Bernard Cooper, though be warned that each documents the horrific suffering of a terminally ill child and life-partner respectively.
Personal reminiscences that were only mildly amusing:
Ariel Levy ("The lesbian bride's handbook");
David Sedaris mining his adolescence for yuks according to his standard formula (if you've read any of his previous books, you probably could have written the essay yourself).
There were also two personal reminiscences that came across as just whiny and self-indulgent.
A number of "quirky" essays just didn't succeed - the author simply failed to transmit his own enthusiasm to the reader:
Albert Goldbarth on science-fiction comics of the 1950's;
Sam Shaw on trying to attain transcendence through extreme long-distance running;
John Updike (?!) on dinosaurs (it's only my admiration for Updike as a critic that is keeping this out of the "embarrassing" category).
Three essays had a reasonable idea, but were poorly executed, marred by excessive cleverness, smugness, or implied condescension (the 'elite writing for the elite' tone):
Jonathan Lethem on plagiarism (some interesting points, buried in 30 pages of undisciplined prose);
Louis Menand ("Notable Quotables");
Ander Monson ("Solipsism" - a thin idea, pushed way too far)
Cringeworthy, embarrassing, annoying, and/or just plain stupid:
Rick Moody "On Celestial Music".
Rich Cohen on how his neighbors reacted when he grew a Hitler moustache
Joe Wenderoth on -- well, it's hard to know what it was about, actually. Something to do with a strip club; largely incoherent.
The remaining two essays, by Jamal Mahjoub and Charles Simic were inoffensive, but also completely unmemorable.
I am annoyed at Adam Gopnik for this subpar selection. He forces me to be mean in public.
Give this one a miss. 2 out of 21 home runs is pathetic. You may think I'm being unduly harsh. But there was very little joy in reading this book. Life is short. We have a right to expect more joy than is provided by this sorry collection.
Now, here's the good news. Probably right next to this volume, on the same shelf in the bookstore, you are likely to find a book called "The Best American Magazine Writing 2008". It's roughly twice the length of the Gopnik disappointment, and is introduced by Jacob Weisberg. It might cost you a few bucks more. No matter. Buy it!
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A return to normalcy: a merit-based selection of the year's best essays, July 5, 2009
Wow - I am stunned to see that the first five reviewers gave this volume only two stars, whereas I am awarding it five. Last year it was just the opposite: the most popular rating applied to the volume edited by the late David Foster Wallace was five stars, whereas I gave it two. I think this is more than coincidence. Last year's volume was heavy on grim politically charged essays, whereas this year's volume is void of politics and instead features essays on topics such as cameras, a road race, and dinosaurs. Guest editor Adam Gopnik no doubt has political viewpoints, but he took his job much more seriously than David Foster Wallace, and selected essays on the basis of their merits as work of literature. But this is just my opinion; perhaps all this proves is that, in art and literature, quality truly is subjective.
Here are quick takes on the essays that I enjoyed the most:
-- Jonathan Lethem's "The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism": an incredibly well-researched essay exploring the nature of originality in thought, plagiarism, and the way all creative thinkers build upon the works of others; it works on two levels, because Lethem himself openly steals almost all the thoughts in the essay from other sources (which are attributed), thus illustrating his main point.
-- Patricia Brieschke's "Cracking Open": a touching first person essay about the challenges a poor young mother goes through after giving bearing a child with a serious birth defect.
-- Bernard Cooper's "The Constant Gardener": another very touching first person essay, about a man tending to his sick partner and dealing with the physical and emotional issues of a terminal illness.
There was just one complete miss in this volume, Jamal Mahjoub's "Salamanca", which didn't register any impression on me other than having taken up space in the book and my time in reading it. There were a few other essays that caused me to question their inclusion, but on balance, I found 2008's volume to be a return to the normal standards of this series, and a serious attempt by Adam Gopnik to assemble the year's best essays.
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