"Her legs Brian saw when she came into the bar at the U.N. Hotel and sat down beside him with a smile, completely at ease. He had been nervous, but it left him immediately. From the first moment he felt a thrilling, natural complicity. His heart filled with excitement, like a sail."
- "Platinum", James Salter
I read a review of James Salter's A Sport and a Pastime two years ago in Esquire. It was a quarter-page review by a famous author. In it the author talked about hearing about Salter for years, finally reading him, and loving him to bits. I can't remember who wrote the review, only that I had enough respect for him to take notice.
This book reminded me why I don't read The New Yorker. You try to read stories by all those old, established New Yorker authors, and the prose is very safe and bland and full of craftmanship. There are flashes of brilliance here and there, a certain turn of phrase that sings above the rest, but they are offered with a tinge of embarassment. My writing teacher told me to kill-my-darlings and all that. Madness.
Every single story in this collection is about adultery. Every single one. A good chunk of the prose is devoted to describing how women look in clothing, out of clothing, reclining, walking, standing. If women leave you "empty-legged" as Salter puts it, this might be just your thing. For the rest of us, it is a little flat. People eat caviar in these stories. They drive expensive cars and everyone went to the best schools. It is a by the numbers collection of stories.
What's more, Salter has a tin ear for dialogue. His characters' speech isn't nuanced or real, lacking the spark of life. It is easy to read, clean, compressed, sparse, just as all the reviewers mention. But unlike Hemingway's prose, where what is on the page intimates the vast inner lives of the characters, Salter's stories don't have a lot going on in them.
Salter is a craftsman. He has gone to the writing workshops, he has won awards, he has been well-published. But his prose could have been written by committee. He doesn't surprise or excite and that is what prevents him from being an artist.
NPR Review of Last Night
2 comments:
this is exactly what i want to know about a book. it's what i would skim through a review for. you say so much with so little, and i like that.
the vandal website is going to feature reviews of books/films/art/more that makes people move. we'd love to have yours included on the site. i'll email you more info in a few days!
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