Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Chabon, Michael - Sven Birkerts (review date January 1996)

1. Printable Version
2. Download PDF
3. Cite this Page

Sven Birkerts (review date January 1996)

SOURCE: “Fiction in Review,” in Yale Review, Vol. 84, No. 1, January, 1996, pp. 157–65.

[In the following excerpt, Birkerts offers a positive assessment of Wonder Boys.]

Novelists writing novels about novelists are like doctors taking their own blood pressure and temperature. The thermometer goes straight into the horse's mouth and those who are interested in the health of the art ought to pay close attention.

This past publishing season has been striking in that three novels [Men in Black, The Information, and Wonder Boys], all by seasoned practitioners, have not only featured novelist protagonists but have, each in its own way, used the erosion of writerly dreams as a way to look at the larger context of literary culture in our day. Martin Amis and Scott Spencer, both in their forties—writing about novelists in their forties—are, as perhaps is fitting, more...

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass

1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. David Montrose (review date 26 April 1991)
   2. Elizabeth Tallent (review date 9 June 1991)
   3. Kathryn Herold (review date Fall 1991)
   4. Greg Johnson (review date Summer 1992)
   5. Douglas Fowler (essay date Winter 1995)
   6. Jonathan Yardley (review date 19 March 1995)
   7. Richard Eder (review date 26 March 1995)
   8. Shelby Hearon (review date 2 April 1995)
   9. Michael Chabon with Lisa See (interview date 10 April 1995)
   10. Bharat Tandon (review date 21 April 1995)
   11. Erik Himmelsbach (essay date 27 April 1995)
   12. Roz Kaveney (review date 9 June 1995)
   13. Michael Gorra (review date 26 June 1995)
   14. Suzann Bick (review date Fall 1995)
   15. Sven Birkerts (review date January 1996)
   16. Mark Greif (review date 5 March 1999)
   17. James Hynes (review date 4 April 1999)
   18. Donna Seaman (review date 16 May 1999)
   19. Michael Dirda (review date 17 September 2000)
   20. David Horspool (review date 6 October 2000)
   21. Jonathan Levi (review date 8 October 2000)
   22. Michael Chabon with Michael J. Ybarra (interview date 9 October 2000)
   23. David Bahr (essay date 19 December 2000)
   24. Tom Deignan (review date February 2001)
   25. Tom Deignan (essay date February 2001)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright