Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Theroux, Alexander (Louis) - Eve Ottenberg

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EVE OTTENBERG

Alexander Theroux hates injustice. In his first book, Three Wogs, he swoops down on it with a savage indignation that outstrips the prose. The racism of the white Englishmen and women who parade through this novel is at once his target and motivation. He is constantly on the attack—relentless, merciless, nasty. He has high ideals which lead him always to present his characters at their worst. His unwillingness to compromise on how people should treat each other is only matched by his views on prose, expressed in his essay "Theroux Metaphrastes" and reconfirmed in his newest novel, Darconville's Cat, the style of which is ornate, copious, digressive, modeled on that of Sterne and Joyce. In short, he is a writer determined to prove his point—something essential in matters of style and social justice. As long as he was focusing his talents on how racism corrodes character, this determination yielded that rare pleasure in contemporary...

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1. Introduction
2. Diane Johnson
3. The Times Literary Supplement
4. Miles Donald
5. Jack Beatty
6. Eve Ottenberg
7. BENJAMIN DeMOTT
8. John Leonard
9. J. O. Tate
10. Copyright