Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Wolff, Tobias - Geoff Dyer (review date 28 April 1989)

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Geoff Dyer (review date 28 April 1989)

SOURCE: Dyer, Geoff. “Toby Runs Wild.” New Statesman and Society 2, no. 47 (28 April 1989): 44.

[In the following review, Dyer admires Wolff's sense of timing, his eye for detail, and his linguistic precision in This Boy's Life.]

Insofar as generic judgments are possible the memoir is the lowest form of literary life, undertaken typically either by the Stephen Spenders of this world (that is by those who, though almost talentless, find themselves in proximity to abundant talent) or by those who can't think how else to set about writing (not everyone has a novel in them but everyone has a memoir). Prone to recollect rather than re-create, the memoirist suffers a serial compulsion to overuse one word: “would”—we would do this, then we'd do that, on Sundays we'd do something else. A wooden word, “would”, inimical to the creation of interesting sentences or vivid scenes and one which any...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Valentine Cunningham (review date 14 March 1975)
   2. Bruce Allen (review date spring 1982)
   3. Richard Orodenker and Welch D. Everman (review date June 1982)
   4. Dean Flower (review date summer 1982)
   5. Bruce Allen (review date 7 June 1985)
   6. Thomas DePietro (review date autumn 1986)
   7. Linda Taylor (review date 6-12 November 1987)
   8. Richard Eder (review date 8 January 1989)
   9. Jeff Danziger (review date 16 February 1989)
   10. Geoff Dyer (review date 28 April 1989)
   11. John Clute (review date 12-18 May 1989)
   12. John Rechy (review date 5 November 1989)
   13. Peter J. Bailey (essay date summer 1991)
   14. John F. Desmond (essay date 14 May 1994)
   15. Richard Eder (review date 16 October 1994)
   16. Tobias Wolff and Nicholas A. Basbanes (interview date 24 October 1994)
   17. James Hannah (essay date 21 November 1994)
   18. Amanda Hopkinson (review date 9 December 1994)
   19. Michael Wood (review date 23 December 1994)
   20. Michael O. Garvey (review date 19 May 1995)
   21. Pat C. Hoy II (review date summer 1995)
   22. Jay Rogoff (review date summer 1996)
   23. James Hannah (essay date 1996)
   24. James Hannah (essay date 1996)
   25. Erin McGraw (review date summer 1997)
   26. Tobias Wolff and Elizabeth Glass (interview date July 1997)
   27. Daniel D. Challener (essay date 1997)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright