I am facing my first big blogging dilemma. I am reviewing Nathan Englander’s debut novel, The Ministry of Special Cases, because Englander is coming to town for the Virginia Festival of the Book and when he arrives I want all my friends to be ready with erudite questions and posters for him to autograph. The book is excellent – I read it all in one sitting like it was Harry Potter – but I also want to tell you exactly why I liked it and why the people who didn’t like it were wrong.
And here I face my dilemma. The Ministry of Special Cases is a literary book and so it deserves a literary review. On the other hand, that’s what the back sections of newspapers are for. But I don’t want to demean the novel and myself by being all cutesy-funny-bloggy. I don’t want to turn ten years of Englander’s life into “A Postmodern Book Review Related through Dialogue between Wistar and Her Argentine Ex-Boyfriend Luis” (even though I thought about it).
So I’m not sure how I’m going to do this. If I hadn’t already lost three quarters of my reading audience, I might launch into the book review right now. But no, this kind of thing requires long-term planning, nail biting, another strip of bacon, preliminary bloggings, some upper body exercises, American Idol, and this New Yorker article about Abu Ghraib (cited in the back of Ministry). I also have to learn to restrain my innate facetiousness and self-obsession before the big day, much like Michiko Kakutani has to hold back her own fun-loving and adorable nature when reviewing for the New York Times.
Can’t you just like, say how much you want to make out with him? Like on a scale of 1 to 10?
Just sayin.
That’s what I would do.
Good suggestion. I could also wait to see what he wears to the Festival of the Book and then review his outfit instead of his novel. This would buy me a month to research men’s shoes.
Now you’re using your noggen!