Parenthetical.net

I’ve been meaning to post for awhile about a Dave Itzkoff review in the New York Times that was apparently written to make me cranky. He reviews two works of YA fantasy/sf: China Mieville’s Un Lun Dun (which I enjoyed, if not adored) and Neil Gaiman’s INTERWORLD (which I haven’t read). He reviews them competently, even cleverly, and seems to have enjoyed them.

But for some unfathomable reason, he feels compelled to introduce the review with a great big “F you” to all writers, publishers, readers, and purveyors of YA literature since the beginning of time:

I sometimes wonder how any self-respecting author of speculative fiction can find fulfillment in writing novels for young readers. I suppose J. K. Rowling could give me 1.12 billion reasons in favor of it: get your formula just right and you can enjoy…[lots of money] and — finally — genuine grown-up readers. But where’s the artistic satisfaction? Where’s the dignity?

It’s not like no reviewer has ever said this before, or no blogger has ever ranted about it before. But I never have, and besides, just because shooting fish in a barrel is easy doesn’t make it any less fun! So let’s break this down, shall we?

a) Writing for young people can give you money and fame, but cha-ching and literary quality are mutually exclusive.
b) Young readers don’t count.
c) Writers should be embarrassed to write YA, because it’s “undignified.”

Which leads me to infer that

d) Un Lun Dun, which Itzkoff describes as “captivat[ing],” is the best work of YA literature ever, and the only one to transcend the inevitable drag imposed by a), b), and c). (Or perhaps that it’s the best work of YA literature published after Harry Potter became a phenomenon, because as soon as YA fantasy was shown to be potentially lucrative beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, all of it turned to crap. See a), above.)

I don’t think a) is necessarily true. And obviously I think b) and c) are giant carts of buffalo dung, because I would be a poor middle school librarian if I didn’t. Frankly, Itzkoff doesn’t seem to agree with his own introductory paragraph. The rest of the review has intelligent things to say about both books, and he takes pleasure in the aspects of the book that make it kidlit (”kids love the word ‘phlegm’”).

He’s even apparently read enough fantasy to nail what’s different about Un Lun Dun: prophecies don’t come true, quests are most successful when you take the shortcut, and truly brave and capable children never listen to the Man. (Mieville is such a lefty.)

So the only conclusion I can draw is that Itzkoff feels he needs to apologize for liking YA fantasy, just in case someone will tell him he can’t write for the New York Times anymore if he admits to liking something that’s not about a middle-aged woman and her sexual reawakening. And that? Is just sad.

Read-alikes: Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere for an alternate alternate London; Sarah Beth Durst’s Into the Wild for more ass-kicking of traditional fairy-tale tropes; Clive Barker’s Abarat for a surfeit of wild imagination.