David Denby

Lit Up is one of the more enjoyable nonfiction books I have read this year. As a teacher, I appreciated this book for the ways in which it described various classroom techniques and approaches. Denby's narrative begins with a journalistic twist, but slowly sneaks in some educational research along the way. The pedagogical techniques upon which he reports are diverse but accomplished. The classroom discussions--retold from an outsider's perspective--made me rethink some of my own classroom show more strategies. I would heartily recommend this book for any other literature teachers.

In addition, I think this would be a good choice for parents who care about literacy (or the academic growth of their children). In particular, the application lessons Sean Leon implements in his classroom and the stepping-stone approach to book selections adopted at Mamaroneck are approaches that could help parents engage with and foster the reading habits and interests of their own children. Denby's references to literature are well-contextualized, so that anyone who has not read one or more of the books would still be able to follow the narrative and understand (most of) the broader implications of a particular literary work, so I think this is an especially approachable introduction to high school reading.

Most of this book deserves a slightly higher rating than that which I have given, but it is balanced out by some political asides and unnecessary polarizing footnotes in the latter chapters. For instance, Denby inserts a rare but almost completely unnecessary footnote about Go Set a Watchman (see p. 154), reiterating already-well-known literary facts. Is there actually anyone in America today who doesn't know that Harper Lee's "new" novel is basically a rough draft? The effect of this random and almost belligerent footnote is unsettling, especially when coupled with some of Denby's other criticisms of students who don't immediately understand the larger contexts of the books we read. In sum, a few portions of the book come off as patronizing rather than journalistic, though I don't think that this is a reason to condemn the volume overall. Lit Up has a great deal to offer, and a few moments of weakness are probably to be expected in a critique of readers and reading practices. show less

This book was extremely relevant for me, though our degrees of separation are at different scales: I am a 32-year-old, married, full-time professional, who is getting ready to pursue my PhD in English soon (in my "free" time). And I often daydream about going back and taking old survey courses now that I've got more experience and so on. So, I lapped this book up, sentence by sentence, living vicariously through Denby. Alas--halfway through I became a bit bored. But, overall, Denby keeps it show more interesting by weaving some crucial arguments from the humanities into the criticism/journal/log in the form of interludes.

Two sentence only I underlined, and, taken together, they are my main extraction from the book.

In the face of hostility from outside, and incomprehension from within the country, it is tempting for those of us who love classic texts to turn in on ourselves, to assemble Western values around us, and to withdraw into a kind of fortress (3).

In American a grown man or woman reading at home during the day is not a person to be taken seriously (195).

Both, of course, echo the tableau of a solitary reader blocking the world out with a book. But this notion of "blocking the world out" is either true or false based on our reading choices and intentions. Certainly, if I grab most recent pop fiction and sit around reading it, I am indeed attempting to achieve cathartic reprieve from the world outside. And, honestly, I could do the same with the Western classics. But, when I choose to really read (and re-read, in the Nabokovian sense) and to question and to challenge great books, I am in fact not blocking out the world but attempting to understand it.

Yet there is always the danger of preferring even the great books to our fellow humans!

While I cannot say this book presents a convincing argument for why everyone should devote time and effort to absorbing the great books, it was still an enjoyable read for a person like me--someone who sensed a kindred spirit in Denby. And it has me thinking about how to better answer the why-read-great-books question. show less

“Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this.”

That’s a quote from Ecclesiastes. That means people have been going on and on about the good old days for thousands of years. They’ve been doing it for so long that God had to tell them to cut it out, already. (It didn’t work, but I appreciate Him trying.)

Snark is a decent book, but in my eyes it’s marred by frequent laments about how much nicer people show more used to be. Laments written by a solidly middle class American white man of a certain age. Hmm.

Also – okay, let me preface this complaint by pointing out that because I’m weird, I grew up reading Lewis Carroll’s poem The Hunting of the Snark. We had an illustrated copy around, and as a kid I read it incessantly. I have whole stretches of it memorized, and let me tell you, that’s exactly the kind of thing that will get you not invited to the really good birthday parties.

I’m a fan, is what I’m saying. So when I also say that David Denby’s references to this strange poem are strained and disruptive, he’d best listen. I’m his potential fan base, and he’s alienating me.

This book sets out to explain why snark is dangerous and destructive. To do that, Denby has to define what snark is.

“Snark,” he explains early on, “is a teasing, rug-pulling form of insult that attempts to steal someone’s mojo, erase her cool, annihilate her effectiveness, and it appeals to a knowing audience that shares the contempt of the snarker and therefore understands whatever references he makes.”

Fair enough, and nicely put. Snark also, Denby says, has a certain “whatever” quality. It “attacks without reason,” because the snarker doesn’t care about anything and has no larger point to make. Snarking is kneejerk sneering.

Good point. Definitely something to think about.

But that doesn’t take a whole book to say. And this is a short book that still feels longer than it needs to be, because this should have been an essay. I found myself growing restless long before the end, and this book is only 128 pages including acknowledgements and a reference list.

Also, Denby includes a paragraph of his own New Yorker writing that he was surprised to hear accused of snarkiness, and it’s the snarkiest damn thing you ever read. It’s too long to include here, but here’s a bit of it:

“Ben Stiller’s face seems constructed by someone playing with the separate eyes, noses, and mouths of a children’s mix-and-match book. There’s nothing wrong with the features, but they don’t quite go together.”

He goes on some more about Stiller’s physical features. On and on and on. He admits that this passage might be “nasty. But is it snark? I leave it to the reader to decide.”

Well, Denby defines snark as “hazing on a page.” So far, so snarky. There’s the abovementioned “whatever principle” – snarkers “attack without reason.” What’s the reason behind going on and on about how someone looks? Denby is a movie reviewer for a magazine that prides itself on offering intellectual fare to educated readers. I quoted less than half of what he had to say about Stiller’s face. I think that adds up to “guilty as charged.” And since the Stiller paragraph was quoted early on, it colored the rest of the book for me.

So: get this book from the library. Read the first and fifth chapters. Also the one about Maureen Dowd.

If you’re a control freak, read the rest of it. (Then again, if you’re a control freak, there’s no way you were able to read the fifth chapter without reading the four preceding it, so never mind.) If you’re a more relaxed sort, trust me – you’ve now read all the good parts. show less

This book has the dubious honor of being only the second book I have ever thrown in the garbage, so that no one else would waste a moment of their precious time reading my copy. Other reviewers have thoroughly detailed its myriad problems with accuracy and being heinously guilty of the snark it claims to revile, so I won't re-hash. I will, however, chime in with the chorus of reviewers who find Mr. Denby's style pompous and sufficiently awful as to be downright unreadable. If I could give it show more zero stars, I would. Thank goodness I wasted only a dollar on this horrid little book. show less