Going into the City: Portrait of a Critic as a Young Man

Robert Christgau's Going Into The City is an exhilarating ride through the Mr. Christgau's childhood and early years as the most influential rock critic for the Village Voice. The self-professed "Dean of American Rock Critics" Christgau invented the genre of rock and pop criticism and he brings an intellectualism and muscularity to his essays and reviews as well as to this memoir. My appreciation for Christgau's work was partially due to his keen understanding of the impact of race, gender, and class and for his challenging me to become a better reader (with dictionary by my side). I learn a lot from Christgau's capsule reviews and not just about music.

My favorite part of the book is his portrayal of his three-year relationship with show more Ellis Willis. It was pretty sexy and this is meant in the broadest sense; their mutual love of theory, words, music, politics bring heat and richness to his depictions and his sadness at their ending is real and palpable. And at the center of this book, in the midst of the words and theories about art, his passion for music and love for New York City and that particular place and time, is his commitment to marriage, to his wife Carola Dibbell, to monogamy and his pride in that.

I love how Christgau uses language. He is insightful, bighearted, shrewd, complex. Sometimes, however, his sideways trips through theory, his digressions about literature are showy and tiring. Despite this, I have reveled in the joy and exquisite beauty of Christgau's story and I thank Edelweiss for allowing me to review it. show less

Firstly, the title: growing up in the New York suburbs, "going into the City" was always a prelude to adventure (here in the Boston suburbs where I live now, it's "going into Town" and hardly anyone wants to). Robert Christgau is best known for his music (formerly known as record) reviews, but this is a memoir and delves deep into TMI territory as regards his relationships with women. Ellen Willis, genius critic herself and subject of a fine biography by her daughter Nora (The Essential Ellen Willis) died in 2006 and cannot comment or defend herself, but Christgau's wife Carola is here and a mighty tolerant woman. In addition to massive information about his sexuality, relationships, and infertility, Christgau captures the life of a show more rock critic when there were none around. His writing is insanely dense, filled with asides and commentary on various writers and poets, but yet, as the viewers of Kramer's portrait said "I could not look away." Here's an example of his brilliant coverage: he ties together the '80s deaths of Lester Bangs, Bob Marley, and John Lennon. Don't miss the piercing Steely Dan tributes on page 277 - 279, one each by Christgau and Carola. Also covered in depth are: CBGBs (Television, Ramones) and Christgau's long tenure at the Rupert Murdoch-murdered-Village Voice.

I'm not sure of who would enjoy this - for music fans, there's not enough about music. For NYC fans, there's not enough about life outside the newspaper world. Newspaper fans - are there any left? Sex and relationship people might even cringe at all that is revealed. I had equal parts enjoyment and relief that it was over. show less

Unfortunately, I did not receive a free review copy of this book, and am stuck with the fact that I shelled out 20$ for a stinker.

Where to begin. First, I have enjoyed Christgau's music reviews and essays, notwithstanding his biases, self absorption, and New York centric outlook. The first thing I noticed about the book was that there was no index. I had wanted to browse through to check out several artists. This should have been a forewarning, because it turned out there was little in the book about music. And, unfortunately, once he starts writing about himself, or topics other than music, Christgau becomes banal and boring.

Part of the problem is that Christgau is a decade older than me;he is a child of the fifties. Thus many of his show more cultural touchstones do not resonate with me. This is not directly his fault; however, the challenge is to thereafter connect that background to the sixties and the ensuing explosion of pop music. Christ gau never does so. Second, Christgau is a parochial New yorker who thinks New York is the center of the universe. Rock and roll, however was not born at CBGBs. The Ramones were not musical geniuses. Reading the book, you would not think there were other cities that perhaps contributed more to rock than NYC: LA (the Whiskey broke a lot more new artists than any NY club); San Fran (the fillmore); Seattle; Austin; London ... etc. Given that Christgau mutters about "American Studies" from time to time, he seems strangely disconnected from Americana in music.

Instead of music, Christgau regales us with countless names of local artists, writers and leftwing activists, whom I never heard of and whom I did not care about. I doubt they have any significance west of the Hudson. Christgau provides way TMI about his sex life, which is fairly prosaic at most, and cringeworthy at its worst.

Christgau's concision in his music reviews allows his prose to sparkle ; in this much longer format it simply palls. This is a very poorly written memoir (compare e.g., Hitch 22). Moreover, given that the only thing interesting about Christgau are his views on music, and given that his book largely ignores them, the book is not particularly interesting. show less