An excellent summary. I agree with most of it after having been the book editor of the Plain Dealer (and reviewed, as you have, for the Globe and WaPo. I'd add:
1) The screening of books at the Globe and WaPo tends to be more rigorous than at smaller publications. That fact may explain why I see some of the problems you mention as higher-order flaws. You'd see lower-order issues more often at, say, Kirkus, for which I've reviewed a lot, just because Kirkus has to review more books, no matter how glaring their flaws: e.g. an author of multiple novels has run out of gas or a memoirist gives conflicting details about his or her background in successive volumes of a life story.
2) A smaller but extremely annoying issue in both fiction and nonfiction is what you might call James Patterson-itis: very short paragraphs or chapters, whether or not they serve the story well. John Updike summed up one problem with the attenuated paragraphs in a review of one of Bruce Chatwin's books: He said Chatwin's paragraphs were so short, he seemed always to be interrupting himself.
I see people reading short-chapter books on the train a lot, I think it may be a design for people who aren’t planning on sitting with a book for an extended period.
Of your 7 objections, I agree most with nos. 1 and 3. That's because they're the ones most likely to cause disappointment for the reader and make them feel cheated.
2 I don't care about very much one way or the other. 4 should be fine if you're writing a thriller, or some kind of satire or wacky comedy. 6 I actually like - Dickens did it all the time; so did all kinds of other famous authors.
5 is OK if used right, i.e. if there's a good storytelling reason - you're trying to distance yourself from the narrative, cover up implausibility, give a different character perspective. BTW I thought "American Pastoral" had an interesting story and characters, but it was hideously overwritten in parts. Most of the book is supposed to be Zuckerman's imagining of the hero's story, so the approach is probably meant to tell us something about Z's personality; but I found it often exasperating to read ("Hey Phil, please stop hitting me over the head with this endless series of numbered 'conversations about New York' that all say basically the same thing").
7 is like 5, you can make it work if you know how. Mostly, this means a huge all-embracing novel ("Ulysses," "Gravity's Rainbow"), or if you don't want to write at that length, do something jokey and fragmented ("At Swim-Two-Birds").
I haven't read Norumbega Park, but is it possible the author named his protagonist Angel to establish an allusion to Measure for Measure (in which Angelo pursues a nun)?
An excellent summary. I agree with most of it after having been the book editor of the Plain Dealer (and reviewed, as you have, for the Globe and WaPo. I'd add:
1) The screening of books at the Globe and WaPo tends to be more rigorous than at smaller publications. That fact may explain why I see some of the problems you mention as higher-order flaws. You'd see lower-order issues more often at, say, Kirkus, for which I've reviewed a lot, just because Kirkus has to review more books, no matter how glaring their flaws: e.g. an author of multiple novels has run out of gas or a memoirist gives conflicting details about his or her background in successive volumes of a life story.
2) A smaller but extremely annoying issue in both fiction and nonfiction is what you might call James Patterson-itis: very short paragraphs or chapters, whether or not they serve the story well. John Updike summed up one problem with the attenuated paragraphs in a review of one of Bruce Chatwin's books: He said Chatwin's paragraphs were so short, he seemed always to be interrupting himself.
I see people reading short-chapter books on the train a lot, I think it may be a design for people who aren’t planning on sitting with a book for an extended period.
Of your 7 objections, I agree most with nos. 1 and 3. That's because they're the ones most likely to cause disappointment for the reader and make them feel cheated.
2 I don't care about very much one way or the other. 4 should be fine if you're writing a thriller, or some kind of satire or wacky comedy. 6 I actually like - Dickens did it all the time; so did all kinds of other famous authors.
5 is OK if used right, i.e. if there's a good storytelling reason - you're trying to distance yourself from the narrative, cover up implausibility, give a different character perspective. BTW I thought "American Pastoral" had an interesting story and characters, but it was hideously overwritten in parts. Most of the book is supposed to be Zuckerman's imagining of the hero's story, so the approach is probably meant to tell us something about Z's personality; but I found it often exasperating to read ("Hey Phil, please stop hitting me over the head with this endless series of numbered 'conversations about New York' that all say basically the same thing").
7 is like 5, you can make it work if you know how. Mostly, this means a huge all-embracing novel ("Ulysses," "Gravity's Rainbow"), or if you don't want to write at that length, do something jokey and fragmented ("At Swim-Two-Birds").
I haven't read Norumbega Park, but is it possible the author named his protagonist Angel to establish an allusion to Measure for Measure (in which Angelo pursues a nun)?
Then it violates #2, as well.
Did you write this comment in the shed?