Mome raths outgrabe; or, how to deal with a bad review

Photo courtesy of sxc.hu
and Paulo Oliveira Santos
of Rotterdam, the Netherlands.


Every few years a writer (Franz Wright, Alice Hoffmann, etc.) spills the boiling pot of his resentments about some critic or other to the entertainment of readers. This time it was Jonathan Lethem, going on about the perceived failings of James Wood--who had, oddly enough, praised the book in question a good