Outside Reading Set #5: Book Review

3/21/11

“‘The Instructions:’ A Thousand-Page Debut Splash”

Bill Goldstein

Book Review

http://www.npr.org/2010/11/01/130979766/-the-instructions-a-thousand-page-debut-splash

In his review of Adam Levin’s The Instructions, Bill Goldstein takes a mostly formalistic critical approach interspersed with some archetypical comments. To compare the relative “worthiness” of the book, Goldstein incorporates details such as allusions to other famous literary works, primarily Leo Tolstoy’s War and Piece: “Perhaps the more pressing literary question is whether Levin’s apocalyptic fantasy of a four-day end-times battle at Illinois’ Aptaksic Junior High, in November 2006, is enthralling enough to pass the Tolstoy Challenge.” Referencing Tolstoy’s book again later on, he deems Levin’s book to be less worthwhile: “In this case — even having been dazzled by much of The Instructions — I’m not sure I wouldn’t have been better off on the battlefields of czarist Russia.” Goldstein’s approach here makes me somewhat skeptical. In order to compare Levin’s book to a standard, Goldstein has to ensure that the standard he is using (War and Peace) is universally accepted to be a “better” literary piece. In this review, however, he does not give sufficient evidence to convince me that War and Peace is far more superior. Thus, this assumption results in a weak point in his analysis.

To further emphasize the length of The Instructions, Goldstein provides imagery of the book itself: “The spine of Adam Levin’s gargantuan first novel is 3 inches thick, which means it will take up almost twice as much space on your bookshelf as Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom.” Goldstein repeatedly emphasizes the size of the book because the premise of his criticism is that the length should be directly proportional to quality. Goldstein also employs imagery to illustrate the emotional appeal of the book; he paints a picture of the main character’s appearance and evokes the artistic connotations of words such as “vibrant” and “convincing.”

For the most part, Goldstein focuses on the concepts and plot of the book, thus criticizing mainly from a formalistic angle. Through this critical approach, he finds “conceptual flaws” with the book. However, Goldstein also uses careful diction to make points from an archetypal point of view. He deems the “delicate” emotional “observations” in the book as one of its most “momentous strengths” because everyone can relate to young love: “The reader swoons along with Gurion as he kisses his first love, Eliza June Watermark.” “Swoons” captures exactly the right feeling both Gurion and the readers share. In summary, Goldstein says that “At the heart of this Instructions is the tender story of a precocious and lonely 10-year-old boy who, bookish, brooding and pious, daydreams through the endless detentions and yearns to find peace as he is caught between attentive but warring parents.” Using specific adjectives to capture each facet of the main character’s personality, Goldstein creates a general archetype and illustrates that a major appeal of The Instructions is that fundamentally, all readers can share the same emotional reactions to it.

The discussion of length versus quality reminds me of both Ernest Hemingway’s books as well as writing style. I do not agree with Goldstein’s approach; he seems to think that the longer a book is, the better it has to be in order to gain literary merit. By this argument, shorter books do not have to “try as hard.” The Old Man and the Sea (a relatively short book), however, has been assessed just as rigorously as any other novel. Length should have no bearing on quality. Overall, the strength of this review is its ability to capture reader’s attentions. Though I did not agree with everything I read, Goldstein does bring up many intriguing points.