Nicholson Baker Critical Essay | Critical Review by Galen Strawson

Critical Review by Galen Strawson

SOURCE: Strawson, Galen. “Writing under the Influence.” Times Literary Supplement, no. 4594 (19 April 1991): 20-1.

In the following review of U and I, Strawson objects to Baker's egocentric view of literary interpretation and his erroneous assessment of John Updike.

U is for Updike, and U and I records Nicholson Baker's admiration for the man and his writing. The psychopathology of his relation to Updike is fairly remarkable, and the book raises some familiar questions about the phenomenon of literary influence. It is written in free fantasia form, and it may be an act of love. But it is also highly ambivalent, and it is astoundingly egocentric. This explains some of its insights as well as its remarkable implausibilities: both are the products of an intense narrowness in the beam of Baker's attention.

Early on in U and I he announces that he has read considerably less than half of...
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