SOURCE: Tuten, Frederic. “Ruined by Reading.” Los Angeles Times Book Review (8 June 1997): 11-12.

In the following review, Tuten faults The New Life for overindulging in plot contrivances and “belabored” allegorical elements.

Under the sway of romances and tales of chivalry, Don Quixote took up lance and shield and wandered about to battle injustice and the general wrong. Her head filled with sappy love novels, Madame Bovary took to adultery and the romantic swoon. Young Dorian Gray was given the book of all mind-altering books, “a poisonous book,” he came to call it, and, after reading it, he abandoned his fiancée, his closest friend and a life of Victorian rectitude to emerge as a suave decadent and prophet of a new hedonism.

Books and their influence—if any—have been the concern of many, especially today when the allure and power of serious fiction seem challenged by the...