THE GREAT WAVE

A prize-winning literary critic delves into the reasons for social dislocation.

Kakutani, author of The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump, was a book reviewer for the New York Times from 1983 to 2017, and she won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 1998. She has attracted ire as well as applause throughout her career, and her latest book will probably continue that trend. Her unoriginal thesis is that we are living in a period of radical change, technological disruption, and spreading chaos. She lines up the usual suspects for assessment: the Covid-19 pandemic, the dangers of social media, the loss of faith in institutions, the collapse of geopolitical and cultural boundaries. The problem is that all of this has been examined in countless articles and books over the past decade, and Kakutani fails to add unique insight. It’s clear that the author has read widely, but the text’s saturation with references often becomes a distraction. The author is snarky in a way that may appeal to denizens of New York City literary circles, and, given the nearly 170 references to him, the book could have been titled Reasons To Hate Donald Trump—some version of which has been written many times already. Kakutani’s previous book was almost entirely about her disdain for the former president, and she re-tills too much of the same ground here. She extends her antipathy to conservative Supreme Court judges and, in most cases, to anyone not as far to the left as she is. This admittedly well-researched book, which contains justified anger at the current political landscape, will appeal mostly to those who share the author’s ideological views. Others will find the instructive messages buried under too much rancor and spite.

Kakutani ranges broadly across issues but ultimately has little new to say.