I always feel guilty when I enjoy a snarky review of a book, especially of fiction. I know how hard it is to write, so I rarely say much about books I don’t like, unless they’re the kind of book I want to throw across the room.
But sometimes a snarky review not only tells me I wouldn’t want to read a book, but also tells me why. And that saves me money and time and keeps me from throwing things.
Ron Charles – who reviewed for The Washington Post for many years and now has a newsletter – did just that in his recent review of Matthew Aldrich’s book, The Natural Order.
There are several delightful lines in this review, but it was this observation that really sucked me in:
[The main character’s] stew of self-aggrandizement, self-pity, and self-delusion requires a degree of irony that’s missing here because, like Fitzgerald, Aldrich is caught between satirizing the rich and idolizing them. But unlike Fitzgerald, he does not write like Fitzgerald.
Now you should understand that I think The Great Gatsby is terribly overrated. I’ve read it a couple of times, but while I agree that Fitzgerald had a lovely way with words, I don’t think it’s the great American novel.
In those two sentence, Charles encapsulates in a nutshell what’s wrong with The Great Gatsby as well as what’s wrong with the book he’s reviewing. You can only get away with that angsty idolization of the rich if you can write like Fitzgerald. And in my opinion, even Fitzgerald shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.
But of course, by doing so, Charles is damning Aldrich’s book, which is a first novel. That seems a bit unfair, but since Aldrich is also a screenwriter and sold the screen rights to this book before it even came out, I don’t think it’s going to make a lot of difference in his life. He obviously will make more money from the movie than the book in any case.
The book is about a broligarch type who has figured out how to live forever, or at least longer than anyone else, and is about to release his official method (for more big bucks). It’s set in 2070, so it’s obviously near future science fiction, but called a thriller because it isn’t published as SF or written by a science fiction writer.
Since I have followed the antics of such people as Bryan Johnson (clearly the model for the main character) and read Adam Becker’s More Everything Forever and Gil Duran’s The Nerd Reich, I am not interested in a book that treats such a person sympathetically.
Given how much clout the broligarchs have in our society, we are in need of science fiction that makes clear the harm that they’re doing and undermines their projects with ideas on how to build a sustainable future rather than ones built on the wet dreams of people with too much money and an inability to comprehend science fiction.
And by comparison, the trouble with The Great Gatsby is that it is far too sympathetic to a grifter not unlike the one currently occupying our White House. Yes, it also treats the established rich with accurate contempt, but replacing them with the likes of Jay Gatsby or Donald Trump is far from a solution.
Even in 1925 – and especially in 2026 – we need books that undermine the American urge for extreme wealth instead of ones that view it with longing.
Actually, the lines I quote earlier weren’t the snarkiest ones in this review. Charles started it by saying, “I started reading Matthew Aldrich’s The Natural Order just a few hours after I got a colonoscopy. In the end, the novel was better.”
Ouch. That was rude. I didn’t quite approve, but I obviously kept reading. I mean, I’ve had colonoscopies and I’ve read books that aren’t a much better experience myself.
Not all of Charles’s reviews are snarky. He does really like books. Since the Post has killed its book section, like so many other publications, subscribing to his newsletter is a good way to keep up with new books you might not find elsewhere, especially if you, like me, aren’t entranced by algorithm-generated recommendations and Goodreads reviews.
By the way, I don’t really believe in the idea of the Great American Novel. It was born of the competitive urges of male writers in the first half of the 20th century.
But if you have to have one, the obvious choice is Toni Morrison’s Beloved.