To be Kakutani'ed: the critic who became a verb
In short: For thirty-eight years, Michiko Kakutani’s reviews could elevate a writer to stardom or induce pure despair. Known for a piercing, third-person style that avoided the personal 'I', she wielded a level of cultural prestige so potent that her name entered the English lexicon as a verb.
During her tenure as the chief daily book critic for the New York Times, Michiko Kakutani became a formidable figure in American letters. Her assessments spanned novels, memoirs, history, and poetry, influencing generations of readers. The impact of her critiques was often visceral; writer Mary Karr described a positive review as being touched by a 'good fairy,' while others, like Nicholson Baker, likened a negative review to undergoing surgery without anesthesia.
Kakutani’s critical style was defined by a deliberate distance. Eschewing the first-person pronoun, she preferred the more objective 'the reader,' a choice that some contemporaries, such as Ben Yagoda, criticized as lacking wit or personal voice. However, this detachment allowed her to deliver lacerating critiques—such as her dismissal of Don DeLillo’s 'Cosmopolis' as a 'major dud'—with a clinical, specific precision. This avoidance of the personal was not merely a stylistic quirk but a method of maintaining independence and evaluating works on their own merits.
Her influence extended beyond literature into the political sphere. In her 2018 book, *The Death of Truth*, Kakutani argued that postmodernist skepticism toward grand narratives had contributed to a culture of relativism, where opinion is often treated as equal to objective truth. This perspective linked the rise of 'spin doctors' and political cynicism to broader philosophical shifts. Despite the intense friction her reviews caused—including a famous spat with author Jonathan Franzen—her career remains a landmark era in literary criticism.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Farewell to the Book Critic Michiko Kakutani! | The New Yorker
- Also: Michiko Kakutani
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