EASTSIDER JOHN LEONARD

EASTSIDER JOHN LEONARD
Book critic for the New York Times

3-22-80

"It's as if the job I have were designed for me," says bearded, bespectacled John Leonard, lighting¹ his fifth cigarette of the early afternoon as he sits relaxed at his Eastside brownstone, talking about the pleasures and perils² of being one of the New York Times' three daily book critics. Like his colleagues Christopher Lehmann-Haupt and Anatole Broyard, Leonard writes two book reviews for the Times each week, and is syndicated nationally. An avid³ reader since childhood, he now gets to read anything and everything he desires.

That's the advantage. The disadvantage, explains Leonard, is that "there are 50 thousand books published every year in this country. You can never even pretend to be comprehensive. You can't even pretend to be adequate in your coverage⁴, whereas the Times will review almost any play that opens, on or Off Broadway, and almost every concert and movie. We'll review maybe 400 books a year in the daily paper."

A smallish, balding man of 41 who dresses purely⁵ for comfort and has a calm, refined speaking manner, Leonard looks precisely⁶ like the bookworm he is. "I'll get here, in this house, probably 5,000 or 6,000 books a year, mailed to me, or brought by messenger. The luxury of this job is that there's so much to choose from that any mood or interest or compulsion or desire to educate oneself or amuse oneself can be matched by some book that has come in."

New books by well-known authors, he says, are the first priority because "they've earned reviews, for service to the literary culture over the years." He and his two fellow critics "divide up the plums and divide up the dogs. Since I did Kissinger's memoirs⁷, the next huge, endless book that has to be reviewed, whether anybody wants to review it or not, will not be reviewed by me."

Somewhere between 100 and 140 serious first novels are published in the U.S. each year, according to Leonard. "This is not pulp⁸ paperback⁹ westerns. It doesn't even count science fiction or gothic or all that. I think a special effort is made by all of us in the reviewing racket to review first novels."

He reads many authors' first books on the recommendation of trusted agents and publishers. "Over the years you decide who isn't lying to you. … Christopher Lehmann-Haupt was telling someone about that the other day. He said, 'Sure, you can call me as often as you want. But I'll say that you begin with a hundred dollars in you bank account, and if it turns out that you are begging me to review a book that has no other redeeming¹⁰ virtues¹¹ but the fact that you have invested 50 or 80 thousand dollars' worth of advertising¹² in it and you've got too many copies out in the bookstores that aren't moving, that bank account goes down. When you give me a real surprise and a pleasure which is what makes this job worthwhile, the bank account goes up. But if the bank account goes down to zero, it's closed.'

"And that's right. There are people in this town who I won't take a telephone call from. But that's the exception."

Apart from reading, writing and travel, Leonard has few interests. "By May, I can even look healthy, because I just sit out in the garden, getting paid to read," he says with a grin. He and his wife Sue, a schoolteacher, have three children from previous marriages. His son Andrew will be starting college in the fall.

A book reviewer since 1967, including a five-year stint¹³ as editor of the Sunday Times Book Review, Leonard also write a warmly personal, frequently humorous column in the Wednesday Times titled "Private Lives." A collection of 69 of the columns appeared in book form last year under the title Private Lives in the Imperial City (Knopf, $8.95). In addition, he has published four novels and hundreds of free-lance articles for magazines ranging from Playboy to the New Republic. For years he wrote TV reviews for Life magazine under the pseudonym¹⁴ "Cyclops." Recalls Leonard: "It was a good way to turn your brain to Spam."

Born in Washington, D.C., he grew up reading the Congressional Record instead of comics, and initially¹⁵ planned a career in law. Booted out of Harvard for neglecting his studies in favor of the campus newspaper, he sharpened his journalistic skills under William F. Buckley Jr. at the National Review before completing college at the University of California's Berkeley campus. Following graduation, he became the program director of a radio station, wrote his first two novels, and worked in an anti-poverty program in Boston. Then he was invited to join the Times. "I did my Westside and Village stuff when I was first here and broke," comments Leonard. He has owned his four-story Eastside house since 1971.

Among the most memorable¹⁶ books that Leonard has helped to "discover" are Joseph Heller's Catch-22 and Gunter Grass's The Tin Drum. "To be able to sit down one night, as I did, and to realize you're in the presence of an extraordinary talent, with no advance publicity¹⁷, to be able to have a hole to fill in the paper two days later, to sit down and pull out all your adjectives and get people to buy the book: this is what you live for," he sighs happily. "You only need two or three of those to last a lifetime."

1 lighting   

n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光

参考例句：

• The gas lamp gradually lost ground to electric lighting.煤气灯逐渐为电灯所代替。
• The lighting in that restaurant is soft and romantic.那个餐馆照明柔和而且浪漫。

2 perils   

极大危险( peril的名词复数 )； 危险的事（或环境）

参考例句：

• The commander bade his men be undaunted in the face of perils. 指挥员命令他的战士要临危不惧。
• With how many more perils and disasters would he load himself? 他还要再冒多少风险和遭受多少灾难？

3 avid   

adj.热心的；贪婪的；渴望的；劲头十足的

参考例句：

• He is rich,but he is still avid of more money.他很富有,但他还想贪图更多的钱。
• She was avid for praise from her coach.那女孩渴望得到教练的称赞。

4 coverage   

n.报导，保险范围，保险额，范围，覆盖

参考例句：

• There's little coverage of foreign news in the newspaper.报纸上几乎没有国外新闻报道。
• This is an insurance policy with extensive coverage.这是一项承保范围广泛的保险。

5 purely   

adv.纯粹地，完全地

参考例句：

• I helped him purely and simply out of friendship.我帮他纯粹是出于友情。
• This disproves the theory that children are purely imitative.这证明认为儿童只会单纯地模仿的理论是站不住脚的。

6 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

7 memoirs   

n.回忆录；回忆录传( mem,自oir的名词复数)

参考例句：

• Her memoirs were ghostwritten. 她的回忆录是由别人代写的。
• I watched a trailer for the screenplay of his memoirs. 我看过以他的回忆录改编成电影的预告片。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 pulp   

n.果肉，纸浆；v.化成纸浆，除去...果肉，制成纸浆

参考例句：

• The pulp of this watermelon is too spongy.这西瓜瓤儿太肉了。
• The company manufactures pulp and paper products.这个公司制造纸浆和纸产品。

9 paperback   

n.平装本，简装本

参考例句：

• A paperback edition is now available at bookshops.平装本现在在书店可以买到。
• Many books that are out of print are reissued in paperback form.许多绝版的书籍又以平装本形式重新出现。

10 redeeming   

补偿的，弥补的

参考例句：

• I found him thoroughly unpleasant, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. 我觉得他一点也不讨人喜欢，没有任何可取之处。
• The sole redeeming feature of this job is the salary. 这份工作唯其薪水尚可弥补一切之不足。

11 virtues   

美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处

参考例句：

• Doctors often extol the virtues of eating less fat. 医生常常宣扬少吃脂肪的好处。
• She delivered a homily on the virtues of family life. 她进行了一场家庭生活美德方面的说教。

12 advertising   

n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的

参考例句：

• Can you give me any advice on getting into advertising? 你能指点我如何涉足广告业吗?
• The advertising campaign is aimed primarily at young people. 这个广告宣传运动主要是针对年轻人的。

13 stint   

v.节省，限制，停止；n.舍不得化，节约，限制；连续不断的一段时间从事某件事

参考例句：

• He lavished money on his children without stint.他在孩子们身上花钱毫不吝惜。
• We hope that you will not stint your criticism.我们希望您不吝指教。

14 pseudonym   

n.假名，笔名

参考例句：

• Eric Blair wrote under the pseudonym of George Orwell.埃里克·布莱尔用乔治·奧威尔这个笔名写作。
• Both plays were published under the pseudonym of Philip Dayre.两个剧本都是以菲利普·戴尔的笔名出版的。

15 initially   

adv.最初，开始

参考例句：

• The ban was initially opposed by the US.这一禁令首先遭到美国的反对。
• Feathers initially developed from insect scales.羽毛最初由昆虫的翅瓣演化而来。

16 memorable   

adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的

参考例句：

• This was indeed the most memorable day of my life.这的确是我一生中最值得怀念的日子。
• The veteran soldier has fought many memorable battles.这个老兵参加过许多难忘的战斗。

17 publicity   

n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告

参考例句：

• The singer star's marriage got a lot of publicity.这位歌星的婚事引起了公众的关注。
• He dismissed the event as just a publicity gimmick.他不理会这件事，只当它是一种宣传手法。