Robert S. Boynton's New New Journalism
By 1973, when Tom Wolfe released the compendium The New Journalism, the approach to writing represented in that volume couldn’t any longer be considered something brand new. New Journalism might be traceable back to Mark Twain’s travel writing and there are most likely folks even before that who would easily be included under this umbrella term.
There’s not a defined genre that doesn’t have its detractors or critics, but New Journalism was is remains the last new and novel thing in non-fiction writing - not withstanding blogs and the like. While Wolfe’s volume rounded up folks like Terry Southern, Hunter S. Thompson and Robert Christgau amongst a number of others, Robert S. Boynton’s newer work seeks to take a look at the genre four decades on.
The New New Journalism differs greatly from Wolfe’s earlier book in that the newer book doesn’t include articles by the folks that are featured – Gay Talese being the only writer to appear in both. Instead of including pieces from these journalists and non-fiction writers, Boyton writes a brief biographical sketch of the subject and then proceeds to transcribe some pretty lengthy interviews.
For the most part, Boyton’s volume is a handy reference guide as to how each of these folks work. There’re a slew of questions that each run through, although, by the end of the book (which includes 19 disparate sections dedicated to individual writers) the line of inquiry gets a bit tired. It’s not that Boynton doesn’t have good questions – or follow ups – but reading about how each of these people feels about tape recorders isn’t necessarily the most interesting way to spend time.
That being said, The New New Journalism grants its readers an endless amount of odd situations and interesting scenarios. Of course, the individual writers and their personalities are able to come through the wrote line of questioning. And as Boyton digs into Jon Krakauer (which is the easily the longest interview in the book), its interesting to hear an established non-fiction writer recount problems in get books published subsequent to his two hugely popular works. There might not be too much to learn here, again most of this being made up of interesting quips and brief narratives, but getting insight into how, where and when folks most prefer to extricate information from subjects could be useful in one’s career. Maybe.
As I was necessitated to read this volume for a class, my perception of the work might be a little bit skewed. But if not required to read ‘x’ amount of pages in a week, The New New Journalism should prove as some heady, recreational reading.
Considering the wide range of folks that are included here after making it through the book you’ll probably have a new reading list to work from in coming weeks. But that’s not the only benefit to reading Boyton’s work. Learning is good all by itself. And really, I had no idea who Richard Ben Cramer was. Now I do. It might not change my life, but depth of knowledge is important. Right? Right.
