PrintWhat Do You Think Of Sam Sifton?
At Writers and Cooks, Sarah has a few harsh words:
"His writing is jaunty, and I can never find its rhythm. Just when I've started to fall for a sentence or two, he throws in a curve ball—a jolting, short sentence that kills the flow. It almost reminds me of the notes I scrawl in my notebook—like he's keeping track of his sensory observations for an article he plans to write later. There's something that feels unfinished and thrown together about his work, and what's worse is that I think it's intentional. Some might call this his "style," but I find his prose lazy, less unique than unsure and floundering.
His frequent snarky remarks come out awkwardly, trying too hard to be entertaining. As a result, we're distracted from what should be the focus of the review: the food. Most of what I remember from a Sifton review is, well, Sifton."
She goes on to compare Sifton's descriptions to Adam Platt's, believing the latter to have a superior, clearer style that focuses more closely on the experience of eating each dish than the writing that describes them.
What do you think? Have you enjoyed the Sifton reviews, or do you find his writing a bit hard to wade through?
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6 Comments:
I'm a big fan, probably for the same reason that people like this don't like him. No pretentiousness, or coming up with a million new adjectives for describing the same freakin' thing. He's like Conan on the Tonight Show... maybe he won't get the same ratings, or have the same influence, but he's the only chance they have of staying relevant with the next generation.
Zach Brooks at 10:51AM on 11/25/09
I had my doubts until I read the review of Bill's Burger Bar this morning. I'm happy he can keep it short, to the point and honest. I thought in his first reviews you could feel a little too much of his own excitement about starting the position seeping into the review, and that was overpowering the food related commentary. Excited to see what he gets up to next year.
zackola at 11:28AM on 11/25/09
He has a tenuous relationship with grammatical rules. His diction is terrible. His metaphors often don't make any sense. And he is frequently wrong or incurious about the food itself.
What he says of Bill's applies to his own writing style: There's no there there.
darkestcloud at 1:08PM on 11/25/09
I disagree, I really like him (Full disclosure, he's good friends with the art director at the magazine I work for, but I've never met him.) I like his style -- like @Zach Brooks said, there's very little pretentiousness, and I like that he seems so enthusiastic. I'm a huge Bruni fan, so I was nervous when he took over, but I've been pleasantly surprised.
kfarrel3 at 1:39PM on 11/25/09
i love him. sam sifton and gail collins are more or less the only reasons why i still buy the times. maybe hes not a great writer, maybe he doesnt focus on the FOOD but hes got personality and i love him and i really dont care what the review says anyway, i just wanna know the price range and the rating and move on. compared to bruni, id choose sifton each time.
akapluto at 12:22AM on 11/26/09
I used to relish cracking open a New York Times over dinner each Wednesday. Now I begrudgingly look for the stars in the Dining Section and begin reading.
Never have so many prose led to so little understanding.
This week I learned Casa Lever is staffed by "handsome, rakish men with huge wristwatches, while it could also be a scene out of a movie based on an unwritten novel starring Diane Keaton. Read on to encounter the words "specious symmetry," "power restaurant," and "Spence-Chapin thrift shop merino."
Cliche meets jargon meets awkward analogy meets stereotype. Like perhaps in a yet unwritten novel by Dana Vachon?
It sounds like he's trying to sound smart. And when you are trying to sound smart, you usually don't.
But my primary sadness is I cannot taste the food. "It's interesting, but not great" he writes of amatriciana. Why? The paccheri is "less interesting , and not good." No elaboration. But the ravioli, at last, is "creamy with a slight bite." Of what?
In the end, this column does not make me want to eat. It makes me want to find a brick "roughly the size of a hardcover Italian-English dictionary" (like Mr. Sifton's recent meal of New York strip) and beat it against my head.
One star.
l.acrobate at 12:37AM on 01/07/10