October 4, 2010 Issue

Jeffrey Toobin’s “The Scholar,” in this week’s issue, is dull and lifeless. I don’t mean just the subject matter is dull and lifeless; I’m talking about the writing, too. In fact, I’m talking especially about the writing. Lots of articles in the magazine are about subjects I find uninteresting, but I read them anyway for the writing, purely as writing. And great writing can bring even the most unpromising material to life: see, for example, Nicholson Baker’s recent piece on video games. But there isn’t an inspired line in “The Scholar.” It’s a workmanlike assemblage of quotations, mostly from court documents, about a fraud case. The magazine labels it an “Annals of Law” piece, but there’s scarcely any law in it. Toobin seldom enters the narrative frame. At one point, about two-thirds of the way through the piece, when he says, “I went to Alaska in August and, one morning soon after my arrival, Harris told me to go to the lobby of my hotel, where I would be met and taken to see Yould,” I perked up and started reading with more attention, hoping for a vivid description, a scrap of physical detail, an unusual word combination – something writerly. Instead, this is what Toobin provides: “We entered through a side door and went into what looked like a downscale corporate apartment, with generic furniture and without personal touches.” Unlike Calvin Trillin’s “Annals of Crime” pieces, Toobin's story fails to give us any sense of place. Unlike Janet Malcolm’s great “Iphigenia In Forest Hills” (The New Yorker, May 3, 2010), his article fails to capture and convey the court atmosphere. Toobin was, at one time, a government lawyer. He’s written a mildly interesting account of the experience called “Opening Arguments” (1991). In “The Scholar,” he’s still very much the government lawyer, ever skeptical of the defendant’s arguments. It doesn’t make for much of a story if all we are getting is a plain language version of the government’s case. Yet, that is what “The Scholar” delivers. Toobin concludes well before the judge does that “There is, in fact, very little evidence to corroborate her claims of abuse and harassment, especially in recent years.” The story answers its own tagline – “She was brilliant. Was she a fraud?” – with a resounding yes, guilty as charged. I think the real problem with “The Scholar,” aside from the lack of inspired writing, is that Rachel Yould is too easy a target. Her guilt appears open and shut. She's even pleaded guilty. So why are we reading about her? So we can feel morally superior? So we can look down on her and judge her? Well, there’s damn little reading pleasure in that for me. Sometimes I wonder if Toobin missed his calling. He’s more a judge than he is a writer.