SOURCE: "Today's Novels Are Lightweight, Says Critic," in The Christian Science Monitor, Vol. 84, August 17, 1992, p. 14.

In the following review, Holmstrom concentrates on a question of excellence that he believes is implied by Birkerts's arguments in American Energies.

After a reader turns the last page of Sven Birkerts's American Energies, a question comes quickly to thought: Is there any effort left in the United States to be excellent? Not to win, not to have the most, or be the biggest, or the quickest, but to be excellent?

Birkerts's collection of essays on what he sees as the weakened condition of American novels is not directly about excellence.

It's the lack of depth and resonance in novels that worries him. As a reflection of an American culture spun into confection by technology, he argues, mostly lightweight novels are being written now. While my guess is that he would validate the...