What's with Baum?
It’s not terrible. It’s fine. … Afforded this reader a few hollow chuckles ... Some missing commas and odd misspellings ... Reading What’s With Baum? is not unlike going for a pleasant stroll in Washington Square Park and then stepping in doggy doo ... Oy! But this is Woody Allen: Even kneecapped by the entertainment industry, he rises to knock out an impish piece of autumn prose as others might a game of pickleball.
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Whatever shocks you might expect from this novel, the shock of the new isn’t one of them ... An eerie, almost unearthly experience ... This novel is more fluent, more plausible on its own terms, than any of his recent movies – though it finally collapses into perfunctory and unresolved farcical silliness in a very familiar way ... There are plenty of nice lines along the way ... Baum, and his creator, are still pushing.
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There’s no real need for What’s With Baum? to exist as a book, though it is reasonably well-written, diverting enough for a few hours ... Sloppy and repetitive; the plot tips over into silliness quite often and none of its strands are resolved wholly satisfactorily ... The weakest part… is the anachronistic feeling throughout ... It’s hard to know what to make of What’s With Baum? ... Woody Allen is an inimitable genius who can do whatever he likes. On the other hand, again, it doesn’t feel particularly necessary or vital… or much of anything, really.
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