WHAT’S WITH BAUM? by Woody Allen
Five years ago, the prolific yet often controversial filmmaker Woody Allen released his memoir during a pandemic, which arrived in some circles as a less-than-welcome presence.
Now, nearing his 90th birthday, he has unveiled his first novel. At 152 pages, it is technically a novella, but we will extend the courtesy of a senior discount.
It’s truly never too late! And ‘What’s With Baum?,’ as it’s titled, is by no means terrible. It’s perfectly adequate. Toward the end of a week, as strong winds stirred public discourse, it provided this reader with a few wry chuckles.
Baum, the protagonist, is a character type familiar from Allen’s best films: 51 years old, named Asher, possessing a head of hair that is “full but incoherent,” and plagued by anxiety and acid reflux. While one might expect a surprising turn to a 19th-century goatherd, that’s merely a jest.
In reality, Baum ekes out a living in journalism, writing for “small magazines” in Manhattan, including some book reviews. (This calls to mind the elevator scene in Allen’s 1997 film ‘Deconstructing Harry,’ where book critics are relegated to the fifth floor of hell, alongside subway muggers and aggressive panhandlers.) The narrative is set in a post-Covid era, where Baum reads the newspaper on his phone beside his third wife, Connie, and her laptop, enjoying “a gram of pleasure over his spontaneous aperçu” with his breakfast.
His first marriage dissolved after he fell for his spouse’s identical twin; his second ended when his wife moved to New Zealand with a rock drummer to tend sheep.
Baum yearns to establish himself in serious fiction or theater, but his plays have been met with poor reception (though one found success in Slovenia), and publishers find his work ponderous, excessively focused on “dark matter,” and commercially unviable.
“Can’t you abandon that obsession and produce a book with a little more sentiment?” one editor inquires, much like a musical producer demanding a catchy tune. Another, from India, reminiscent of the renowned Sonny Mehta, suggests he “remove the wisdom.” Baum, who takes Xanax with a side of xenophobia, even questions whether the editor “was deep or just an Indian.”
Connie also serves as a source of considerable anxiety. Like Allen’s former partner Mia Farrow, she hails from Beverly Hills and is devoted to their country house. There, the profound silence, the wildlife, and the vast, star-filled night skies (“What is going on up there?”) fill Baum with an undefinable dread. In the city, he rationalizes, “there’s people, there’s police cars, good Samaritans and doormen. If you’re isolated in a country house and a car pulls up at 3 a.m. — brother, that’s all she wrote.”
Speaking of family, Baum harbors a paranoid suspicion that Connie, whom he describes as a “complex thoroughbred” as if she were a horse, is having an affair with his brother, Josh. Josh is a successful real estate entrepreneur who “beat the Jewish thing” with “a handsome Italianate face.”
One of the book’s central themes, a clever wordplay in itself, is that Baum, finding no adequate audience among relatives, friends, or analysts for his constant complaining, has resorted to talking to himself. It’s the verbal equivalent of Allen’s classic line from ‘Annie Hall’ (1977) — “Hey, don’t knock masturbation. It’s sex with someone I love” — mixed with a touch of ‘Sybil.’
Another, more unsettling plot element involves Connie’s Jocasta complex with her son, Thane. His debut novel, unlike his stepfather’s, is a bestseller shortlisted for a National Book Award, and his girlfriend is a captivatingly “farm fresh” echo of Baum’s second wife. “That little pampered child, that Midwich Cuckoo,” Baum sneers at Thane, a clever nod to the 1957 science fiction novel by John Wyndham. “A spoiled, arrogant know-it-all with all the answers.”
The narrative also includes literary references to W.H. Auden, Robert Burns, Larry Hart, the Strand bookstore, and the restaurateur Keith McNally, one of the author’s staunchest public supporters. There’s an up-to-the-minute plagiarism subplot and a thrilling climactic chase scene, alongside a few missing commas and unusual misspellings. Adding to the mix is the “immaculate succulence” of a Park Avenue Bard graduate and a tight-skirted dermatologist examining Baum’s concerning black spots.
“She didn’t take insurance,” Allen observes, “and that fact aroused him.”
Much like when Isaac Davis from ‘Manhattan’ unthinkingly drags his hand in the Central Park lake only to find it dirtied, reading ‘What’s With Baum?’ feels akin to taking a pleasant stroll through Washington Square Park and then unexpectedly stepping in something unpleasant.
Accused of child molestation by his adopted daughter, Dylan, Allen has never faced criminal charges. However, public perception in New York has remained critical since he left Farrow for her adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn, whom he later defiantly and enduringly married. ‘What’s With Baum?’ is dedicated to her, with the playful, Groucho Marx-esque line, “Where did you learn that?”
Like his creator, Baum faces the threat of public condemnation. In his case, it’s after he grabs—or perhaps merely breaks his fall with—one of the breasts of an admiring, attractive reporter well-versed in Hannah Arendt.
“Cindy, Mindy Loo,” Bad Baum recalls her. “The Chinese one whatever her name was.”
“It was Cindy Tanaka and she was Japanese,” Better Baum admonishes him.
Oh my! But this is Woody Allen: even when challenged by the entertainment industry, he manages to produce an impish piece of autumn prose with the same ease others might approach a game of pickleball.
WHAT’S WITH BAUM? | By Woody Allen | Post Hill Press | 192 pp. | $28