Negative Positive
Title: Less is more
Review: A measure of the success of a satire is understatement. Burning Down the House fails, therefore, because it tries too hard to be a satire. The style almost shouts, "Look,I'm being satiric!" No better example is how Lev Raphael portrays EAR (the academic department in which Nick Hoffman labors for tenure)as a circus of misfits---all except Nick, of course. Readers are willing to accept that any organization has members with foibles, but to paint everyone with the same unflattering brush is lazy characterization. The story wasn't strong on plot, with threats that start out weak and stay that way; so stronger characterization could have served an importance counter-balance. The same thing holds for the inane dialog, but that was to be expected. Characters cut from the same cloth tend to sound the same, squandering the opportunity to use dialog as a means to delineate characters. Lev's satire was just sad and tired.
Is the review positive or negative? 