Well, you have to hand it to the Crystal Leth, at least he's bringing something better than plot summary to the increasingly torpid Times Book Review. Lethem has the cover review, of Ian McEwan's novel(la) On Chesil Beach, in this week's Summer Reading issue, and he dives into close reading—yes, close reading—with what's, depending on one's view, either a cute bit of aw-shucks mixed metaphor or an atrocious bit of aw-shucks mixed metaphor that portends the wholesale dissolution of American letters: