My love for Woody Allen’s work is like his love for his pseudo-daughter-turned-wife, Soon-Yi Previn – it feels good, but publicly it’s not something anyone wants to hear about.
And I get it. History is littered with dubious artists who have forced us as readers and viewers to ask the tough questions like, “Where do I draw the line?” and “Was Hitler one miraculous Sundance run short of being able to win me over?”
But as much as I’d love for you to think I’m some sort of white knight of justice – a cowboy hero to the arts if you will – the truth is that, 95% of the time, my love for the artwork triumphs over the sticky real-world realities of the artist.
Yet it feels fitting that, for Allen, whose work tackled the complex morally gray areas of relationships, that he would, in his own way, force his fans to explore such issues in the real world with their love for his art. Like some sort of giant, fucked-up performance art piece, but instead of Shia LaBeouf wearing a paper bag over his head, it involves fans having to sit in a glass case in an art gallery, saying things like “But Midnight in Paris is a classic” as people hurl eggs at them.
Yes, this morally-conflicted, nay, PR-conflicted writer, finds himself in an interesting spot. There’s no gun barrel brushing against my head from a madman telling me to write a praiseful article about Allen’s work. No audience of Adderall-addicted fans demanding my words. Yet still the fingers type. Why?
Because it’s like I said: my love for the art triumphs over the sticky real-world realities of the artist.
Including myself.
What’s With Baum? (With Spoilers)
Telling the tale of a struggling middle-aged writer in an unhappy marriage who must grapple with his son-in-law becoming a famous novelist, Allen’s 2025 book is a well written and fascinating exploration of character, both fictionally, and for us as readers, because the protagonist Asher is as morally dubious as the man who penned him.
He’s on the precipice of being blacklisted from the literary world for a “#MeToo” moment with a reporter, actively hunting down an obscure novel to prove that his son-in-law, Thane, plagiarized from it, and oh yeah, deeply contemplating making a move on Thane’s fiance, Sam.
Yet, despite all of this, as the reader, I found myself unable to do anything but turn to the next page to learn more about him.
It was almost like hypnosis, some sort of Allen spell, that locked my hands to the book and refused to let me drop it until it was done.
In the beginning, it was puzzling, but after some reflection I began to understand the genius of Allen’s novel.
He never tries to make us approve of Asher but instead, presents him, warts and all, in an effort for us to understand him.
Almost outright inviting us to in the first few pages saying, “There was no one who really understood Asher Baum except Asher Baum. No shrink, no ex, no friend, as they all seemed to have fallen away over the years. No one who made any sense except the man himself”.
He mine as well have said, “He’s too hard for you to understand” and thumbed his nose, only to have me as the reader susceptible to reverse psychology say, “To hell with you, four eyes! Give me that book and I’ll show you understands who!”.
It’s a classic bait and hook, but well worth the bite.
Because we see every flaw, perverse thought, egotistical moment Asher has and not only come to understand how a man like this acts as he does but even begin to see ourselves in him.
We connect with his yearning to recapture the love he lost with his second wife, Tyler, the anger he feels for seeing the proverbial “mama’s boy”, Thane, not only steal the gaze of his wife but of the literary world he exists in, and inevitably feel the immense emotional blow when he discovers that, what he thought was a burgeoning romance with Sam, was nowhere near such a thing.
On a deeper level, I think Allen’s work is so gripping because it speaks to the bondage of existence. Here is Asher, someone who aspired to be a great novelist but failed and is in a passionless marriage where he’s financially dependent on his wife and plays second fiddle to his stepson. This man is neutered in every aspect of his life, suffocating in the juxtaposition between his desires and his reality. Who amongst us hasn’t experienced that in one way or another?
What’s With Baum? is, as Shrek would say, like an onion – it has layers. It involves the reader having to make a moral compromise to engage with it from the beginning, only to have them further examine their morals as they’re enticed by the questionable nature of the protagonist. It’s a Pandora’s box of ethical and moral quandaries that provides no easy answers. And perhaps that is the great achievement of the book, whether intentional or not, that it calls into question why we crave the easy answers in the first place.
Better put, What’s With Baum? is like that old adage about the abyss.
Stare into it, and it’ll stare back into you.
