Hari Kunzru: “Literary critics will never grow up. Luckily for me, these days, people seem to be more interested in talking about my work than about money.”

Gee, that’s odd. Adam Mars-Jones, Daniel Mendelsohn, David Kipen — to name just three critics — didn’t mention the advance at all in their reviews, although all expressed some quibbles about The Impressionist. Nithya Khrishnaswamy promised not to talk about the advance and only about the work. Could it be that the work in question isn’t nearly as spectacular as Kunzru believes it to be? Maybe it’s the author here suffering from a Peter Pan complex.