If someone were to pluck What’s With Baum? from a bookshelf without knowing who authored it, what would they make of it? They might think that it’s a slight, forgettable novella detailing the midlife crises of a neurotic, vaguely lecherous writer – a John Updike plot, minus the magical clarity of Updike’s prose. A book that gestures towards provocation, but does not commit. In other words: they’d think it straightforwardly unremarkable. But, of course, we do know the author of Baum. And that author is 89-year-old filmmaker Woody Allen.
Baum is Allen’s first novel, written at a time when his prolific film career – reputationally hobbled by resurfaced sexual abuse allegations and a long run of incidentally dismal movies – has seemingly tailed off. (Allen has repeatedly and vehemently denied the allegations of abuse by adoptive daughter Dylan Farrow, and was previously cleared of charges following an investigation.) He has yet to film anything since 2023’s French-language melodrama Coup de Chance (a real sacre bleu of a film), his last American venture being the excruciating Rifkin’s Festival (2020). Baum is not, however, Allen’s first foray into fiction; his writing career dates back to 1971’s stories and essay collection Getting Even. Joke-heavy, unserious and leaning heavily into the absurd, that book was in keeping with the tone of Allen’s early comedy films; in much the same way, Baum feels of a piece with his more recent directorial efforts. It has the same comic leadenness, the same lapses into melodrama, the same stubborn cultural atavism.
