NYTBR's unoriginal sin

I've had this upcoming Sunday's (Nov. 30) New York Times Book Review in my possession since Monday but I can't yet bring myself to read the cover review, and don't know if I ever will. The rightist rag finally sees fit to comment, three weeks after publication, on Toni Morrison's new novel A Mercy. A quick sideways skim, all I can bear, reveals that:

1. The review is less than half as along as the recent front-page extravaganza of reminiscence about George Plimpton.
2. The entire front-page portion, and well on into the page 10 continuation, of the review consists of blather about the so-called pastoral form, with reference to Fenimore Cooper, Hawthorne, Cheever, Saunders, Burroughs, McInerney, Milton--a kitchen sink of dead and living white men who it's apparently necessary to invoke before finally, well into page 10, mentioning the name Toni Morrison.
3. There's a glib, cheeky tone at the opening that may or may not carry through the whole, short as it is, review.

Enough to warn me away, at least until I feel like approaching, if ever, this review, which is headlined "Original Sins" although there's nothing original here, just the same old same old for the NYTBR.