A Review
If ever there was an example of why some book reviews are so biased, so filled with the venom of the reviewer's agenda, there is this one of James Frey's new book in the NY Times. Now, don't get me wrong, I find Frey to be rather morally bankrupt, and I think, unlike the bending of the truth here or there in the servce of a memoir, his case to be soul-selling. But now he's written a novel. It could be the crappiest novel in the history of mankind. I don't know. I haven't read it. But what strikes me about this review is the following:
It’s hard to sustain such a charitable view, though, after seeing a character depicted as “an extremely attractive woman in her early 30s,” a pair of chaise longues as “stylish, yet comfortable” and Beverly Hills’s Rodeo Drive as “lined with the most expensive and most exclusive boutiques in the world.” These aren’t images, they’re ratings. This isn’t fiction, it’s catalog copy.
The thing with reviews like this . . . I defy any writer alive to have 500 pages of writing devoid of three words like "stylish, yet comfortable." If we wrote so that three words like that didn't exist, we'd have such heavy-laden prose that it would be cumbersome. Sometimes, a chair is a chair. So I always discard and don't pay any attention to reviews when the reviewer oh-so-cleverly whips out two or three words as "evidence" someone can't write.
It's hard to separate Frey the person who made MILLIONS on a falsehood of sorts from Frey the writer. It's impossible to know if this reviewer is jealous of Frey's fame. Maybe the reviewer really did hate the book on its own merit. But I can't trust reviews that pin bad writing on a few words. That's not a review.
In the end, I don't read many book reviews anyway. I scan them for plot, to see if it's something I might read. But opinions . . . vary wildly. And I prefer to make up my own mind.
Thoughts? Do you trust reviews? Do you choose your books on the basis of them? Do you ever think about how some reviewers pull out lone sentences and whether that's fair?
It’s hard to sustain such a charitable view, though, after seeing a character depicted as “an extremely attractive woman in her early 30s,” a pair of chaise longues as “stylish, yet comfortable” and Beverly Hills’s Rodeo Drive as “lined with the most expensive and most exclusive boutiques in the world.” These aren’t images, they’re ratings. This isn’t fiction, it’s catalog copy.
The thing with reviews like this . . . I defy any writer alive to have 500 pages of writing devoid of three words like "stylish, yet comfortable." If we wrote so that three words like that didn't exist, we'd have such heavy-laden prose that it would be cumbersome. Sometimes, a chair is a chair. So I always discard and don't pay any attention to reviews when the reviewer oh-so-cleverly whips out two or three words as "evidence" someone can't write.
It's hard to separate Frey the person who made MILLIONS on a falsehood of sorts from Frey the writer. It's impossible to know if this reviewer is jealous of Frey's fame. Maybe the reviewer really did hate the book on its own merit. But I can't trust reviews that pin bad writing on a few words. That's not a review.
In the end, I don't read many book reviews anyway. I scan them for plot, to see if it's something I might read. But opinions . . . vary wildly. And I prefer to make up my own mind.
Thoughts? Do you trust reviews? Do you choose your books on the basis of them? Do you ever think about how some reviewers pull out lone sentences and whether that's fair?
Labels: book reviews
posted by Erica Orloff at 1:25 PM
24 Comments:
I used to review books a lot, but don't any more. i don't read many either. What you point out in that review, is, of course, nonsense.
A writer needs to set a scene, but we all know what a damned chaise lounge looks like, so why describe it further? Is it advantageous to say "the chaise lounge was constructed of white plastic, had a chip on the left from leg where it had been struck by a lawnmower, and was now covered by a purple, yellow and green striped beach towel."? Well, maybe. If it's important. What happens later on that chaise lounge? Somebody consummate something? Get raped? Have it tossed at them?
Otherwise it's just a damned chaise lounge, stylish yet comfortable.
All writers use some shorthand, otherwise all published novels would run 600,000 words.
I don't pick books based on some reviewer's opinion. Everyone likes different things. I read what the story is about, read a few pages to see if I like the voice and then just buy it.
I also don't like too much discription so I probably would have been fine with reading stylish and yes comfortable and wouldn't have thought twice about it. I really don't think the details of a chair would affect the story. Who cares.
I think that reviewer needs to tell us about the story, not the chairs.
Bad reviewer! Bad! Bad!
Hi Mark:
I just keep reading reviews where the reviewer seems more interested in showing their own writing prowess or how smart they are, or how snarky, and it's just ridiculous. This one, though . . . just struck me as really pathetic--and believe me, I have bashed Frey. I think him deciding to protray a dead girl he met once as his GIRLFRIEND for dramatic purposes and dragging, essentially, her family into his debauchle . . is sick. But no one deserves a review like this. Another example? The reviewer writes:
But Frey is lazy about his lazy prose
How does he KNOW Frey was lazy?? I hate when reviewers heap emotional or judgmental traits on writers, as if . . . somehow they know the writer's process. It's ludicrous.
E
Aimless:
Me and you both. I would "skim" intense "chair" description. Just tell me the darn story!
E
I skim Amazon reviews before buying a book, but only to avoid stinkers. My problem with paid reviews in large-circulation media is they're written for publication like any other article. In other words, the author is at least as concerned about good he sounds as he is about describing the book fairly.
Stephen:
I sometimes scan Amazon reviews--but I automatically "discard" 1-stars as having some weird axe to grind, most of the time, and look for books with consistent 3-5 stars as probably at least being decent. I have never seen a 1-star review that didn't get nasty and personal and to me those reviewers come off as halfway nuts sometimes.
E
I've just had a great review for my book so at the moment I look upon them favorably but who knows after the next review comes out...
I read reviews of movies and then usually disagree with them after seeing the movie but don't read book reviews. I usually read what is recommended by word of mouth or is by one of my favorite authors.
However, I would have thought that a reviewer who pulls out a sentence to criticize would be doing so because the book is peppered with such examples. Otherwise it makes little sense.
Hi Suzanne:
I'd like to think that it's rampant--but I have seen reviews pull out such picky items and then . . . the book turned out to be really good. So who knows? I find even reading good reviews sometimes uncomfortable for me about my own work, so I tend to avoid them altogether. But you BASK in your review!!!! Congrats!!!
:-)
E
I think reviews are good for exposure. Even a bad review will stick your name in someone's mind. And some writers flourish on bad reviews as well as good. Like LKH's negative fans come to mind. There are people who hate her books, who nevertheless buy every one. This is a woman who somehow has so gotten under people's skin that they will read her whether they love her or hate her. Now THAT is a gift.
But I don't read anything based on reviews. I do read based on recommendations of people I trust. I think reviewers try to fill that spot for many people, but unless someone really trusts a particular reviewer it just doesn't come off. A reviewer could be a great person but if their likes and dislikes don't match mine, then they're review is completely useless to me in choosing something to read.
But I totally agree with you on picking on writers for a couple of words here or there. It DOES get cumbersome and annoying to read a book where the entire book long, the author seems enamored with their own grasp of the English language. That's not good writing either. That's what most of us did in high school.
I enjoy the NY Times ones best; I have their feed in my feed reader. :-) The only other reviews I read are David Montgomery's reviews.
I like reviews that teach me something about writing. Since that's not the purpose of a review, I like very few of them. A whole lot of them seem to recycle the same language over and over. (A bit of a necessity, kind of like how authors have to call a chair a chair, they have to call a dazzling thrill ride a dazzling thrill ride, I guess.)
Since you read the NY Times reviews (evidently?), did you see the one where Alex Berenson (a spy thriller writer) reviewed the latest James Bond thriller? SUCH a conflict of interest!
Hi Zoe:
I've heard that--good or bad, at least your name is out there generating "noise," so to speak.
And I totally agree with you. I once bought a highly recommended book and was just bored out of my mind . . . felt like it was all an exercise in acrobatic vocabulary.
E
The review reeks of literary snobishness and an inflated sense of self-importance. That said, I have to admit Mr. Kirn is a damn good writer. It's a shame he feels it necessary to throw his weight around, though.
Seems it would have been a tougher blow if the Times had ignored Frey's novel altogether.
Hey ... check this out:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/books/12masl.html
Janet Maslin covered Frey's novel in the NYT before it was formally reviewed. And she loved it. So perhaps the NYT is giving room for disagreement. WaPo liked this book a lot, Newsweek hated it. Hard to say with Frey's latest offering, except that it's polarizing, and many people can't seem to shake his previous, grevious sins. Maybe that's not so bad.
I like reviews, but I often read lots of them about a single book and distill from all of them a common theme.
JVZ
Hi Spy:
I think it's a really rare person free of all jealousy of other writers. And I think it is tricky. I know this gets bandied about in the romance world a lot. Ultimately we are ALL biased, but when does something cross the line to the personal? Those are the reviews and reviewers I avoid--like this one, saying Frey is "lazy." That assumes one knows that he IS lazy and that's not simply what he chose to write. I once worked with a developmental editor for a nonfiction book--we had TWO developmental editors. One was a guy who "got" that we were including personal anecdotes and humor and working mothers in our book and loved it. One was a woman who was SCATHING and would write comments--that she KNEW we would see--like, "Clearly they typify the worst of 'writing by the seat of your pants.'" Meanwhile, my co-author was a meticulous planner and outliner, so it wasn't that at all--we could just write in a friendly, funny style. But maybe SHE thought, "I could have written this book about working from home" or something along those lines. I'll never know for sure. What I do know, is the attacks on writing stopped being about the topic and veered to who we WERE as writers and people. And to me, that's not right.
E
Jude:
I agree. 100%. I would have respected the review and reviewer more if it had seemed to have some balance and less of an axe to grind. And again, since I LOATHE what Frey did . . . for me to defend it means to me, at least, this axe is obvious.
E
JVZ:
I agree. He's polarizing. And to be honest, I have no intention of reading the book. Doesn't sound like my "thing." I just wish the naysayers would strive for fairness.
And, like you, if I see multiple reviews of a new book . . . I look for that theme. THEN, I buy. I discovered Patrick McGrath that way, and he is porbably one of my favorite living authors.
E
OMG, Jon, where have you been? I thought you disappeared off the planet.
Zoe:
He's never really gone--I meet him every two weeks for writers' group.
:-)
E
That reviewer had a hard-on for Frey. Okay, we get it. Frey wrote a memoir, got on Oprah and Larry King. Maybe this reviewer was jealous of all the fanfare.
How long does one have to be crucified for past digressions? So what? Frey's version of the way he remembered things in Million Pieces fell short of fantasy. It's time to move on. I'm sure the guy's had enough already.
I am a fan of reviews, but read them keeping in mind that they're opinion - pure and simple.
Hi Kath:
Like all authors, we want to be judged purely on our current work. I always think I advance with each book I write . . . yet some readers hold onto a favorite book from four years ago, or one that was personally meaningful to them that they read of mine. It's a difficult proposition, what readers bring to the table. I'd like to think Frey could be judged on the novel's merits without his baggage.
E
I find that reviews are about as useful as the back cover blurb in deciding if I want to read a book or not.
Usually I wait until I see a book in the store and just open to a random page and start reading.
I can see where reviews like the example you posted would be less than useful to the general readership... which is sort of the point of having a review.
If a writer is supposed to have integrity with respect to what they are writing, shouldn't reviewers and critics be held to the same standard? If you don't like the author, then either don't review their book, or review it fairly and then write and editorial about your views in the opinion section of the paper.
Maybe I'm just naive, but there seems to be little integrity in this, at least as far as the review you quoted.
A friend of mine had a great first book, up for awards and everything - until a crappy review came out. Since her book was about alcoholism in the family and the review was just plain mean, I have to think the book hit a nerve. Well, that one review sunk her book completely.
I just read a review of the Chihuly art exhibit in San Francisco and talk about mean. Wow! This reviewer questioned if what Chihuly did could even be considered art.
On Amazon, I read some of the 1's and some of the 5's to get a feel for what was liked and not liked about the book. But mostly for non-fiction on subjects I'm not familiar with. The reviewers tend to point towards the books that are good.
Hi Ewoh:
Hmm . . . maybe that IS what I am thinking. That there needs to be a standard.
E
Sarah:
I have a proposal out there and I know it struck one editor's nerve--but she admitted it. That the mother character was too awful for her to even keep reading. But again, she admitted it.
AND OF COURSE HIS STUFF IS ART!!!!!!! I love his glassworks,
E
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