But what to buy? The back covers are not very helpful. Apparently, every novel published nowadays is, at the worse, a breathtaking masterpiece. Most are epoch-making, life-changing works of godlike genius.OK, but which ones are actually good?
Why is this? Part of it, surely, is that literature is an incestuous world where the same authors who write the books are the first port of call when publishers want blurbs for everyone else's. Clearly you don't want to say anything bad about your peers lest you stop getting invites to dinner parties. Unless you're embroiled in a "bitter literary feud", but no-one has the energy to do that on a regular basis.
Because everyone is constantly complimenting each other in this way, praise inflation sets in and we soon reach the point where "This is a very good book" would be a serious insult.
There's also a theory, which has been around for a good few hundred years and maybe forever, that creative types are a breed apart from everyone else, possessed of divine powers and insight. Not just the really great artists, but any artist as a profession.
When Nietzsche wrote a book comparing himself favourably to Jesus, with chapters called "Why I Am So Clever" and "Why I Am A Destiny", people thought that was a bit much. (It didn't help that he went completely insane the next year.) You can't go on record and say that about yourself, but say it about your friends and get them to say it about you, and it seems to work quite nicely.
11 comments:
Nope, doesn't really work.
The praises only lose their value.
Also who buys a book by watching reading the back cover?
A moron.
So he might as well get what he deserves.
We come and read sarcastic dickheads blogs to know what's in. ;-p
Yeah, blurbs are all full of praise, so what they say doesn't mean much (and I doubt anyone bases their choice of purchase on what it says on the book, of course the book will advertise itself, that's what every product does). What might have some meaning (at least to some) is WHO writes the blurb. For example, a couple of years ago I picked up M. John Harrison's Light only because it had Neil Gaiman on the cover gushing about how it's the best sci-fi book he's read for a decade, and I like Gaiman's writing so I thought I'd give it a go. And it turned out to be a great book. So, the blurbs might not be completely useless. :D
Ha ha!
(I like the illustration --- did you make it?)
Another thing that might explain why the backs of books are always singing the praises of that particular book might just be that publishers can pick from *all* the reviews of that book --- it doesn't matter if the book sucks and was almost-universally panned; if there were three or four people who had a good word for it buried somewhere in their review, those will be where the blurbs come from.
They've got no obligation to show a representative sample of critics' opinions on the back covers, so they highlight whatever good reviews exist and let you *think* it's a representative sample!
(I see this on movie posters too --- almost everything gets "five stars" or "two thumbs up" from somebody.)
Also, I agree with M. in that finding a book praised by an author you know you like probably means you're going to like that book, too.
Vermine: I buy most nonfiction on the basis of the back cover... because although you can't trust the reviews 99% of the time, you can usually get an accurate for picture for what the book's about.
Whereas with a novel all you get is a one-paragraph summary of the plot. Which tells you nothing about whether it's a good novel. There are good novels with plots that sound terrible if you compress them into one para.
Yes, the back cover can certainly be enlightening. As M. pointed out, it's not really important to read what the reviewers say about the book, but who said it. When you find your favourite authors or major literary publications on the back cover this information gives you a hint as to the type of writing you'll run into. For example, if I feel like reading some decent literary fiction, I find it's best to look for novels with the names of pretentious publications plastered all over the back.
Yes. Back cover. My fav endorsement is for Ian McDonald's Brasyl
"F**king brilliant. I'm jealous as all hell" - Richard Morgan.
I find that usually if an author I like recommends a book it turns out to be pretty good. But they are an incestuous bunch as the 'thanks' pages often show.
Well here's a satirical look at how a scientist might treat the issue of criticism. As objective beasts we'd never let our personal biases cloud our judgment, of course.
http://www.amazon.com/Bubble-Chamber-S-C-H-Thurston/dp/1441508856/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259374350&sr=1-1
I picked up a book yesterday in my local bookstore and proceeded to park my butt in a comfy chair (conveniently located about 3 feet from where the book was shelved) and read the first few pages. That was enough to make me want to buy it. It was also enough to remind me why I like bookstores with comfy chairs.
That makes me wonder if anybody has ever done a thin slice study of book impressions based on the first pages of novels -- something along the lines of Ambady and Rosenthal 1993. (Short version: ratings of teachers based on very short video clips of them teaching -- like 30 seconds or less -- correlate very highly with end-of-semester evaluations.)
Neuroskeptic:
As much as I love libraries atmospheres and wandering in there, they parallely leave me kinda depressed when I realize I'll never be able to read all those master pieces in my lifetime.
That's why I'm picky in my choices.
It's the internet era and no matter how much flair one has to decipher book covers, comparing a few reviews on the web will always be superior.
While I get your points it stays a bit too relativistic for my liking, of course there are exceptions, and cases like you mentionned, but in general, I'm staying with harsh blog reviews. :-)
The test of a book is not the back cover nor the first few pages, but -- as Ford Maddox Ford said -- page 99. Skip to that page and you'll know if you want to buy the book.
Interestingly, Nietzsche scholarship (and generally a look at the literary tendencies in even his most philosophical works) implies that with "Ecce Homo", he may have been parodying the biography. Although of course, he did go insane. Which somewhat colours one's view of the whole thing.
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