CONSPIRACY! CONSPIRACY! YOU ARE ALL TOOLS!
Written byPosted on November 14, 2006
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Reading Matters’ Kim Bofo serves up this preposterous post, about as absurd a stew as John Freeman’s tsk-tsking of bloggers back in June. Bofo’s apparent beef brisket is that litblogs should report whether or not a book under discussion has been received for free from a publisher. First off, Bofo assumes that, in every case where a litblogger receives an ARC or a finished copy, there is an automatic quid pro quo between publisher and litblogger. This is a preposterous contextomy, seeing as how any sane person is aware that it is impossible for any journalist, whether print or online, who receives fifteen to twenty books a week to review each and every one of them. The litblogger is under no duty to review anything, just as the publicist is under no duty to send free books.
Bofo further inveighs against “the industry’s deliberate manipulation of bloggers to promote books that might otherwise not receive the same level of attention from the mainstream media, and the apparent willingness of many book bloggers to be used in such a manner.”
I haven’t seen a conspiracy this nutty since Oliver Stone. This assumes that all litbloggers are incapable of free will and that they are all incapable of separating the wheat from the chaff. This assumes that they will lavish praise on anything they write about, like the dreaded Harriet Klausners or Nick Hornbys of the universe. It is a position that recalls the smug generalizations within Ortega y Gassett’s elitist tract, The Revolt of the Masses, where only a few select soldiers (which would presumably include that stalwart steed Bofo) are capable of ethics and the moronic masses cannot distinguish between shameful shilling and proper criticism. Well, I happen to think more highly of litbloggers and those who read litblogs than Ms. Bofo.
I didn’t receive the Simon & Schuster email that Bofo did, perhaps because the folks at Simon & Schuster know very well that I would have been adamantly against it. (And who pray tell were the blogs who, according to Bofo, “seemed to be banging on about this book?” In presenting her case, Bofo fails to cite a single example of a litblog transforming overnight into a marketing tool for Simon & Schuster. Further, is it not possible that some of the blogs who raved about Setterfield did so of their own independent accord? Perhaps they did not receive the email. Or must we impute, by Sofo’s paralogia, that all litbloggers are mere tools?)
Bofo, like Freeman, is a journalist as well as a blogger. (Or at least she is a “trained journalist.” A Google search doesn’t reveal a single print byline.) Journalistic ethics are a essential thing for anyone, blogger or book reviewer, to practice. And I should note, with strenuous emphasis, that it is egregious for anyone to accept money (or the promise of such) from a publisher to review a book. But in Bofo and Freeman’s cases, their collective anal retentiveness crosses over into the absurd, no different from the nutjobs who hole up in bunkers waiting for the apocalypse.
[UPDATE: More thoughts on the subject from Matthew Tiffany, Ron Hogan and Michael Orthofer. There's also some fireworks in the MetaxuCafe thread. And Darby Dixon reveals the sordid truth.]
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Books To Jump Up and Down Over
Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan. The famed writers behind Smart Bitches, Trashy Books have written a very funny and thoughtful volume about romances, both Old Skool and New Skool. Here is a book that any smug and humorless literary manboy beating his flabby passive chest over Banville or Bolano should probably read pronto, if only for the distant possibility that he might get over himself. While the Choose Your Own Adventure segment at the end caused me to have a very disturbing dream involving Shelley Long (don't ask), Sarah and Candy did have me rethinking many of my own misperceptions when I wasn't busy laughing. They're not afraid to take on the New York Times Bok Review or even the groupthink within certain sectors of the romance community.
Alice Fantastic by Maggie Estep. This wild and highly enjoyable narrative involves two sisters (presumably, the third one was still being rented out by Chekhov), a hippie ex-junkie mother who lives with seventeen dogs, a murder, gambling, and libidinous Hollywood actresses who live in Woodstock. But this is the wonderful Maggie Estep we're talking here. And what seems at first like a quirky yarn becomes something unexpectedly moving about connectivity. What I love about Estep's work is the way that she'll juxtapose an extremely astute observation (now that you mention it, why do cab drivers always have somebody to talk with on the phone past midnight?) with an often outrageous story development.
Generosity by Richard Powers. It doesn't come out until September 29th, but Richard Powers's latest will have anyone committed to books reconsidering their literary fervor. I foresee some animosity from the vanilla critics hostile to idea-driven novels, but book bloggers, YouTube chroniclers, and MFAs would do well to plunge into this chance-taking narrative, which introduces vital questions about what the reader's relationship is with media, scientific dissection, and "creative nonfiction." Are we rats fleeing to happy cities? Or can we find the humanism within the purported plague?
Pieces for the Left Hand by J. Robert Lennon. Lennon is one of the most underrated fiction writers working today. Much as On the Night Plain proved that Lennon had a lot more in the toolbox than heartfelt (and often very funny) suburban satire, this slim but fascinating volume juxtaposes 100 small-town anecdotes -- arranged by category -- in a manner that reads, at times, like Nicholson Baker's passions for minutiae and, at other times, Stewart O'Nan's concern for psychological detail. The result is fiction that makes us wonder about whether one person's subjective view of particulars can entirely be trusted. This book never found a publisher in 2005. But thankfully, Graywolf has released it in the United States, along with Lennon's latest novel, The Castle.
Wonderful World by Javier Calvo. This wonderfully raucous volume has been completely ignored by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. But it's probably one of the most delightful reading experiences I've had this year. Calvo cavalierly mashes up multiple genres and manages to mix up familial subtext with larger-than-life, almost cartoonish characters. (Indeed, one might argue that one mobster's penis is a character of its own in this sprawling novel.). This is not an easy thing to pull off, but Calvo makes it work. And it's helped immeasurably by Mara Faye Lethem's idiom-specific translation. (See longer post.)
The Means of Reproduction, Michelle Goldberg This thoughtful book tackles the complicated (and little discussed) subject of reproductive rights from numerous angles, which includes a number of unpleasant but necessary ones. The upshot is that there isn't a quick fix solution for declining birth rates and fundamentalist abuses. Just about every political faction has contributed to the friction. But you'll want to read this book anyway to refamiliarize yourself with the topic, but also to understand just what's occurred during the past several decades to get us where we are today. (See also podcast interview with Goldberg.)
whether or not a book under discussion has been received for free by a publisher
LOLOL
Call-Me-A-Cheap-Whore Week continues. Same problem here as with the Gessen interview: lame, misdirected ire and (as a natural handmaiden) lack-of-specificity in the “examples.”
As Sinead sez: Fight the real enemy.
I don’t get it. I haven’t paid for a book in years. I’m a buyer at a bookstore. Should I be mentioning that every time I talk about a book? I only review what I want when I want and I assume those that read me know that. No need to get panties in a twist. Or jockeys. Whatever.
Bofo, has the potential to be a new word in the growing litblogger dictionary.
By the way, I got to this comment section for free. Thanks Ed!
Glad to see that you were so easily corrupted, Jeff. Who knew that you were such an easy tool?
Oh, another “full disclosure” blog post that actually has nothing to do with the idea whatsoever? Well, I’ll disclose this: I probably read more books per year than most people and I STILL won’t be able to talk about them all, let alone read them. Whoop de freaking doo.
I know her real name but I’m not going to say what it is. It is not Kim Bofo. She works on a magazine, as far as I can tell. So she’s probably a magazine editor.
She is Australian. Australians have a ‘thing’ about names. We tend to shorten them and make them end in a vowel. Hence Kim becomes Kimbo.
I absolutely love you, Ed. “I didn’t receive the Simon & Schuster email that Bofo did, perhaps because the folks at Simon & Schuster know very well that I would have been adamantly against it.” It’s highly doubtful S&S went through their mailing list and removed your e-mail address because of your objection to hokey promotions.
If you’ve honestly been wondering about which blogs have been gushing over the S&S book in question, take a look at this google search.
Ed, I make you spot on. Not so long ago, I was reviewing a lot of music. At first, I only wrote about cd’s I had bought and liked, but since the website I was working for got more success we started getting a lot of promotional copies. I never did mention wether what I reviewed was free or not, because I just can’t see the point. What is quite obvious however, is that the average ratings given to the albums fell considerably after I started getting all those free cd’s, because I was getting a lot more crap than when I was spending my own cash – and I think that any serious, honest reviewer, blogger, would amdit the same happened to him.
Darby Dixon took my Grammy’s “Left Behind” book. I need to get the word out about this guy.
I agreed with most of your comments on that blog but I think calling someone a “slattern” is beneath you.
Maybe I’m just too old to get it.
Richard: To be clear, I understand slattern to be “a vulgar promiscuous woman to flout propriety,” according to my dictionary. The intention was to suggest that she was ideologically (as opposed to sexually) promiscuous, flouting propriety here on the vulgar assumption that litbloggers are tools.
I’m with you Ed. And about to link to it.
Couldn’t agree more with the original poster. Where is it written that bloggers have no ethics but other journalists do? No logic at all.
Authors and publishers have been giving away ARCs to media for decades, I haven’t heard any outrage about it.
Sure, the S&S promotion is silly, it’s advertising. I don’t blame them for trying to get free advertising from bloggers who use it.