Category / Book Reviewing

by Edward Champion

Devil on Devil

I normally depsise Joe Queenan’s preening reviews, but his takedown of Joe Eszterhas’ The Devil’s Guide to Hollywood is pretty funny:

Heavily influenced by Plato’s pedagogic masterpiece “Critias,” “The Devil’s Guide to Hollywood” is constructed as a sort of open letter to an imaginary neophyte who wishes to learn how to write scripts about blast-furnace ballerinas and cold-blooded murderers who refuse to wear underwear, even though by doing so he shall lose his very soul. A lengthy series of axioms, anecdotes, exhortations, accolades, admonitions and insults, the book does not need to be read in the order in which it was written. Rather, much as in the case of the Old Testament, which it greatly resembles in its stylistic delicacy and unquavering jeremiadic tone, the reader can dip in anywhere.

by Edward Champion

A Spot Where Nobody Really Bothers?

Mark Haddon received savage reviews for his poetry collection, The Talking Horse and the Sad Girl and the Village, which followed his amazing novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. But does Haddon’s next novel, A Spot of Bother, atone for this misstep?

You wouldn’t know it from the reviews.

The Independent‘s Rebecca Pearson says Bother is “a superb novel, and I was shocked when it didn’t make the Man Booker longlist.” Meanwhile, the Guardian‘s Patrick Ness notes that it’s “a perfectly readable yet strangely undemanding novel of familiar domestic drama.” No starred review from Publishers Weekly, but the PW review insists it’s “great fun.” The Voice‘s Alexis Soloski gives it a lukewarm if positive review.

Like Fade Theory, I find it a bit difficult to gauge the book’s qualities with the current review coverage. Pearson’s review features plenty of ecstatic praise, but it doesn’t attach these plaudits to anything specific in the text. Likewise, the other reviews I’ve cited resort the majority of their space to summarizing the plot. If the reviewers are understandably jaded after Haddon’s poetry chapbook, I can understand. But The Curious Incident wasn’t exactly small potatoes. And if the reviewers can’t be bothered to follow Haddon’s career trajectory, I’m hoping more comprehensive heads might be employed to do so.

by Edward Champion

Ed Park Axed

Terrible news from Kathy Daneman: Ed Park has been fired from the Voice. This is a foolish move and a great loss to the Voice. Aside from having a pretty agreeable first name, Park is one of the more gleeful and idiosynchratic young voices currently working in literary criticism. One need look no further than his thorough review of Black Swan Green or his compartmentalized coverage of the Megan McCafferty scandal to be attuned to his talents.

[UPDATE: More from Jenny D and Gwenda. Confirmation from the Gray Lady.]

by Edward Champion

Stephen Thompson: Racist Reviewer?

GalleyCat reports on this Stephen Thompson review of Vikram Chandra’s Sacred Games. The opening paragraph reads:

There are certain books that are so similar to one another they almost beg to be grouped together. This is largely true of Indian novels. Look closely at the ones published in the past, say, 25 years, and you’ll see that they’re virtually identical, in theme if not in style and content.

Aside from the racist assertion here that Indian novels are “identical,” Thompson also suggests that Midnight’s Children and A Fine Balance are “indivisible.” This, despite the fact that the former contains a protagonist with a highly sensitive nose and the latter does not, the former chronicles Indian history from 1910 to 1976, while the latter takes place during The Emergency between 1975 and 1977. There are infinite differences in language, characters, and plotting. But don’t tell Thompson this. So long as those brown-skinned people are banging out those novels, there isn’t a single distinction in his eyes.

This isn’t the first time that Thompson’s pen has applied troubling generalizations to ethnic literature. While reviewing Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun, a book concerning itself with Nigeria, Thompson decried “the destructive effect of colonialism on Africa and its peoples” as “conventional” and “clichéd,” as if simply dwelling upon this cataclysmic shift of cultures was somehow devoid of complexities. (Maud noted this earlier this month.)

by Edward Champion

Case for a Natural Alternative

London Times: “Small independent publishers are rarely reviewed in the broadsheets even though their books are frequently as good as those from the big publishers. It is hard, often impossible, for you to find out which books are coming soon and whether they are good, bad or indifferent. This dearth of support from the established media has led to some wonderful resources on the internet as disgruntled readers take it upon themselves to debate, discuss and enjoy new writing.”