Collected Miscellany

I don’t normally like to take on the fine folks over at the Complete Reviews’ Literary Saloon. Mostly because they are smarter and better read than me (a key to life is to know your weaknesses). But I must confess I found a recent post quite disappointing. The post dealt with Vice President Dick Cheney’s wife Lynne and the re-issue of her book Sisters. The folks at the Literary Saloon are upset because apparently Lynn Cheney isn’t interested in having the book republished given its controversial content and the likelihood it will distract from her husbands election campaign. I really am not upset that they expressed their displeasure with this turn of events but I find their hyperbole a bit tired. Here is where they tie it all up into one neat slam on the Bush administration:

Still, the whole episode seems representative for the Bush administration: actions that are completely self-serving and just the opposite of the public interest are taken (the only one who benefits from the non-re-issue is Lynne, while there is keen popular interest in easy access to the book — and NAL (which apparently still holds the rights to the book) could have made good money by publishing it (helping the economy as a whole !)), and then ridiculous and alien-to-the-real-world explanations are offered for why the actions supposedly don’t harm the public interest (America’s used bookstores will be able to satisfy any possible demand).

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I am often at a bit of a loss in deciding what book to read next. I have so many books I want to read, and now so many books that others want me to read, that I feel a certain amount of angst when choosing my next book to read; a sort of mini-panic. Well in an odd coincidence I decided to read Vladimir Nabokov’s classic work Lolita this morning and it happens to be the very day the book was originally published way back in 1955 (tip via Rake’s Progress).

I just finished reading The Confessions of Max Tivoli (review coming soon) and in reading some reactions to that novel Nabokov’s work came up. It seemed like a good time to finally read this classic and controversial work for myself. So I picked up my beautiful Everyman’s Library Edition (with an introduction by Martin Amis) to read on the bus ride to work. This little coincidence, and the beauty of Nabokov’s prose, seems an indication that I made the right choice.

I am often at a bit of a loss in deciding what book to read next. I have so many books I want to read, and now so many books that others want me to read, that I feel a certain amount of angst when choosing my next book to read; a sort of mini-panic. Well in an odd coincidence I decided to read Vladimir Nabokov’s classic work Lolita this morning and it happens to be the very day the book was originally published way back in 1955 (tip via Rake’s Progress).

I just finished reading The Confessions of Max Tivoli (review coming soon) and in reading some reactions to that novel Nabokov’s work came up. It seemed like a good time to finally read this classic and controversial work for myself. So I picked up my beautiful Everyman’s Library Edition (with an introduction by Martin Amis) to read on the bus ride to work. This little coincidence, and the beauty of Nabokov’s prose, seems an indication that I made the right choice.

I have been busy writing for other venues and doing other things so haven’t been able to post a lot of content. But I did have a question you might help me with: what do you look for in book reviews? I am curious both from an intellectual perspective (what do people like and why) and from a practical one (I write book reviews). Given all of the heat lately over various reviewers and sources of reviews this seems like a timely question.

– Do you want a basic plot summery followed by reason to buy or not buy>
– Do you like a discussion of the issues raised in the book that only touches on the plot?
– Do you like a outline of what the author was trying to accomplish (in the reviewers eyes) and whether they succeeded?
– Do you like a political rant only tangentially related to the book in question? (Just teasing!)
– Some combination of the above or none of the above?

I would love to hear from bloggers, writers, readers, etc. Leave a comment, link or trackback here or email me if you have opinions or thoughts. You might also throw out some places and/or people you feel come closest to your model.

This isn’t a review of Bergdorf Blondes by Plum Sykes. If this were an actual review lights illuminated on the floor would guide you to the nearest exit.

THE NEW YORK TIMES online edition has a feature which enables readers to enjoy excerpts from selected titles. Yesterday I chanced upon BERGDORF BLONDES by Plum Sykes. The internet is too easy. I clicked on the link and began to read Chapter One.

I probably would not have done this in a bookstore for fear of encountering someone who helped educate me. one of those moments of horror that movies are so fond of.

The fact is that like most writers I’m dealing with jealousy, tinged with rejection neurosis. Pick me, I plead. Don’t pick Plum. She has a job!

The more subtle conspiracy oriented question is why did the NYT choose to highlight this novel and not another? If I’m going to be caught in a book store by Miss Ricketts I want to be leafing through De Senucte or Milton or at least holding Ulysses upside down.

Anyway I gleaned this much in about two pages. Bergdorf is a character, not a store. It costs her $495 every thirteen days to maintain her blondness through a process called a ‘touch-up.’ The author named the individual who renders this service, but I forget the name. The prose is ‘breezy.’ It’s pulse pounding, a veritable high speed chase through the savage netherworld of being not only blond, but the precise shade of blond this netherworld requires.

It’s not easy being this blond. That’s on page two, I think.

I was plumb tuckered by page three. $495! Every thirteen days. She could watch all the ESPN channels for that kind of money and probably get HBO too.

This is not a review. You can’t read two pages of a novel and write a review. I tried not to wonder what might happen if she went fourteen days between treatments. Novelists know how to build tension. I know I was tense after reading the excerpt. I was a little worried about the future of mankind, but things are looking up. Pam Anderson’s new novel is in bookstores now.

Concerned about dumbing down? I think the eagle has landed.

How much credence do you give to a dust jacket description of a book? Allow me to quote the cover flap description from Death Is Not the End:

For readers unfamiliar with the blistering plots and language of Ian Rankin’s longer works, this special edition novella is the perfect opportunity to get to know Rankin and his unforgettable creation, Inspector John Rebus. For long time Rebus fans, it is an opportunity to follow him as he explores a subplot from his most recent outing, Dead Souls. When his high-school sweetheart calls him out of the blue, Rebus agrees to track down her missing son, who was last seen at a bar owned by some shady mob-linked gangsters. His pursuit takes him through an Edinburgh beyond the tartan tearooms and cobbled streets of the tourist brochures, a modern city boasting a variety of criminals and their victims. As Rebus contemplates the lurking immortality of his own city, Rankin offers readers page-turning suspense and astonishing literary grace.

Understandable hyperbole aside, there are two problems with this description:

1) It is so complete a description of the plot that the actual story adds very little. Given that the novella is a mere 73 pages I understand that there is little room for complex plots, but I still found the story bland and uninspiring. The cover flap is meant to entice the reader, but in this case there is not much to be enticed into. The above description hits all of the major plot details except the ending which is anti-climatic at that; besides a few character sketches it is mostly the pondering of Inspector Rebus. Perhaps the rest of Rankin’s oeuvre has “page-turning suspense and astonishing literary grace” – and he comes highly recommended – but this little work offered didn’t suggest that to me.

2) Not only does the flap give away too much it also promises too much. I find it hard to believe that a mere 73 pages can offer “the perfect opportunity to get to know Rankin and his unforgettable creation, Inspector John Rebus.” I for one was not wowed enough to rush out and buy his previous works. To me this feels like what it really was: an initial draft of an idea in preparation for a full length novel. Some characters are introduced and the theme of vanishing, memory, and the past are touched on but the story really doesn’t have much power. Short stories and novellas require, in my opinion, either unique insight into some aspect of life or display a talent for writing – whether dialogue, or scene setting, or use of language, etc. – in order to draw the reader in, tell the story, and then wrap it up. None of the characters in this work are particularly memorable, the language wasn’t terribly imaginative or thought provoking, and the ideas touched on aren’t really developed. While the author obviously has some skills in evidence they don’t quite take off in this shortened version in my mind.

I could see a Rankin fan enjoying this work for a glimpse of the author in the short form and to see the inspiration for a latter work (Dead Souls), but I have a hard time seeing newcomers like myself get anything out of it but confusion at the glowing praise lavished on the author. Perhaps those who enjoy what one Amazon reviewer called “crisp, dark, atmospheric police procedurals set in Edinburgh” would enjoy the introduction to Inspector Rebus, but I was left cold.