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Faint Praise: The Plight of Book Reviewing in America by Gail Pool University of
Missouri Press, 2007
More than 150,000 books are published
annually in the United States. Which books are reviewed? Why?
Who reviews them? Why do so many books receive such excessive
praise? A book that explains reviewing: how it works,
why it so often fails.
“Faint Praise should be considered mandatory
reading for anyone aspiring to become a book reviewer, and is especially
valuable reading for authors, publishers, academicians, and the
general reading public.”—Midwest Book Review “Everything you need to know about book reviewing can be found in Faint Praise: The Plight of Book Reviewing in America. It is a thoughtful and entertaining examination of the culture of book reviewing.”—Tony Miksanek, Letters, “The Book Room,” Chicago Sun-Times. “…Pool’s book is timely. It is also well-conceived and well-researched. In fact, it is difficult to imagine a more thoughtful, informative book about the work I’ve done for nearly 40 years.”—Steve Weinberg, Boston Globe. “Everyone in the field will applaud Pool’s passionate
insistence on the importance to literary culture of the serious, informed
critique, which is increasingly endangered and in need of such vigorous
support.”--Publishers Weekly “In the future, freshly appointed book editors at our daily newspapers should be handed a copy of Gail Pool’s Faint Praise: The Plight of Book Reviewing in America. They could use it: It is a very commonsensical, clear-headed and knowledgeable analysis of the current state of professional book reviewing.”—Jerome Weeks, artsjournal.com, Critical Mass, National Book Critics Circle “Faint Praise is a thorough look at the current
state of book reviewing in America…The examples are entertaining—and
revealing…Our assessment: A-: solid overview and discussion.”—The
Complete Review “Book reviewing faces its own “silent spring,” Gail
Pool warns in her new book, flashing a distress signal over the endemic rot
and habitat destruction laying waste to the field of letters, and doing her
darnedest to make people care.”—James Wolcott, New Republic “[Readers]…will quite likely never read reviews the
same way in the future as they have in the past.”—Steve Weinberg, Hartford
Courant “…Everyone who blogs about books would be well-served
by reading this one book.”—My Individual Take (On the Subject) “If you ‘re a book reviewer (aspiring or
established), or simply want to understand book reviewing better, there’s no
doubt: You must read Gail Pool’s Faint Praise: The Plight of Book
Reviewing in America.
Period.”—Erika Dreifus, Practicing Writing “Faint Praise puts book reviews in context better
than anything else I’ve read.”—Susan Thomsen, Chicken Spaghetti
(Literary Blog) “Highly recommended.”—C. M. Mayo, Madam
Mayo (Writing Blog) “Pool’s book is a clarion call for a return to a
vigorous kind of criticism, based on sound, logical thinking and the precise
use of language.”—Steven W. Beattie, That Shakespeherian Rag “If you care about the fate of book reviews…Faint
Praise…is a book you should care about.”—Michael Merschel,
book review editor, Dallas Morning News “Veteran reviewer Gail Pool comes at the problem of the
declining and frequently abysmal quality of book reviews in America…from
a down-to-earth, nitty-gritty, practical perspective, focusing on the
mechanics of editorial decision making and reviewers’ choices, and eschewing
for the most part high-flying ruminations on ethical and philosophical
abstractions, to yield a most usable and rewarding guide to the book review
business.”—Anis Shivani, American Book Review,
November/December 2008. “Pool’s analysis is as wide-ranging as it is
hard-hitting. Faint Praise
is a brave polemic, written out of a profound love of literature, evident on
every page.”—Megan Marshall, Radcliffe Quarterly “[Pool] offers a thoughtful and thought-provoking guide to the artistry and scholarship, not to mention the agony and ecstasy that is part of good book reviewing…Pool’s crisp, intelligent, and witty style moves the reader from the lonely and unrewarding depths to the lofty heights of book reviewing.” Lawrence Rubin, Journal of Popular Culture Faint Praise The Plight of Book
Reviewing in America by Gail Pool |
How many
competent critics have we in America?
Not many.
The critical judgment furnishes the most notable jargon of the literary
world. There is not a work of art
worth noticing at all that does not use up, in its critical characterization,
all the adjectives of praise and dispraise…It is probable that
incompetence, flippancy, arrogance, partisanship, ill-nature, and the
pertinacious desire to attract attention will go on with their indecent work
until criticism, which has now sunk to public contempt, will fall to still
dirtier depths beneath it. Scribner’s
Monthly, IX, 626, March 1875.
In America, now…a
genius may indeed go to his grave unread, but he will hardly have gone to it
unpraised. Sweet, bland commendations fall everywhere upon the
scene; a universal, if somewhat lobotomized, accommodation reigns. A book is born into a puddle of treacle; the
brine of hostile criticism is only a memory. Everyone is found to
have ‘filled a need,’ and is to be 'thanked' for something and to be excused
for ‘minor faults in an otherwise excellent work.’ ‘A thoroughly
mature artist’ appears many times a week and often daily; many are the bringers
of those ‘messages the Free World will ignore at its peril.’ Elizabeth Hardwick, “The Decline of Book
Reviewing,” Harper’s Magazine, October 1959.
The earliest book reviews in America appeared
at the end of the eighteenth century.
They have been influencing--and frustrating--people ever since. For two centuries, reviews have set our
literary agenda, helping to determine not only what we read but also what we
think about what we read. And for two
centuries, critics-of-the-critics, often reviewers themselves, have complained
that reviews are profligate in their praise, hostile in their criticism,
cravenly noncommittal, biased, inaccurate, or dull. By now, so many essays have been written
lamenting the sorry state of American reviewing that they comprise a minor
genre. Yet no book has explored in depth
the reasons for this perennial failure or the question of how reviewing might
improve.
These are the issues I address in Faint Praise: The
Plight of Book Reviewing in America, a critique of American reviewing
published by the University of Missouri Press.
More than 150,000 books are published annually in the United States, and
the number seems to be rising. At the
same time, newspapers are cutting back their book pages, and the number of book
reviews is falling. More than ever,
readers need guidance to inform them about what significant books have been
published and help them decide which ones they want to read. As a longtime book reviewer, review editor,
and columnist, I’m hardly a dispassionate observer, but I believe this guidance
is best provided by the broad, knowledgeable, disinterested commentary that
only good reviewing can offer. If our
critical enterprise works so badly that it often fails to work at all, we need
to understand why.
In eight chapters Faint Praise examines all aspects
of the unruly world of reviewing. It
discusses how editors choose a handful of books for review from the vast number
that are published and how they assign them to suitable—or
unsuitable—reviewers. It analyzes the
roles played by editors, publishers, authors and readers, and appraises the lot
of the reviewer, with his measure of prestige, his dose of scorn, and his lowly
pay. It explores the context of
reviewing, the traditions that have evolved in a culture with little interest
in literature, much antipathy to criticism, and a weakness for praise. It contrasts reviewing with alternative book
coverage, from Amazon to Oprah, arguing that these alternatives, whatever their
virtues, can’t substitute for good traditional reviewing, whether in print or
online. And finally it suggests how our
traditional methods of reviewing could be revised. Throughout, the book weighs the inherent
difficulties of reviewing that make certain shortcomings inevitable against the
unacceptable practices that undermine the very reasons we read--and
need--reviews.
I have written Faint Praise for a general audience
of readers. Although the book has
special relevance for people in the book field,
its subject and critical viewpoint have wider appeal as well. After all, book reviews affect all
readers—even those who don’t read reviews.
In serious fiction and nonfiction, the books that are reviewed are the
ones we know about. Book clubs use
reviews in making their choices. Book
award committees use them in making their choices as well. And yet for most readers, reviewing remains
something of a mystery. Faint Praise
demystifies reviewing, offering insight into this branch of the media, with its
power to award prestige to authors, give prominence to topics, help shape
opinion and determine taste.
Table of Contents
Introduction: The Reviewer’s Lament
Unnatural Selection
Vermin, Dogs, and Woodpeckers
The Match
Getting It Right
Private Opinions, Public Forums
Are Book Reviews Necessary?
Improving the Trade
Reviews and
Commentary
Complete Review: http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/publish/poolg.htm.
Boston Globe:
http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2007/10/27/constructive_criticism_puts_book_reviewing_in_perspective/
Critical Mass, Jerome Weeks,
National Book Critics Circle: http://bookcriticscircle.blogspot.com/2007/07/weekend-read-jerome-weeks-on-book-all.html
Texas Pages, Michael Merschel, Dallas Morning News: http://books.beloblog.com/archives/2007/08/praising_faint_praise.html
That
Shakespeherian Rag, Steven Beattie: http://stevenwbeattie.com/2007/07/23/hindering-horses-and-shooting-the-wounded
Right Reading, Tom Christensen: http://www.rightreading.com/blog/2007/07/08/faint-praise/
Publishers Weekly:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6448061.html?q=faint+praise
New Republic,
James Wolcott: http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=69e34cc4-6eb7-4c69-a5a7-24681dfac7c4&p=1
The Hartford Courant,
Steve Weinberg: www.courant.com
The Arts Fuse, Bill Marx: http://www.theartsfuse.com/?p=309
(There is also
a podcast interview on this web site: http://www.theartsfuse.com/category/literature/feed)
Chicken Spaghetti:
http://chickenspaghetti.typepad.com/chicken_spaghetti/2007/10/dont-miss-anne-.html
Midwest Book Review: This review is reprinted on the Amazon
page for Faint Praise: scroll down to “Reader Reviews”:
(http://www.amazon.com/).
American Book Review, Anis
Shivani: November/December 2008.
(Available only in print.)
Kirkus Reviews: June 1, 2007.
(Available only in print or by subscription.)
My Individual Take (On the Subject): http://individualtake.blogspot.com/2007/09/faint-praise-title-faint-praise-plight.html
Practicing Writing, Erika Dreifus:
http://practicing-writing.blogspot.com/search?q=%22Faint+Praise%22
Rain Taxi:
http://raintaxi.org/online/2007winter/pool.shtml
My Sweet Home Alameda (in Spanish):
http://sweethomealameda.blogspot.com/
NRC Handelsblad,
Elsbeth Etty (in Dutch): http://www.nrc.nl/boeken/article815316.ece/
http://klassequaboeken.blogspot.com/
One Minute Book Reviews, Janice Harayda: http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2008/01/23/would-it-help-if-book-critics-switched-to-decaf-review-inflation-spins-out-of-control-at-us-newspapers-and-magazines-quote-of-the-daygail-pool/
Walt Bodine Show, NPR, Kansas City: http://archive.kcur.org/kcurViewDirect.asp?PlayListID=5509
Radcliffe Quarterly,
Megan Marshall, Winter 2008: http://www.radcliffe.edu/about/quarterly/3547.aspx
Inside Higher Ed,
Scott McLemee, July 28, 2008:
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2008/07/23/mclemee
Journal of Popular Culture,
Lawrence Rubin: August 2008. (Available
only in print.)
Boekman
78, Lisa Kuitert, Spring 2009. (In
Dutch; available only in print.)
The Journal of Documentation, Karl
Wolf, 2009. (Available only in print,
but a copy can be found at: http://www.academici.com/blog.aspx?bid=5101)
** Interviews available online: The Arts Fuse (Bill Marx),
The Marketplace of Ideas (Colin Marshall), The Book Show (Ramona Koval). An interview with Mayra Calvani is posted
at: http://blogcritics.org/archives/2008/06/30/135638.php
For
information about Faint Praise, please contact:
Kit Ward:
Christina
Ward Literary Agency
University of
Missouri Press: www.umsystem.edu/upress/spring2007/pool.htm