Althouse notes the following, in a discussion of Megan McArdle criticizing a book while only half-way through it:
A rule against criticizing books you haven’t finished would overprotect authors, since you shouldn’t finish a bad book, and it would also underprotect authors, since the critics wouldn’t disclose that they hadn’t read the whole thing.
I think Althouse is right; she goes on to talk about the difference between blogging and a formal book review, and I think that’s right as well – although there are blogs and there are blogs when it comes to books, given the general collapse of the formal book review as a publication in newspapers. Blogs are a large part of the critical review commentary still left standing. And yet blogs, including my own blog posts, have this troubling tendency to switch back and forth at will (and too often at the intellectually laziest point, I have to say in my own case) from a certain formal rigor into deliberately informal, and suddenly indistinct and chatty mode that somehow never quite gets to the deep insight, or more precisely, the argument for the deep insight.
That’s about criticizing, though. What about just plain reading? The older I get, the fewer books I finish, and the more I read highly selectively – fast forward set on high. This is either the getting of wisdom – or the gradual shutting down of (what to call it?) one’s social and engagement functions as one gets closer to in-turnedness of dying, the inability of the aging to take in new stuff because we are too occupied trying to process the accumulation of the previous decades.
But I am also reminded of that book from a couple of years ago, which I did read cover to cover, albeit quickly, by the literature professor in Paris who admitted that he hadn’t actually read nearly anything, including nearly everything in the canon for his classes. How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read. Pierre Bayard. He offered not just a tuquoque defense that no else actually read the things they claimed to read, either – but a ringing defense of not reading for its own sake, while still being more than willing to discuss it. Including the argument that, at least in literature, since it was the argument, the criticism, the interpretation on its own that mattered, the actual text got in the way and also offered contra but frankly irrelevant bits. The text at issue would only muck up the purity of the critical argument, I think that was Bayard’s point.
Nunzio says:
I assume most book reviewers never read the books cover to cover. No matter how bad a book is I have to finish it, which is why I could never review books.
September 4, 2010, 12:52 amLiam says:
If your job is to review books, then as with most jobs, you should probably do it as comprehensively as possible by reading the entire book.
That said, I think a non-professional doing book reviews as a hobby can still be perfectly justified in becoming so disgusted with a book that they just put it back on the shelf and give it a pisspoor rating (at least in my experience, which is focused on history). The style and argumentation should be eminently clear by the halfway point, and if it’s obvious that the writer is incompetent, particularly if they are highly repetitive (Jared Diamond, anyone?), I see essentially no value to slogging through until the finish. I’ve set down plenty of books that were rife with flaws and then criticized them on general online book review resources, simply because the early parts were so horrendous that the second half couldn’t possibly redeem the book.
September 4, 2010, 1:21 amD.R.M. says:
If there were anything of actual value in modern academic literary criticism, I’d give a damn that its practitioners are frauds.
September 4, 2010, 1:24 amMike Lorrey says:
The problem with the proposition that you should never finish a bad book and thus not write a review about books you don’t finish, causes all published book reviews to be complete asskissings and we the readers will never read a review that warns us away from reading dreadful works, which is really the proper purpose of reviews in the first place. You therefore completely subvert the original intent of the book review, which makes you legally a hypocrit as well (assuming you are a supporter of original intent theories of law).
September 4, 2010, 1:36 amJasonF says:
The problem with what McMegan wrote isn’t that she failed to finish the book; it’s that she criticized it as if she had finished it.
September 4, 2010, 2:13 amMichael Schiffer says:
While I haven’t read Bayard ( :-) ), his argument seems to have been anticipated by the protagonist of Whit Stillman’s “Metropolitan” (1990), who pans Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, but, when pressed, says that he’s only read Lionel Trilling’s essay about it. “I don’t read novels. I prefer good literary criticism – that way you get both the novelists’ ideas and the critics’ thinking.”
And while I can’t speak to original intent, reviewers have been working from incomplete readings of books for quite a while now, if George Orwell’s “Confessions of a Book Reviewer” is at all representative. Describing a typical reviewer (“anyone who reviews, say, a minimum of 100 books a year”) with ten books unread, and a deadline of midday tomorrow: “Three of these books deal with subjects of which he is so ignorant that he will have to read at least 50 pages if he is to avoid making some howler which will betray him not merely to the author (who of course knows all about the habits of book reviewers), but even to the general reader. By four in the afternoon he will have taken the books out of their wrapping paper but will still be suffering from a nervous inability to open them.”
September 4, 2010, 2:36 amSean O'Hara says:
Some criticism can’t be made without considering the totality of a work — that glaring plot-hole that’s been bugging you might be resolved in a manner that completely redeems the story; the flat character who undergoes no development in the first two hundred pages might have a revelation that vitalizes him and makes him realize how worthless he’s been.
But some aspects of a book can be judged outside the whole — one or two chapters is all you need to judge the quality of the prose; and if you recognize multiple errors in the first hundred pages of a history book, it doesn’t matter if the rest is impeccably researched.
September 4, 2010, 2:40 amEMB says:
I feel like, at least on the blog side of things, negative reviews often enough go right out and say something along the lines of “it was so bad I couldn’t even bring myself to finish it”; it seems to me that this is a perfectly good way to disclose that you haven’t read the whole book while also expressing your displeasure.
September 4, 2010, 3:08 amdearieme says:
Did she marry Mr Darcy in the end?
September 4, 2010, 3:37 amGrover Gardner says:
“But I am also reminded of that book from a couple of years ago, which
I did read cover to cover, albeit quickly, by the literature professor
in Paris who admitted that he hadn’t actually read nearly anything,
including nearly everything in the canon for his classes.”
Unless I’m greatly mistaken, Professor Bayard’s book was more than a little tongue-in-cheek. Using it to excuse one’s own illiteracy plays
September 4, 2010, 4:22 ampretty squarely to his point.
Alessandra says:
Do you really want to know? :-)
Watch this BBC mini-series, it’s magnficent. Although maybe one of those “gal” movies…
It’s superbly cast, except for Firth, whom I think is, in every movie, markedly insipid, and even more so as the Mr Darcy. Ah, frustration!
Big name marketing trumped a good casting choice in this case.
September 4, 2010, 4:57 amAlessandra says:
It would be interesting to have movie viewers adopt that line…
September 4, 2010, 4:59 amrequird says:
If it is a really bad book there is no need to suffer through the entire thing before criticizing it, although one should confine the critique to the portions read. One doesn’t have to finish a whole gallon of milk before being allowed to comment on it’s being spoiled, either.
September 4, 2010, 5:14 amShag from Brookline says:
This post reminds me of the Seinfeld episodes involving Kramer’s coffee-table book on coffee-tables that converts into a coffee-table.
I do not like to read books while riding on public transit because of the curiosity of other nearby passengers, who may make a judgment of me based upon the book or who may offer his/her review or other commentary that I do not seek. But at times I do have a book or two going to and from libraries. I make an effort to hold the books so that the titles/authors are not showing. Of course, that might not stop a curious passenger from asking. Maybe I should get my green bag out of mothballs.
For reading on public transit, I usually bring along an article downloaded via SSRN on legal topics, usually conlaw. Very few passengers bother to read over my shoulder.
September 4, 2010, 7:22 amDebrah says:
“…in-turnedness of dying…”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My G/d, what morbid logorrhea over my morning cappuccino!
No talk of casket-building?
Ah, a missed opportunity.
I’ll pass along a piece of advice I was given as a 25 year-old by a sagacious Studs Terkel-like kibitzer:
“You are what you think about.”
Take it or leave it.
“I think Althouse is right…”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No, she really should stick to making rambling, impromptu web cam presentations with drowsy dialogue.
“He offered not just a tuquoque defense…”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Not very courageous. That one defense was quite enough.
If he’s going to discuss a topic using nothing more than clairvoyant presumption, the very least he could do is ride solo.
September 4, 2010, 7:37 amPersonFromPorlock says:
I, too, once had to finish every book I started. But experience and irascibility now let me say if an author’s wasting my time, and stop him from doing it. And some books I don’t even start, like novels written in the present tense (“He knocks on the door; the woman who opens it looks a question at him…”) – too Creative Writing 101 – or anything by Robert Ludlum, or books whose jacket blurb contains the phrase “sensitive and intelligent.”
These are simple rules, but my life has been sweeter since I adopted them.
September 4, 2010, 7:52 amJoe says:
requird says it well … anyway, a review often only covers part of the book anyways — there is a limited amount of space and all — though in the process some notable part or parts might be ignored. For instance, a recently praised review apparently read Keeping Faith in The Constitution by Goodwin Liu et. al. but it was imho a hack job that barely touched upon much of what the book has to say. I assume the reviewer did read the whole thing.
As to reading whole books, I’m all for that, down to the notes. But, helped by having less book reading time with the Internet and all, I have in recent years been less patient. There are so many books out there that wasting my time with bad ones is not for me any more. Also, skimming can be perfectly fine at times. Isn’t this usual practice for bloggers too?
September 4, 2010, 8:27 amJohn Burgess says:
Now retired, I have lots of free time to read. I usually read four to six book a week, depending on the size and density of subject material, as well as my familiarity with that subject material. Lots of free time, however, doesn’t mean that I must waste it on finishing bad books. (Of course, I’m the sole arbiter of ‘bad’.)
It’s only over the past ten years or so that I’ve learned (decided?) that I don’t need to finish everything I start. Because I’m naturally curious, though, I’m often willing to finish a book just to see if it’s really as bad as it’s starting out, but bad writing and bad thinking are no longer worth the effort and time it takes to finish them. There are countless other books to be read!
When I review books for my blog, however, I do feel it important to finish the book I’m reviewing–I have a separate section for book reviews and its style is a bit more rigid than the day-to-day materials I write about.
I read books from the front matter to the colophon, because you never know where something interesting might hide.
I exercise my first reviewer’s right when I pick a book up off a shelf, at a bookstore or library. If I know it’s not going to interest me, I don’t have to bother with it at all. If I’m sent a book to review, then I feel I have a somewhat greater obligation to finish it, but I can certainly decline to review it, too.
September 4, 2010, 8:36 amAdam says:
I think Mr. Anderson’s point is right.
One of my favorite books is The Fountainhead, and if someone read it only half-way and then issued a public book review, I can just imagine what it would say: This book is about two approaches to how one should be an architect. First, there’s Peter Keating, the social conformist, who is a hero who graduates from a top school and succeeds at a very respectable firm, gaining money and fame. Second, there’s Howard Roark, the independent thinker, who is kicked out of school, utterly fails as an architect and is now toiling away in a rock quarry. So, the reviewer would conclude that Rand is writing a book in which she claims that one should conform to society in order to be successful and happy.
By the way, this isn’t just conjecture, as I have actually read a paper by a student that said this about The Fountainhead. The student obviously had read only the first half of the book and then decided that he had had enough and that he thought he understood what the Rand was saying anyway. (I know, I know, students never shirk their responsibilities in doing their school projects, and so this is a completely unfounded assumption I’m making about why the student wrote the essay in the way that he did.)
Of course, not all books are written with the similar type of plot structure as The Fountainhead, but the problem is that reader doesn’t know what type of book it is only half-way through it.
September 4, 2010, 8:47 amAlexander Jablokov says:
An important metric for any reviewer: the page they would have stopped reading on, if they were reading for pleasure rather than as a professional responsibility.
September 4, 2010, 8:53 amBob_R says:
In the specific case of McArdle’s review/blog post, she has an even stronger defense of reviewing a part of the book. The book (Sex At Dawn) is supposed to be a scientific treatise. Bad arguments and analysis in chapter two can’t be rescued in chapter ten. A great insight at the end might change her assessment of the overall worth of the book, but it does not change the soundness of the science in the beginning of the book.
September 4, 2010, 9:59 amA. Zarkov says:
How about audio books? Does that count as reading? I can’t stand what’s on the radio so I listen to books when I drive. If I really like the book then I buy the hard copy. Then there are podcasts by authors about their books. How much does that count?
I also listen to audio books when I suffer through a migraine. But then I sometimes fall asleep. Sometimes I don’t know how much I slept through. Nevertheless I sometimes find that I know more about a book that I’ve listened to (with sleeping) than people who claim to have actually read it.
September 4, 2010, 10:18 amLaura(southernxyl) says:
Yeah.
“The woman who opens it looks a question at him” is crap. But I’ll put up with freaky writing from certain folks, like Robert Silverberg. He really is doing it for a reason. Here for instance.
I’m annoyed by people who talk about Big Brother and admit to having never read 1984, or even know that that’s where Big Brother comes from.
When my daughter broke up with her boyfriend, and was feeling a little ambiguous about it (she’s not now), I emailed her just this:
She thanked me for the Mr. Bennett quote and said it made her feel better.
September 4, 2010, 10:28 amrachel says:
I’m not interested in wading through this blog post and am waiting for the Cliff Notes.
Based on your title, though, The Ethics of Not Finishing, But Still Criticizing, Books, I would agree that critics should never finish books for authors unless remunerated or at least credited, and most certainly shouldn’t review any work they co-write.
September 4, 2010, 10:30 amepluribus says:
Comments about reading habits are interesting—of course nobody has to finish a book they don’t like. But that isn’t the question posed here. It is whether it is ethical to pass judgment on a book when you haven’t read it all. A review (particularly a bad one) is a kind of judgment. Judges who pass judgment—and juries that render verdicts—without hearing all of the evidence are generally condemned. I have been on both the giving and receiving end of book reviews. Some reviews of my books (though generally quite favorable) have misrepresented particular aspects or details in a way that reveals that the reviewer hasn’t bothered to read the whole book. Unfair. Unethical. If you don’t like a book, if you don’t want to read it all, what compels you to slam it? When I review a book, I am aware of the months, sometimes years, of blood and toil that went into it and am not willing in a few hours or a few days to condemn it on partial evidence.
September 4, 2010, 10:58 amLaura(southernxyl) says:
Epluribus, but if as some have said, you get part way into a book and can tell it’s utter crap, can you not say “I couldn’t finish this book b/c it was crap”?
And then if you’ve established yourself as a person tolerant of various writing styles and genres, and with eclectic tastes, other people might appreciate your statement.
September 4, 2010, 11:00 amLaura(southernxyl) says:
BTW, re: The Fountainhead. Rand telegraphed what was going to happen all the way through that book. Anybody who read the first couple of paragraphs and didn’t realize that Roark was going to come out on top, hasn’t read much of anything at all, period.
September 4, 2010, 11:01 amByomtov says:
I’m no fan of McArdle, but she does start right off by saying she hasn’t finished the book. So anyone reading her comments on it knows what they are based on.
It might not be the greatest idea for McArdle to comment on a book she hasn’t finished, but it’s hard to see the ethical problem here. I do think she should tell her readers what expertise, if any, she has on the subject – what the basis is for her claims – but that’s a different matter.
September 4, 2010, 11:11 amJoe says:
Well, I did enjoy Lost in Austen and The Jane Austen Book Club w/o reading the “source material.”
September 4, 2010, 11:13 amepluribus says:
Laura(southernxyl) says:
I don’t think so. In that case you can say, “I thought the first part of this book was bad, but I have no idea what the rest of it is like because I didn’t spend the time or effort to finish it.”
You would then have established yourself as a person with a short attention span.
September 4, 2010, 11:23 amDebrah says:
Thank you.
Winner of the “Best Comment Award”.
September 4, 2010, 11:25 amLaura(southernxyl) says:
Well, of course one would say what you said rather than “the book was crap” because that’s not nice even if it’s what one meant.
And I meant having previously established onesself as having eclectic tastes and all. Suppose that I tell you that I love virtually all of Edith Wharton’s books, have a shelf full of them, and reread them all the time; and have read Eliot’s Middlemarch until I can quote whole passages of it; and that James’s Portrait of a Lady is one of my favorite books ever, and could actually bore you to tears explaining in detail what a terrific book that is from the first page to the last; but that I’ve made several runs at The Golden Bowl by James and found it to be so arch and obtuse that I couldn’t stick with it despite my best effort; would I then have established myself as a person with a short attention span? How about if I could point to a several-pages-long dialogue that I’d read upside down and sideways and still couldn’t make heads nor tails of, and found that to be representative of as much of the book as I could struggle through? Would you still say that I just had a short attention span?
September 4, 2010, 11:31 amJust in says:
What an intimate cozy Comment Club of one or two.
September 4, 2010, 11:33 amDr. Weevil says:
Though I can’t think of any offhand, I don’t doubt that there are books whose second half is much better than the first half. (And lots more where the first half is much better than the second half.)
Can anyone name a book in which everything that is good, everything that is even mediocre, and everything that is not utterly worthless is in the second half? I mean a book written as a unit by a single author. There are plenty of ‘collected works’ arranged in chronological order where (e.g.) the first volume of short stories will start out thoroughly mediocre and end up excellent as the author hits his or her stride.
What I’m getting at is this: if the first half of a book is utterly without redeeming merit, can the second half actually be worth reading? Not just: ‘the second half contains a few bits that are not entirely worthless’, but ‘the second half was well worth waiting for and makes the whole thing worthwhile’.
So, can anyone give an example of such a book? If you can’t, maybe you should cut Megan McArdle some slack.
September 4, 2010, 11:49 amDavid M. Nieporent says:
Do you apply this logic to food, too? If a restaurant serves you a meal and as you start eating you see that the vegetables are rotten, the bread is stale, and the steak is raw, do you feel the need to eat the rest of the food on your plate before you decide the meal’s no good?
What difference was it make “what the rest is like” if the first part is crap? (Now, you can’t say “The book didn’t address point X” if you’ve only read half the book — maybe the other half of the steak is medium-well. But that doesn’t change the fact that the meal sucked.)
September 4, 2010, 11:50 amDebrah says:
This is a hopeless analogy.
Let’s avoid body functions below the neck.
September 4, 2010, 11:58 amLaura(southernxyl) says:
I think it’s a good analogy.
You can take one bite of a sandwich, realize that the meat is spoiled, and throw the rest in the garbage. Maybe the meat isn’t spoiled on the other end but the entire sandwich is still bad.
September 4, 2010, 12:00 pmJustin says:
The fact that some poor student is being subjected to ayn Rand makes a ban on liberterian teachers quite … just, in a Rawlsian sense.
September 4, 2010, 12:02 pmDebrah says:
I agree that it’s certainly a useful analogy when one needs to distort the real issue.
And yes, the tongue is above the neck. LOL!
But I hardly think that food-tasting is comparable to a cerebral exercise.
September 4, 2010, 12:06 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Debrah, you remind me of one of my daughter’s professors, who taught composition to college juniors.
The last assignment he gave them was to write an essay about anything they chose. But this is supposed to be an easy, light assignment that doesn’t add to your sress right now; don’t write a book review, or anything cerebral like that, he told them.
A book review was the easiest kind of essay that my daughter could come up with. So she did one. He had long stopped reading her stuff anyway, and just gave her A’s on everything.
September 4, 2010, 12:11 pmDebrah says:
Ha!
Well……even though your daughter is, no doubt, a stellar student, I wouldn’t have given her A’s on everything……
……without reading her essays.
:>)
September 4, 2010, 12:18 pmMark Field says:
I’m not one who feels the need to read to the end of every book. I do try to read far enough to give the book a fair chance, but if I get annoyed at factual errors or bizarre interpretations early on, I don’t hesitate to put it down.
That said, I once started All the King’s Men and read 100-200 pages before deciding I didn’t like it, and put it down. About a year later, in desperation for something to read, I picked it up where I’d left off, finished it, and I think it’s one of the 2-3 best novels ever written.
September 4, 2010, 12:20 pmGrover Gardner says:
“How about audio books? Does that count as reading?”
I should say so! If your mother read you Mother Goose stories when you were little, would you say you’d never read Mother Goose? :-)
In fact, I’d call it “reading-plus”–but I’m somewhat self-interested…
September 4, 2010, 12:21 pmepluribus says:
David M. Nieporent says:
I know from your other posts that you are a lawyer. A trial lawyer, I think. I find a trial more analagous to a book than a meal in a restaurant. I won’t eat anything that’s rotten, but I would wait until the end of a trial before I find a defendant guilty. A better analogy might be writing a restaurant review. If I go to a restaurant and taste the soup, find that it is too salty and thin and that it has an unpleasant odor, I might well decline to eat the rest of the meal, get up and leave the restaurant,. But I would not go home and write a review saying that the whole menu was bad. For another analogy. If I started to read a book and didn’t like the first couple of chapters, but I wanted to write a review of the book anyway (maybe I was contractually obligated to do so), I would finish reading it. Then my review might say that the book got off to a bad start but really improved around the middle and finished up strong. Or I might say that the whole thing was bad from start to finish. But I would not judge the whole book by reading only a part. It offends my concept of fairness to pronounce judgment before all the evidence is in.
September 4, 2010, 12:53 pmpublic_defender says:
I have not read Mein Kampf, but I think it’s perfectly fair “to slam it.”
September 4, 2010, 1:04 pmAlessandra says:
This partially explains why sometimes films or TV series are so much more enjoyable than the original book (like Austen and Agatha Christie).
September 4, 2010, 1:06 pmDebrah says:
So silly.
I have yet to read any of the “books” written by Obama.
Consequently, I will not “slam” them for what, without a doubt, are flowery interpretations of his father who had multiple wives and who abandoned him……
…….and how he might somehow justify his disrespectful characterization of his grandmother “Toot” who raised him by calling her a “typical white person”.
I’m sure, however, that his “books” also contain insights and are of value in many other ways.
I won’t critique them using only what I’ve heard or read as so many do.
One needs to read a book…….or simply refrain from critiquing the book until it’s been read.
Ethically speaking, of course.
Just say that you did or didn’t like the part that you read.
September 4, 2010, 1:36 pmepluribus says:
public_defender says:
Great point. Mein Kampf is so typical of the books that come up for review.
September 4, 2010, 1:50 pmpublic_defender says:
Wow. From Hitler to Obama. Wow. And criticizing while saying you are not criticizing. Nice.
In the end, as long as the reviewer is honest, I see no reason to require him or her to finish a book (or a movie, or anything else) before criticizing it. Responding only, “You didn’t finish the book so your opinion doesn’t count” is just lazy. If the reviewer missed something, people can point out what specifically the reviewer missed.
And again, I don’t have to read Mein Kampf to know that it’s racist, anti-semitic garbage. If Debrah thinks I’m being unfair to Hitler, well, I can live with that.
September 4, 2010, 1:53 pmDebrah says:
Let’s go further with this.
More to the point, you can very reasonably “slam” Mein Kampf for its subject matter and its author.
But you will not be “slamming” it for the quality of writing and the book’s treatment of the subject matter.
Two completely different things.
Which is why your analogy was silly.
We are discussing book critiques, aren’t we?
And not the former Chancellor of Germany?
September 4, 2010, 2:00 pmpublic_defender says:
Debrah’s post also (unintentionally) demonstrates another point. Superficial criticisms from people who haven’t bothered to wrestle with an author’s ideas are generally pretty easy to spot. Of course, it’s possible to write thoughtful and critical reviews of Obama’s books (I think some were posted by Conspirators here). But it’s pretty easy to spot nonsense.
September 4, 2010, 2:02 pmDebrah says:
I like to know my enemies……intimately.
LIS!
“Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.”
Al Pacino. G/d, I love him.
September 4, 2010, 2:03 pmDebrah says:
It’s even easier to spot someone who isn’t used to……or who isn’t comfortable with……being questioned.
“Public defender”, indeed.
September 4, 2010, 2:08 pmDuffy Pratt says:
Some books are so bad that I wouldn’t read them in the first place.
September 4, 2010, 2:50 pmfooburger says:
Couldn’t finish a book cuz the humor was horrible and overabundant.
Said so in an Amazon review.
Author linked and criticized it from twitter.
Received mass unhelpful ratings and spiteful comments.
Authors should never involve themselves in reviews of their own work in any way.
September 4, 2010, 2:55 pmgrog says:
A specific criticism McArdle leveled against the book was failing to address a given topic, when there was an entire chapter devoted to that topic later on in the book.
You might fault the authors for how they organized the text, but to read half a text and then complain that something isn’t addressed when it in fact is is incredibly sloppy for someone who wishes to be taken seriously. Of course, this isn’t the first time McArdle has embarrassed herself by being sloppy.
September 4, 2010, 2:55 pmepluribus says:
fooburger says:
.
September 4, 2010, 3:09 pmI love those Amazon reviews that begin, “I haven’t read this book but . . .” They are really helpful.
Careless says:
How on earth do you eat?
September 4, 2010, 10:28 pmDavid M. Nieporent says:
Except that if you read the comment thread in Megan’s post, she does discuss that chapter.
September 5, 2010, 3:29 amDavid M. Nieporent says:
You have to explain why something is a bad analogy, not just state that it is.
September 5, 2010, 3:48 amDebrah says:
I don’t.
I’m really thin. :>)
September 5, 2010, 7:34 amDebrah says:
As I commented to Laura, the analogy can be made; however, it’s simply a gross and overly convenient one.
It’s an analogy on the fly utilized by anyone who disagrees with the concept of first reading a book in its entirety before critiquing it.
If you think that’s kosher, then fine.
I don’t.
As with all aspects of life, there are innumerable surprises, twists, and turns.
And with each one comes the possibility of a 180-degree change of opinion.
If the last half of a book redeems the first half, or if even you find an enlightening solitary chapter amid the sludge of an entire “bad” book, then that one solitary positive aspect should be included in a critique.
Your analogy is less than stupendous because eating is like having sex, you really don’t have to do very much analyzing or synthesizing.
You just begin……and you know immediately if it’s good….(or not).
I would hope that reading a book requires more.
The physical body sends messages of discomfort, pain, or imbalance.
Only mental focus and awareness can transform and alter the physical.
Do you find reciprocity in this human exercise?
September 5, 2010, 8:05 ame.e. says:
About that critics’ book interruptus thing– I’ve known authors to not read reviews all the way through and pronounce them incompetent and unsatisfying. Seems fair.
September 5, 2010, 8:10 amepluribus says:
Is that because somebody else has already reviewed it for you?
September 5, 2010, 9:24 amDennis Nicholls says:
I’ve tried to finish Mein Kampf on several occasions, but could never quite do so. It’s very poorly written. And you never quite know where the next non sequitur will pop up. Adolph will move logically from A to B to C, and then finish with “so we must eliminate the Jews!” Just when you start to think he’s making sense he goes all nuts on you.
Churchill’s book review on Mein Kampf is a classic. See The Gathering Storm, chapter 4, pp 55 – 57.
September 5, 2010, 11:50 amgrog says:
Right. And in this comment, I was going to mention that. Because second bites at the apple after you’ve been challenged on being sloppy always whisk away the sloppiness.
September 5, 2010, 11:56 amJoseph Slater says:
In all sincerity, that’s the nicest thing I’ve read on the internets in a while. Also, you were spot on about “The Fountainhead.”
September 5, 2010, 4:29 pmJoseph Slater says:
Hmm, don’t know why the “quote” function omitted the Austen quote Laura used, but anyway. . . .
September 5, 2010, 4:30 pmArthur Kirkland says:
If this is true, no responsible publisher would accept another submission from the author.
In general, commenting about an unfinished book seems a bad practice, although one that might be acceptable if disclosed in advance. A publisher (and reader) could then determine whether and how often it would tolerate that practice, considering factors such as the reviewer’s ability and record.
If this reviewer criticized a book for omitting a subject that was covered, that is incompetence that should, in all but extreme circumstances, disqualify the reviewer from additional chances. I would not consider these extreme circumstances, because the McArdle works I have read have been unimpressive, but that is a matter of taste.
On the other hand, if she didn’t disclose up front that she had not read the book, that lack of professionalism and candor is damning. I therefore hope she disclosed it before any question was raised.
September 5, 2010, 7:22 pmDr. Weevil says:
Anyone who follows the link in the first sentence of this review knows that Megan McArdle answered AK’s implied question (“if she didn’t disclose up front”) at the very beginning of her post. Her first sentence begins “I’m in the middle of Sex at Dawn“, and her second sentence reads: “I’m about halfway through the book, and so far, I’m disappointed to say that it reads like horsefeathers.” She uses the phrase “so far” twice more in her four-paragraph post, which does not pretend to be an actual book review.
When a commenter reveals that he doesn’t know the first thing about the post he is commenting on, because he can’t be bothered to follow the very first link, that is also “damning” and constitutes “incomepetence that should . . . disqualify the [commenter] from additional chances” to comment. Too bad it won’t in this case.
September 5, 2010, 7:47 pmArthur Kirkland says:
Perhaps you didn’t recognize the qualifiers I used, or the issues that transcend a particular circumstance.
Given the disclosure (which even covers the reported criticism of an omission that wasn’t), one wonders why anyone pays much attention to McArdle’s half-review, or why it has created a flurry about the Intertubes.
I believe my experience in journalism, although not current, qualifies me to discuss the relevant professional issues; perhaps your lack of such experience excuses any failure to recognize them, or to be interested by a discussion of them.
Feel free to continue to comment, however, particularly if your experience qualifies you in any field.
September 5, 2010, 11:23 pmDick Leed says:
Samuel Johnson once said he never finished reading any book except the Bible because he always knew what the author was going to say, much like Bach would jab his son in the ribs at a concert of somebody else’s music and whisper what chord was coming next. I would also like to point out… but you see what I mean.
September 6, 2010, 8:43 amDebrah says:
Arthur, some day I’m going to learn how to employ your brand of subtlety (only occasionally!) and your economy for words.
:>)
September 6, 2010, 9:00 amDr. Weevil says:
Oooh! Arthur Kirkland is a former journalist, how impressive! I hope he isn’t former because he was sacked for incompetence. The Constitution’s guarantee of Freedom of the Press means that there is no qualifying examination for journalists, and never can be, so any idiot can be a journalist (present or former), and any idiot often is.
Poor AK thinks I didn’t notice his qualifiers, when my whole point was that they were confessions of incompetence. There was no excuse for writing “if” McArdle did this, and “if” McArdle did that, when he could have found out whether she did in two minutes by following the link at the very beginning of the original post.
Probably no one else needs my point spelled out except AK, who won’t get it, but here goes:
If you’re going to criticize someone for criticizing a book she’s only read 200 pages of, you shouldn’t do it in a way that shows you haven’t even read 20 words of her criticism of the book.
September 6, 2010, 9:50 amLaura(southernxyl) says:
Joseph, it seems to me that people who don’t read, and there are far too many of them, are missing an entire dimension of life.
September 6, 2010, 10:11 amArthur Kirkland says:
Doc:
I did not criticize McArdle concerning her reading practices, in part because I was unfamiliar with them. I commented concerning certain practices and policies, for which comments an understanding of McArdle’s particular circumstance was unnecessary.
How well did you get to know Gene Simmons in doctorate school?
September 6, 2010, 12:25 pmDr. Weevil says:
I do not know who Gene Simmons is, nor care enough to find out. Of course, if the question were relevant to the original post, I would feel obligated to do so before posting.
If AK wants to pretend he did not criticize Megan McArdle in a comment that mentioned accusations against her that he couldn’t be bothered to check out while sneering at her previous work as “unimpressive”, he is welcome to his delusions. No one else is fooled.
September 6, 2010, 12:33 pmArthur Kirkland says:
When I opined that her work was unimpressive, I was discussing her writing, not her reading.
Some
speciespersons are able to examine concepts that transcend the particular circumstances currently within their vision. My observations were aimed at them.Gene Simmons? He’s a doctor, just like you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8uiyAjIzdc
September 6, 2010, 1:11 pmDr. Weevil says:
Your observations were (a) inane – who argues that it’s OK to review a book without reading it through while pretending to have done so? – and (b) irrelevant, since the original post was about Megan McArdle, who did the one but not the other. Why even bring up a class of persons to which she does not belong, and profess ignorance of whether she belongs to it, if you weren’t trying to trash her by implication?
Of course, your aspersions on my doctorate (if I have one) or doctorhood (if ‘Dr. Weevil’ is just a name) are moronic, and I won’t interrupt my iTunes to follow your YouTube link. (I prefer to select my own musical accompaniment when I’m web-surfing.) Again, it’s odd that you expect me to follow links that have nothing to do with the original post, or with anything non-stupid, while you refuse to follow those that any honest person commenting on it would have felt obligated to check before commenting.
My arguments stand on their own, as yours fall on their own, whether you are a defrocked (or would that be ‘de-pressed’?) journalist, a journalist in good standing, or neither. Whatever your education and experience, you’re an uncommonly dishonest troll.
September 6, 2010, 1:43 pmArthur Kirkland says:
One of the enjoyable moments in a newsroom is to watch a deft copy editor, without losing meaning, pare a couple of hundred words to two, such as: “Mission Accomplished.”
September 6, 2010, 2:00 pmDr. Weevil says:
If your mission was to derail a thread and make yourself look like an evil-minded moron, congratulations, or, if you prefer, Mission Accomplished.
September 6, 2010, 2:11 pmArthur Kirkland says:
I prefer to avoid calling anyone a moron or evil-minded, but I will confess to periodic and fleeting contemplation of “weevil-minded.”
September 6, 2010, 5:04 pmepluribus says:
Arthur Kirkland says:
It’s late in the thread, but still time enough to call a thread winner. This one it is.
September 6, 2010, 7:53 pmChubfuddler says:
I am unaware of that Johnson quotation — it certainly sounds apocryphal — but in Boswell’s Life, he did, upon being told that once you started a book, it should be read all the way through, say the following: “This is surely a strange advice; you may as well resolve that whatever men you happen to get acquainted with, you are to keep them for life. A book may be good for nothing; or there may be only one thing in it worth knowing; are we to read it all through?”
September 6, 2010, 10:10 pmUrso says:
Interesting analogy, but I think it cuts both ways. Say a plaintiff must prove three facts to establish his case, and he puts on no admissible evidence of the first of these facts. The judge can and should enter judgment for the defendant despite not having heard “all the evidence” regarding the other two relevant facts. Similarly, if the first 1/3 of a book is garbage, I’d feel qualified in pronouncing it garbage despite not having read the other 2/3. Even if the other 2/3 is great, it won’t make up for the hundred pages of crap I’ve already read.
September 7, 2010, 12:08 pmepluribus says:
Your analogy is to three books. I’ll grant you don’t have to read three books to review one. But the judge must listen to all of the evidence on the first of the three facts in your example.
September 7, 2010, 12:29 pmlucia says:
If the first 1/3rd is garbage but the other 2/3rds is great, the author or editor should edit it to remove the garbage. Afterwards, it might be a great book. But an unedited book beginning with 1/3rd garbage is certainly deficient as a book.
Maybe that bad book might contain a wonderful chapter 10 with great new insights into an important problem that has long perplexed man. Maybe the book a single sentence of prose so beautiful the world should not miss it. Maybe someone with patience will discover chapter 10 or the splendid sentence, pull out them out and insert into an anthology of good things found in otherwise dull books.
I see nothing wrong with a someone who began reading the book engaging in conversations and making other people aware they began reading the book and are finding it deadly dull. There is also nothing wrong with casting the book aside and not finishing. Later, if sharing one’s opinion of the book one learns that many people think chapter 10 is worth reading, one can always pick up the book and check out chapter 10.
If there is someone out there in the world who thinks finishing reading every book you start is some sort of moral imperative, well, there are other people who seem to think not eating meat, going to mass, or never charging interest are all moral imperative. I’m content to let them follow their own dictates while I follow mine. If a book seems unrewarding, I will set it aside.
I sometimes walk out on bad movies, operas, change channels during bad tv shows, leave football games before they end, and cut short all sorts of entertainments that are not enjoyable. (Several years ago, roughly 1/3 the audience at the Lyric walked out after the first act of Die Frau ohne Schatten. My sister and I left after the 2nd act– many left as we did. No doubt the remaining audience likes the opera which was well sung. The wikipedia entry says “Few opera houses are capable of staging the work.” I think it could go further and add that few opera fans can endure a full sitting. )
I don’t know why unenjoyable books need be endured simply because one started reading chapter 1.
September 8, 2010, 1:58 pm