Review Allocation

Unfortunately, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's new novel points us to something that is very wrong about book culture today. This book has gotten coverage everywhere. John Updike blew 2500 words on it in The New Yorker, not liking it. The Guardian hates it. The New York Times gave us this strange review in which the reviewer was obviously straining to say something good.

In short, everyone is reviewing this book, and either they straight-up don't like it or they basically dance around how bad the book is because Gabriel Garcia Marquez is Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Every year we, the eternally hopeful national bookpage readers, face up against any number of these un-not-reviewable-yet-not-worthy-of-a-review-either books. You see these things pass through the national media like a bad cold. First the Washington Post gives it a thumbs-down. Then it's at the Times and they don't like it either. Now The New Republic disses it. On and on, the book gets roundly criticized everywhere it goes, and you've gotta wonder: Is this necessary? Does anyone need that fifth review that pretty much says what the previous four said? Is it necessary that every national periodical be on record against Book X?

And why even keep this to bad reviews? What about for a book like Saturday, which wasn't even disliked as much as Whores, but about which reviewers pretty much all said the same thing? Or The Plot Against America? That was a book most reviewers liked, but I swear I would have vomited if I read one more review that outlined how America went fascist after it elected Lindbergh president.

I guess my question here is why do the editors of the national bookpages feel compelled to all cover the big books, sometimes weeks and even months after most other pages have already gotten there? Why, if they're just going to say what's already been said? Couldn't they give us a review of a book that we don't know anything about and that deserves to be appreciated by a wider audience? Wouldn't that be more valuable?

Comments

[Miraida Morales]

to offer an answer to the perhaps rhetorical question, "why do the editors of the national bookpages feel compelled to all cover the big books, sometimes weeks and even months after most other pages have already gotten there? Why, if they're just going to say what's already been said?"
answer: most (though not all) book review pages/editors/journals work in a very 'political' environment. those big book reviewers that every one names juggle all those big publishers everyone knows. i scratch your back, you scratch mine kinda thing. and i believe this is why alternatives to these traditional, mainstream sources of reviews, such as blogs or alternative journals have taken off the way they have in the past 10 years. I, for one, realized i never agreed with many of the mainstream review pages, so i turned to looking for blogs or alternative journals that mention those books that never get mentioned by Big Media.

[Robert Nagle]

1. They're more likely to receive review copies of well known books than obscure ones.

2. Editors equate books by well-known writers as "newsworthy." (quite apart from estimations of value).

3. Editors just don't have time to keep up with new writers. New writers represent an unknown, a risk to take. A coetzee book, on the other hand, is a safer bet.

4. Generation gap. Editors are older than reviewers and are thus inclined to make room for coverage of writers they grew up with.

On the positive side, the Internet and syndication has made newspaper editors rethink their niche and the kinds of reviewing they should do. I mean, why write about Updike if your review is going to be piled in with dozens of others (can't you just pull something off the API wire?). Having unique content is the key these days.

Another thing is that publications are starting to go bottom-up rather than top down, so senior editors may no longer control the kinds of content which is posted anymore.

I get less depressed at the redundant reviews of former greats than I do by the puff pieces in feature sections or entertainment news about a celebrity's new book. Especially when the publisher is directed by the same media company that produces the TV show.

Speaking of which (I'm contradicting myself here)last night I saw a great interview with TV actor Jack Klugman about his friendship with Tony Randall (of Odd Couple fame). He was promoting his autobiographical memoir about the Odd Couple friendship. Good human interest stuff, but just not particularly literary. I wouldn't be surprised if that books gets a decent flurry of book reviews too.

Curiously, there's not a lot of web-only reviews of celebrity memoirs. Wonder why...

[Kit Stolz]

I've wondered about this myself. For example, this morning in the NYTimes I read yet another review of the Maureen Dowd book, which said pretty much what all the other reviews said, which is that she's a witty writer of 800 word columns, but an entire book of snark about how a smart, powerful woman can't get a date? Please.

Here's my theory. Publishers send out the books way in advance, before the word gets around. For a writer, reviewing a big book is much more prestigious than reviewing a writer nobody's ever heard of, even if the nobody is actually has much more interesting things to say. So both the publishers and the reviewers are going to be eager to review a big book, and the editor is supposed to say: No, absolutely not? Find somebody I've never heard of, then I'll give you the go-ahead?
Ummm...not likely.

And then once the review is assigned, if the editor doesn't run it, he's still got to pay for the review.

It's the snowball effect. But you raise a good point. Just because everybody's talking about it, doesn't mean it's worth our time. Look at pop music. You can criticize Hilburn for all sorts of sins, but you have to admit that he doesn't allow the latest record by Britney Spears or Justin Timberlake or some other bubblegum meister to dominate the paper's pop music coverage. Why should rock and roll be taken more seriously than writing?

[Tania]

Book buzz leads to more book buzz, and so on. Reviewers hear about this 'must read' book, so they read it, review it, and that in turn creates more buzz. No reviewer wants to be the only one not weighing in on the book.

I also believe that there are many books that are determined to be 'big books' before readers ever get their hands on their books. With publishers and big marketing companies working to publicize one of these 'big books', it's hard for the unknown author to get reviewed.

It's too bad that discovering (and reviewing) new and great authors isn't more of an exciting prospect.

[Brendan Wolfe]

These comments seem awfully cynical. Big magazines and newspapers hardly need to worry about scratching publishers' backs to get books. The publishers need those reviews. They'll send their books out to pretty much anyone, even me.

And editors assign book reviews, not reviewers. So people don't review Marquez because it makes them feel important. They review Marquez because Marquez is important.

Scott, your idea that because a book is bad, it's not worthy of a review strikes me as silly. Marquez is an important writer. That makes his book worthy of a review. (And not all reviews are consumer-minded, thumbs-up, thumbs-down affairs. They are criticism, too, and can be interesting in their own right.)

Finally, just because you read many, many different newspapers and magazines doesn't mean everybody does. And it doesn't mean that an editor should assume his or her readers do. Even at the Times, the daily book reviews are separate from the Sunday reviews, the assumption being that the readers are substantially (or substantially enough) different.

[tito]

what makes marquez important?

[Brendan Wolfe]

Dumb question. The Nobel committee made him important. They didn't make him any good; that's for others to decide. They also didn't make him well-read, but he is anyway.

What's your point?

[tito]

As is often the case when I ask questions, I did not have a point but was seeking information. I thank you for alerting me to the fact that Marquez is a Nobel laureate, which I did not know.

As to the larger discussion, I guess preferences for reviews likely often come down to whether you'd rather read about "tomorrow's Nobel winners today" or the other way around.

[Brendan Wolfe]

Didn't mean to be rude. I apologize.

I don't think the two kinds of reviews you mention are mutually exclusive. A good weekly review should have both.

Maybe Marquez is a bad example to be discussing. It just goes without saying that he's going to get reviewed. But there are plenty of books that get reviewed everywhere, often on the same week, that are by authors half as distinguished as Marquez. The attention paid to such books is largely the result of publicity and not merit. (Hardly a news flash, I know.)

I'm less worried, though, about so many people writing about so few books as I am about how boring most of those reviews end up being.

[bibliobibuli]

Agree with you totally. I was wondering the same thing. I think it is often the publisher pushing for a book to be promoted and throwing money behind it. E.g.
I can't understand why John Berendt's City of Falling Angels is getting hyped so much everywhere when honestly it isn't that great. I was supposed to review it but found it so turgid that I only got halfway through before I thought life's too short ... .

[susan senator]

This is very true. It is all about the big publishers pushing the same big names. For example, I do not mean to denigrate poor Ms. Joan Didion, but -- what was last month? Joan Didion month? Look at how many mentions she got in the NYT alone!!!

And I, poor me, with my autism memoir, (shameless plug) got nowhere with the Times. I guess autism is not a big enough topic...