December
29,
2002
The irritating thing about Joseph Epstein's Snobbery: American
Style
is that it almost says something interesting. In the
first chapter or two, Epstein advances an intriguing (and, I think, true)
premise: That "capital-S Society" (as he refers to it) has declined into
near-irrelevance, and that snobbery is now no longer simply about social
class, but has fragmented.
This is an interesting thesis, and had Epstein pursued it, it could have
formed the backbone of an interesting book. He could have talked about
the breakdown of Culture into subculture (consider, for instance, this
booklog: I consider myself somewhat snobbish in my reading tastes, but my
snobbery is very subcultural -- to consider Vinge great and Chalker a hack
is to make a distinction that people in other subcultures would never
make). He could have talked about the ways that much snobbery is wrapped
around knowledge (how, for instance, it doesn't materially impact matters
snobbish if someone likes David Eddings, as long as they're aware that
Eddings has a generally bad reputation), and how the Internet makes
knowledge acquisition worlds easier, thereby democratizing such knowledge.
But those things aren't in the book he wrote. The book he wrote,
bizarrely, proceeded to ignore its initial thesis, and talk about snobbery
as if it were still a matter of social class, and were still
defined on a society-wide basis. So he's got chapters on name-dropping,
on fashion, on Europhilia, and talks about them as if they were all
universal aspects of snobbery, rather than merely indicia of the
particular subculture ("good school" liberal arts academia) in which he
spends his time. In short, he briefly outlined the wider landscape, then
narrowed his vision to his immediate surroundings and wrote of it as if it
were the whole landscape. Disappointing.
Still, this could be forgivable. After all, I'm not so harsh that I'd
refuse to consider the merits of a book simply because it wasn't the book
I wanted it to be. But Epstein commits more serious sins. The first sin
comes around in his chapter on politics, where his point is that liberals
are incredibly snobs -- he dubs them "virtucrats" -- who look down at
conservatives as mean-hearted Neanderthals. It's a point that's broadly
true, in caricature, but to state that liberalism is privileged in
snobbery over conservatism is simply ridiculous, given the derisive
attack-politics swath of conservativism. (Worst of all, Epstein invokes
that great spectre of "political correctness." It was probably at his
first utterance of that deeply stupid phrase that he completely lost my
good will.)
Moreover, Epstein is just unpleasantly snobbish. Not in the ways he
acknowledges -- in those, he's self-deprecatingly charming. Instead, his
unpleasantness comes from his underlying sneering tone about any who
possess any sort of snobbery; ironically enough, it almost comes across as
a classist thing -- he seems to view the snobberies of other people as
unpleasant social grasping by classless plebes. In a book like this, it's
important to like and trust the author; by the end, I neither liked
Epstein nor trusted him.
Ultimately, this is the sort of book that's best read in abstract -- if
Arts and Letters Daily links to a
summary of it (which I believe they already have, some months ago), it'll
be worth reading; but the book itself can be safely skipped.
| :::
December
24,
2002
The Brunching Shuttlecocks
is one of the funnier sites on the Web, and the Ratings are the
funniest part of the site. So, it was a no-brainer for me to buy
Lore Fitzgerald Sjoberg's The Book of Ratings
, which
collects those Ratings into book form.
Though there is some new material in the book, 95% of it is just collected
straight from the Web site. If it bothers you to pay for content that you
can legitimately get for free, you'll probably be irritated if you buy
this book. For my own part, though, I think it's worth it: this stuff is
consistently funny enough that I want to be able to read it when I don't
happen to be at my computer. And if I've read most of it before, well,
I've read most if it before repeatedly, which would sort of
indicate that I don't have a problem re-reading it. (And, in fact, I
finished reading the book the day after I received it, which pretty much
confirms that indication.)
Good stuff. If you haven't read the Web site, do so; if you have read the
Web site, then you already know precisely what you'll get if you buy the
book.
| :::
December
24,
2002
The only reason that anyone reads book reviews, ultimately, is to find out
whether or not they'll like the book being reviewed. Sometimes, the
reviewer needs to expend a lot of words to help the reader make an
accurate decision; but sometimes, it's enough to let the book speak for
itself. So, the opening of Tom Robbins' Another Roadside
Attraction
:
The magician's underwear has just been found in a cardboard suitcase
floating in a stagnant pond on the outskirts of Miami. However
significant that discovery may be -- and there is the possibility that it
could alter the destiny of each and every one of us -- it is not the
incident with which to begin this report.
In the suitcase with the mystic unmentionables were pages and fragments
torn from a journal which John Paul Ziller had kept on one of his trips
through Africa. Or was it India? The journal began thusly: "At
midnight, the Arab brings me a bowl of white figs. His skin is very
golden and I try it on for size. It doesn't keep out mosquitoes. Nor
stars. The rodent of ecstasy sings by my bedside." [...] That was the
beginning of the journal. But not the beginning of this report.
Having read that, you're now either thinking, "Ooh, that sounds
interesting; I'll have to check that out," or "Enh, not for me." And
therefore my job here is done.
Or, at least, it would be if I hadn't lied in my first sentence.
Because, really, people read book reviews for a lot of reasons, and not
just to find out if they'll like a book. So I'm going to talk about the
insight I had while reading this book: As I was on page 80 or so, I
realized that I still had no idea what the plot of the book was; and that,
more importantly, I didn't care.
This came as a bit of a surprise. For a long time, I've imagined that I
read books for the plot, that I am mostly concerned with what happens
next, and next, and next again. It was only while reading this book that
I realized this isn't the case. These days, I read not for plot, nor even
character, but for style.
Plot's nice, mind; if it's there I enjoy it, and if it's weak I count it a
bit of a fault. But it's not the main thing. A book with a gripping,
complex plot written in a dull, prosaic style will not hold my interest as
well as stylistically fascinating prose in service of even a pedestrian
plot. This is obvious when you look at a list of authors whom I
preferentially like these days -- Stephenson, Wolfe, Vance, Brust,
Pratchett, Carroll, and Wodehouse are all authors whose books are
enjoyable at a purely stylistic level.
The weird thing is, I used to be baffled by people who proclaimed to care
more about style than plot. I was convinced, in fact, that they were
only pretending to do so in order that they might sound snobbishly
intellectual. Heck, I even used to nod approvingly at Asimov's defense of
his "transparent" style, and wonder why someone would want to read a book
where the prose got in the way of the story. And I haven't the foggiest
idea why my preferences have changed over the years, either. Perhaps it's
that I've now read enough books that very few plots are really novel, so
I'm more concerned with how the tale is told? Perhaps it's because my
tastes are becoming more refined and intellectual? Or maybe it's just
that I'm becoming a decadent reader, valuing form over content? Hell if I
know.
Either way, if you'll permit me to slip back into reviewer mode for a
moment, I can say that if you're looking for a stylistically interesting
book that's a bit light on the plot, Another Roadside Attraction
will likely fit the bill; if you just want the author to get on with the
damn story, though, stay away like the plague.
| :::