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| Hearsay: |
Ah, digging in the dirt. Michael Ignatieff, sadly our best choice for ever getting rid of that beady-eyed Captain of Religious Industry, Stephen Harper, is under fire because his publisher creatively manipulated some review copy to use as jacket blurb. The horrors! The common, every-day horrors! But still…
Take this snippet from the National Post: “Plenty of scope for a rich story … Some wonderful anecdotes, particularly about George P. Grant … Well written.”
In fact, the Post review in its entirety was far from laudatory.
“True Patriot Love offers little that is new on the Grants save some wonderful anecdotes, particularly about George P. Grant,” wrote reviewer Robert L. Fraser.
“As an exploration of patriotism, it offers up clichĂ©s about modern Canada but little more.True Patriot Love is a well-written disappointment.”
Such selective and misleading editing for purposes of book jacket hype is common practice in the publishing industry.
But on Friday, Conservative MPs called the book blurbs “dishonest” and said that in Ignatieff’s case, they were evidence of his unfitness for political office.
I know this is more about the mafia-like crush on power the Conservatives are desperate to keep and will therefore sink to any level to attempt to destroy others, but it’s a good chance to talk about the jacket review blurb as a space in which morality can get naked and frolic for all to see. Is it acceptable to bend reviews around corners? I reviewed Dave Eggers’ first, HBWSG, back in 2000 and gave it a good, but reserved, review in the Globe and Mail. I was living in New York at the time and wandered in to Three Lives a year later and found a copy of the paperback. When I casually flipped through, I found my review in the first pages, among tens of others, (no byline, just “Globe and Mail”–hey, I was a nobody), but wholly altered. It was like a wee quilt, stitched together seamlessly, but not really encompassing the spirit of my review. You’d never have known though. They didn’t even use ellipses to denote the breaks from the narrative of the original.
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April 26th, 2010 at 10:36 am
It’s ridiculous to use this as evidence of anything other than the shamelessness of publishers, but as a reviewer, the practice gets on my last nerve. I’ve seen things I’ve written badly wrenched out of context or invisibly elided to sound more positive, and it feels lousy, especially if my name’s still attached to the quarter-truth. It’s also made me less inclined to say moderately positive things in a review of a book I didn’t much like.
April 26th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
As a small press publisher I once received a blurb for a book that read these briefly lucid poems . . . I called the writer of the blurb who insisted it was praise. I said, i know the difference between brief, lucid and briefly lucid. We didn’t use the blurb. Which made the writer kind of mad at me.
My worst review was my first review in which the journalist called me depraved — I actually treasure that word now. It’s my favourite insult received.
April 26th, 2010 at 1:57 pm
I’m with ZW – it’s infuriating.
April 26th, 2010 at 4:08 pm
I think that biblical exegesis is done the same way.
April 26th, 2010 at 4:27 pm
David Bowie once came to a play of mine at the Theatre Centre. He slipped out at intermission. In the print ads that followed, the theatre’s publicist proudly proclaimed it ‘David Bowie’s play of choice!’
Appalling, especially given the circumstances.
He should have printed, ‘Bowie left, though Iman wanted to stay for 2nd act!’
April 26th, 2010 at 9:18 pm
The solution, obviously, is to write reviews consisting solely of profanity.
Thank you, thank you! The secret to my brilliance? Champagne!