Wednesday, October 04, 2006

There's nothing like ...

... a good paper war: Publishing Mousetrap: Professor Reviews Book That Mauled Him—Mine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

3 comments:

  1. Ah yes, sneering at journalists. A perfectly respectable avocation that comes in just after making lawyer jokes. And it has to be OK to do 'cause everybody does it. Mostly politicians tho'. And doesn't Mr. Rosenbaum seem to be running for something?

    I learned the rule, 'Never explain, never complain, it never helps." Did Mr. Rosenbaum miss that day in class?

    -blue

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  2. I'm with you Blue, when it comes to responding to critics publicly. Though I think Rosenbaum does have legitimate complaint here, since the reviewer's work figured in his book and the reviewer should have disclosed that to readers. Whether it's worth such a long column - well, that's something else.

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  3. Anonymous10:46 AM

    Jim Shapiro should not have reviewed the book; he should have written an essay rebutting Rosenbaum.

    If I can tell right away that I'm going to hate a book, or if for some reason I intensely dislike the author's p.o.v., or whatever, I won't review it. It's too much like shooting fish in a barrel. Mean reviews are fun to read and easy to write, but they're not very useful (see Dale Peck on this, he's the master of the hatchet job).

    Still, this is a regular topic of letters to the editors of book reviews and always has been. For example, I just came across this artifact: a full-page letter in the 11/17/91 issue of the NYTBR. Letter is by Norman Mailer and he's objecting to John Simon's review of his _Harlot's Ghost_. Mailer says Simon has always hated him and should never have been given his book to review. Mailer's choleric (but justifiable last line): "Well, send a brute to maul a brute--people do like a demolition derby!"

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