Why do book reviews include long plot outlines?

December 20, 2004 9:30 PM

Why do so many (newspaper, magazine, mainly non-fiction) book reviews spend most of their space recapping the book's content rather than commenting on the quality of the writing and insight? For instance, this WaPo via Mercury News review of a new PG Wodehouse biography uses the first third to relate a single, albeit significant, incident from his life. Maybe three paragraphs total of reviewer commentary. Why?
posted by billsaysthis to writing & language (11 comments total)

The argument could be made that people who are already educated on the life of PG Wodehouse will have determined for themselves whether or not they're interested in reading that particular biography. So the audience for the book (and therefore the book review) would be people who have a passing interest and might have that interest further piqued by an anecdote or interesting story from from his life.

That, or the reviewer is really lazy.
posted by bcwinters at 10:02 PM on December 20, 2004

Because those writers lack (a) the capacity to distinguish between a professional review and an elementary school book report, and (b) the skills and knowledge to conceive substantive analysis.

I've seen far worse, by the way (see italics).
posted by cribcage at 10:04 PM on December 20, 2004

So the audience for the book (and therefore the book review) would be people who have a passing interest and might have that interest further piqued by an anecdote or interesting story from from his life.

I'll second that. I often know little to nothing of what a book is about when I read a review, so I prefer reviews to have a synopsis. If I do already know what a book is about, it's usually easy enough to skip over that part.

That said, I agree that the linked review overdoes it.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 11:26 PM on December 20, 2004

I guess a lot of people want a blueprint of what they're going to be reading before they read it. I emphatically do not, and as a result I almost never read book or film reviews. I want to be introduced to each new element of the story exactly when the author decides to present it. There are so many books that I utterly adore that, had I read a plot summary beforehand, I would have thought "hm. This really doesn't sound like my cup of tea. Next." So... I tend to agree with cribcage; if the reviewer can talk about the book without giving away the farm, I'm pretty happy - but this happens so seldom that I usually approach reviews sideways, with one eye closed.
posted by taz at 12:50 AM on December 21, 2004

try reading the london review of books. hardly any of their reviews summarize the book - they typically either debate some points made, comment on the relationship between several works, or use the book as a starting point for some largely unconnected essay.
all imho. i buy it as a "good read" rather than a "collection of reviews". and my latest issue is late. damn christmas.
posted by andrew cooke at 4:30 AM on December 21, 2004

Book reviews, as defined-in-practice by most American newspapers, are not meant to be literary criticism, although some might argue that some of the best reviewers come close. John Leonard, one of my favorites comes to mind. A book reviewer, in most newspapers is a writer responsible for crafting an interesting, brief, and entertaining article for readers. Perhaps the writer in question thought the anecdote he featured was more likely to fill that bill than pedantic criticism of writing style. FWIW.
posted by NorthCoastCafe at 5:10 AM on December 21, 2004

American book reviewing, at least in newspapers, pretty much sucks. At least two of our worst reviewers write for the WaPo, Jonathan Yardley and Carolyn See. What makes them bad? Well, stuff like too much synopsis, but also an attitude that prejudges literature based on a very conservative model of art and society. The reason that people can get away with this is because it's very difficult to write a thoughtful review that addresses the merit of a work on its own terms. Curtis White has written about this in The Review of Contemporary Fiction, among other places.

OTOH, Michael Dirda is a great reviewer, and he reviews for the Post also.
posted by OmieWise at 7:30 AM on December 21, 2004

Another possiblity: Many writers make ends meet writing reviews. They can't write terribly bad ones because the writers they discuss will one day review their own books. Yet the majority of books aren't awesome. So this system is set up to make conflict avoidance top priority and a good way to avoid conflict is to avoid substance. Thus reviewers recap the book to take up space and avoid saying something the writer or readers could take exception to.
posted by dame at 7:45 AM on December 21, 2004

What dame said, plus laziness. The only dependable US general book review is the NYRB (which often gets pretty far away from the actual book, just as andrew cooke says of the LRB). I skim the NY Times review just to see if anything looks interesting enough to make me investigate further.
posted by languagehat at 8:06 AM on December 21, 2004

Reviews like this are meant to serve as a substitute for reading the book. I think it is fine, though I prefer the more scholarly/analytical reviews.
posted by LarryC at 10:23 AM on December 21, 2004

Thanks, some very interesting answers.
posted by billsaysthis at 12:20 PM on December 21, 2004