Braindead Book Critics?
July 2, 2010 2:25 PM Subscribe
Quote attribution question, possibly George Orwell, or possibly a comment in a thread about George Orwell, or possibly none of the above. I seem to remember someone attributing a quote along the lines of "An honest book critic would write 'this book inspires no thoughts one way or the other' in 9 out of 10 of his reviews" to George Orwell. What's the correct quote, attribution, and (for bonus points) source?
I think I recall coming across this quote somewhere online, possibly on Metafilter, but my search skills have failed me, both here and across the internet at large. Anyone happen to just know this off the top of their head? Or perhaps the correct search terms for me to enter into Google?
I think I recall coming across this quote somewhere online, possibly on Metafilter, but my search skills have failed me, both here and across the internet at large. Anyone happen to just know this off the top of their head? Or perhaps the correct search terms for me to enter into Google?
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Until one has some kind of professional relationship with books one does not discover how bad the majority of them are. In much more than nine cases out of ten the only objectively truthful criticism would be ‘This book is worthless’, while the truth about the reviewer’s own reaction would probably be ‘This book does not interest me in any way, and I would not write about it unless I were paid to.’
posted by phoenixy at 2:34 PM on July 2, 2010 [8 favorites]