Generally, I'm willing to give reviewers the benefit of the doubt when I have the "Did they read the same book I did?" reaction. I assume that they did indeed read the book all the way through. But (way back in the dark ages) when I read an issue of The Saturday Review, wherein Jan Morris was supposedly paid for a review of the first English translation of the famous Japanese novel Musashi, and she actually said that she didn't finish reading it -- I was greatly offended. A professional writer, being paid by a noted magazine for a review, and she not only doesn't finish reading the book, but then tells the magazine audience she didn't.
I wrote my first letter of comment about that - both my outrage that Morris couldn't have bothered to finish reading the book and my pleasure in the book itself. And it got printed.
At the time, I was aware that there were certain stylistic aspects about the novel that might have been tiresome to Morris: it is loaded with a lot of parallelism which is intended to be obvious. That might have been heavy handed for a Western reader (although given Morris' wide travels, you'd think she could have handled that). And it was laden with a lot of cultural detail - but that was present to show what Musashi (who starts out rather barbaric) grows to appreciate.
These were points that could have been made in a review. But Morris couldn't have been bothered to do the job. It's strange that I wouldn't have minded a negative review of the book, if she had finished reading it. I could then have just written in and said that what she disliked, I appreciated. But instead, she insulted the readership and the magazine by not even finishing the job she was paid for: read the book and review it. It disinclined me to give any credence to any other review she made.
no subject
I wrote my first letter of comment about that - both my outrage that Morris couldn't have bothered to finish reading the book and my pleasure in the book itself. And it got printed.
At the time, I was aware that there were certain stylistic aspects about the novel that might have been tiresome to Morris: it is loaded with a lot of parallelism which is intended to be obvious. That might have been heavy handed for a Western reader (although given Morris' wide travels, you'd think she could have handled that). And it was laden with a lot of cultural detail - but that was present to show what Musashi (who starts out rather barbaric) grows to appreciate.
These were points that could have been made in a review. But Morris couldn't have been bothered to do the job. It's strange that I wouldn't have minded a negative review of the book, if she had finished reading it. I could then have just written in and said that what she disliked, I appreciated. But instead, she insulted the readership and the magazine by not even finishing the job she was paid for: read the book and review it. It disinclined me to give any credence to any other review she made.