I recently read a book that was so stereotype laden, and not just vanilla stereotypes, but the ugly ones, that it made me cross-eyed and cranky. The author manged to paint a particular religious group as insensitive, hate filled, backward bumpkins. And that was one group. Each character was literally a caricature--completely skewed to an unbelievable extreme. I wondered, at one point, if I was reading a satire, but there was simply nothing funny about this book.
To each their own right?
The author clearly had no clue what he was talking about and only wanted to use the most salacious and negative bits of hyperbole he could. I guess he thought it was good for "Teh Dramaz".
But what made me see red was this--reviewers were thinking that this author was an authority and one even stated that the author clearly knew what he was talking about. (See how this goes back to my comment about veracity?) As much as we would like to think that people regard a work as utterly fiction, there will always be a few who may confer the author with the laurel of authority...
This made my head spin. Why? Because I knew something about the group that this author had maligned and the facts were not there. I also had to wonder if the reviewer even realized what statement she was making, for in my eyes that called into question the authority of the reviewer to be reviewing that book in the first place.
Hold up! I know you are raising an eyebrow at me. I am a firm believer that everyone has the right to review a book BUT, when you confer authority to a source that really does not deserve it....
Before making such a statement the reviewer perhaps should have done her own research (trust me, a little research would have shot holes into what this author was saying).
What are your feelings about this? Was the reviewer being lazy? The author? Both? What does this say about the authority of the author or of the reviewer?
4 comments:
See, this is a different kettle of fish. Writers are born bullshitters. I can forgive an author for fudging facts to suit their needs, but I have never ever been able to forgive someone taking fiction as fact and getting their history from historical fiction.
But does a reviewer--not your every day reviewer on like Goodreads or a book retailer site, but one writing for a review blog--don't they have to do a little work and be careful about such statements? Isn't that worse than the average reader thinking fiction is fact? Because the reader of the review is not getting all of the information in whole roast form but filtered in a chunky soup form (rather than puree offered by say, Cliffnotes or Wikipedia), isn't it a serious issue when a reviewer tells his or her readers that an author has some authority that they do not?
Hi there! I've been lurking on your site and I think I know which book you're talking about but not the particular review.
I think reviewers assume a certain level of responsibility is on the author/s to do their research. I'm not sure I'd call any author an "authority" on any subject even if they've researched it. Just like I wouldn't assume any reviewer is an authority on anything just because they read a lot or are popular. Did the reviewer actually call the author an authority on the subject? If so, thats not acceptable I don't think. It's likely a bad phrase or way to express their thoughts but still shouldn't have been said.
I think it's ok to point out flaws in the author's research, such as showing why their portrayal is so horribly untrue. But you know reviewers can make bald statements just due to their right to have an opinion.
Kind of like when a reviewer says "I normally hate (genre) and you know, I didn't like this one either. It sucked totally." You'd think a reviewer wouldn't blame a book for a genre they don't like. But I guess that's another topic for reviewer responsibility.
@Kassa
Hiya! We like lurkers. :) The reviewer actually said that the author obviously knows his stuff (and there were two reviews). I have seen this occur a few times where reviewers state that the author does a spot on portrayal of "X" group and that is not the case. When I review, I try to do a bit of research to fact check. But I am also analretentive.
Yeah. I avoid books I do not care for. I read just about anything but, for some reason, hate most time travel books. I would have to say that I really cannot stand 95% of them. Not sure why. Wait, I do know why, but that is a story for another day...or maybe later today. :)
Post a Comment