but Deepa, if on a winter's night a reviewer... Although it is difficult to generalize, but sometimes the reference to other books can be interesting also. I had enjoyed reading Mike Davis' book, so the reference to it in the review got me interested.
Perhaps this is a different genre of review all together? a hybrid of a blurb and a 'proper' review? Also, in trying to postulate a supposed 'hybrid' author, the review here seems to hint at the bibliophile's obsession of thinking about books not written. George Steiner, for example, has written an entire book on the book projects he had abandoned http://www.amazon.com/My-Unwritten-Books-George-Steiner/dp/0811217035 abhishek On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 10:47 PM, Deepa Mohan<mohande...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 10:40 PM, Udhay Shankar N <ud...@pobox.com> wrote: > >> Now *this* is a book review: >> >> http://nymag.com/arts/books/reviews/58062/ >> >> "Imperial is like Robert Caro’s The Power Broker with the attitude of >> Mike Davis’s City of Quartz, if Robert Caro had been raised in an >> abandoned grain silo by a band of feral raccoons, and if Mike Davis were >> the communications director of a heavily armed libertarian survivalist >> cult, and if the two of them had somehow managed to stitch John McPhee’s >> cortex onto the brain of a Gila monster, which they then sent to the >> Mexican border to conduct ten years of immersive research, and also if >> they wrote the entire manuscript on dried banana leaves with a toucan >> beak dipped in hobo blood, and then the book was line-edited during a >> 36-hour peyote séance by the ghosts of John Steinbeck, Jack London, and >> Sinclair Lewis, with 200 pages of endnotes faxed over by Henry David >> Thoreau’s great-great-great-great grandson from a concrete bunker under >> a toxic pond behind a maquiladora, and if at the last minute Herman >> Melville threw up all over the manuscript, rendering it illegible, so it >> had to be re-created from memory by a community-theater actor doing his >> best impression of Jack Kerouac." >> > > > Is it, really, Udhay? I actually detest these kind of super-witty "reviews" > which seem to be written more to display the reviewer's intellect, richness > of information, and facility for words (most of them rather sarcastic), than > be an actual review of the book. Such reviews are great entertainment...but, > in my opinion, not great reviews. > > Oh goodness, how mean I sound. ...but...I'll let that stand. > > Deepa. > -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - does the frog know it has a latin name? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
