"I never read a book before reviewing it," quipped Sidney Smith. "It prejudices the mind so." Is this a joke, or is it common practice among us ink-stained wretches to, uh, cheat? Laying aside those books that are, given a normal deadline, simply unreadable—I can't imagine too many critics taking this assignment, for instance—I think most of us are diligent and honest. The same probably can't be said of those whose literary opinions are strictly for dinner-party deployment, as this bit from today's Guardian suggests:
First, an admission. Before I start writing about How Do You Talk About Books You Haven't Read?, the Frenchman Pierre Bayard's latest volume, I should confess that I haven't read it. But I will. Honest – I've already ordered it from Amazon.fr.
And as Bayard himself surely should agree, not having read How Do You Talk About Books You Haven't Read? hardly disqualifies me from writing about it. . . .
And Bayard has some useful tips, relayed by the Times today, for carrying it off: "Avoid precise details. Put aside rational thought. Let your sub-conscience [sic] express your personal relationship with the book." In other words: do not be intimidated by your own ignorance, and don't worry about being found out.
This approach is anathema to the British, who adore exposing pretention: for a start, spotting other people's gaffes is a great way of reminding yourself how well-informed you are.
True, true, and the biggest and most transparent gaffe of all is liking a book too much. No review is easier to write than a fawning one, with its vague language and cheerful feeling of doing somebody a solid. A negative review requires an intimate knowledge not only of the book but also of the feeling of disgust and impatience that comes with reading it. It's for that reason that I constantly extol the virtues of Guardian staple John Crace, in whose "Digested Read" he condenses awful books in their own style. He doesn't limit himself to literary fiction, though that's arguably the genre most in need of deflation. In his most recent he has a go at chick-lit.
My advice: If you can't keep quiet about a book you haven't read, at least say something nasty about it. Nobody will suspect: It's almost never fashionable to hate a book, which is why you can still spot commuters with A Million Little Pieces even after they've been told to abjure it. Nine times out of ten your hatchet job will be right on point.
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