Blurbs

However, it does happen, every now and then, that I happen upon a book with favorable words from one or more authors I respect, oftentimes writers who don't necessarily appear very often on the backs of books. I haven't been steered wrong, for example, by a Brodkey blurb, or (much farther back) by Eliot's fairly impeccable selection of literary causes. Coover is also pretty reliable. Gass is, Elkin is. Lydia Davis is. Hawkes hated seemingly everything, including his own students' and friends' work, so you know to trust him if he's nice. (Whereas Pynchon, incidentally, is becoming less and less reliable, as he becomes more prolific in his blurbing, and the McSweeney's crew can't be trusted at all, at all, at all.)

On another note, as regards critics, the "famously testy" Ms. Kakutani is much more reliable than, say, Birkerts, who blathers often irresponsibly, Kakutani seems almost consciously to avoid writing anything quotable by a publisher unless she actually has a favorable opinion. Watch how the faint praise is derailed at every turn, how it's difficult to cobble together a subject, object, and verb in any convincing way. I don't necessarily agree with her opinions most of the time, but I usually trust that she meant them if I find them somewhere.

M.

I enjoy seeing the connections that get made by blurbs, but do hate the puffery. And the now-requisite 3-4 pages quoting praise at the front of trade pbk eds. of phenomenon books is really annoying.

I tend to look more at the publishing houses as opposed to the blurbs, if I'm looking for a new author - sounds snobbish, I know, but I've been pretty happy with the vast majority of the works published by Vintage (with the exception of their crime/mystery label, which I think needs to re-evaluate some of their authors) that I've read. I partcularly like their Vintage International and Vintage Contemporaries collections. Also, I tend to like Library of America publications.

https://i.imgur.com/DFKe322.jpg

thanks for the effort, barry

I read blurbs. I like blurbs. They are often entertaining for their comical inarticulateness, especially the parades of one word superlatives. Whichever marketing genius culls these and slaps them on a book clearly thinks that a book which may be anywhere from 75,000 to 500,000 words can be summed up as "Stunning!" "Remarkable!" "Exquisite!" "Hilarious!"

Then, in among the cheap snippets that are like flecks of drool flung willy-nilly from the jowls of a St. Bernard dog as it shakes its ponderous head, or the dutifully ceremonial comments churned out by Kirkus Reviews, one sometimes finds genuinely admiring and perceptive commentaries or droll appreciations that, amazingly, convince me that the book was able to interest someone with the intellect and ability to read it in depth. Those are rare, but always helpful.

I would have frankly been scared to ask Malzberg for a blurb.

of brian aldiss, the guardian has this to say

'Our ablest SF writer'

One of these is a blurb on Marilynne Robinson's _Gilead_:

the exquisite tone of this mesmerising novel is remarkable
the exquisite tone of this remarkable novel is mesmerising
the remarkable tone of this exquisite novel is mesmerising
the remarkable tone of this mesmerising novel is exquisite
the mesmerising tone of this remarkable novel is exquisite
the mesmerising tone of this exquisite novel is remarkable

(it also has "A visionary work of dazzling originality")

i vote b)

I'm going with a) it just has the correct blurblike 'feel' to me, distributing the adjectives to their respective nouns with the greatest conventionality

agreed. f) as a second choice

I think f).

'AS SATISFYING, VIOLENT AND MORALLY AMBIVALENT AS ITS PREDECESSORS' -- Telegraph

Meaningless Book Jacket Praise

A friend and I always used to quote the blurb on King, Queen, Knave (from Nabokov himself): "Of all my novels this bright brute is the gayest."

tbf i think that telegraph blurb very much has meaning

i mean it's not like 'a searing indictment of modern mores from one of our most thoughtful writers' and then it's just rupert distractedly banging galena

it's like, russian demigods ritually disembowling acquaintances because the fate of the universe demands it

so: otm blurb imo

https://pictures.abebooks.com/isbn/9780394741215-uk.jpg

The blurb Bob Dylan wrote for Steven Van Zandt’s new memoir is the “Murder Most Foul” of book blurbs. pic.twitter.com/IBsegCKP05

— Steven Hyden (@Steven_Hyden) October 7, 2021

Bob Dylan didn’t rest on his laurels after winning the Nobel; coming up w/ a classic blurb for Stevie Van Zandt.

Searing and profound, suffused with beauty, sorrow, and longing, these stories map, with _______'s signature emotional wisdom, the collision of two cultures and the deeply human struggle to reconcile them.

too bad there's nothing to limn

My favorite blurbs are the ones where it's obvious that the book's publishers have done on a Frankenstein job on a book review - using ellipses to stitch together an enthusiastic-sounding blurb from a lukewarm review. Like "Joe Schmo's new novel...shows promise...with interesting characters...and an engaging plot", where it's obvious they've left out all the caveats and deprecating qualifiers.

My brother and I used to make a game of it. "This movie is . . . one of the best . . . of the year"

So many possibilities.

keep seeing a twitter ad touting that a certain show is 'the best in months'

tbh i respect the humility

"It's the best thing I've seen in the past 12 hours"

I get annoyed/amused when the back page blurb is taken from a review of one of the author's old books ("Tom Clancy is a master!") rather than the book it's printed on.

I get annoyed/amused when the back page blurb is taken from a review of one of the author's old books ("Tom Clancy is a master!") rather than the book it's printed on.

damn, didn't know the story of the word 'blurb' and the sexism therein

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/word-history-blurb-publishing

China Mieville on klein’s doppelganger: “as thrilling as a novel”

Only the most recent eg of this v bad cliche

That reminds me of (and is equally as annoying as) "transcends the genre"

Also IME "thrilling" and "hilarious" blurbs are always perfect guarantors of un-thrilling and non-hilarity.

One of the oddest I’ve seen recently:

Today in 'weird' and possibly 'badly' 'translated' blurbs. pic.twitter.com/n2uLmbjD7Y

— Caustic Cover Critic (@Unwise_Trousers) March 19, 2024