| ashu |
Posted
on 24-Jan-02 12:31 PM
Reviewing book reviews
By Bhupendra Rawat
In his column (TKP, January 18), Pratyoush Onta argued
that as long as Nepali media houses do not publish
book-reviews by regularly setting aside a certain number
of pages, they are not pro-actively promoting books,
and, by extension, "a culture of reading".
True-sounding though this line of thought seems, in
the interest of fostering a debate, one can make at
least three arguments against it.
First, such a line of thought narrowly assumes that
only "good-length book reviews" promote books, and
that anything else -- profiles, interviews and even
photographs of authors and short introductory blurbs
about the books in the papers -- does not count at
all.
This is why, Onta felt justified in taking some
editors to task even when some of those harried
professionals, by Onta's own admission, have indeed
been publishing occasional reviews, and carrying
regular news and articles about books and authors.
Second, such reasoning assumes that book-reviews are
for all readers. They are not. By its nature, reading
serious, intellectually engaging and polemically
provocative reviews -- the kind, it's safe to think,
Onta wants editors to publish more of -- is
(gasp, choke!) a culturally elite avocation, pursued by
comparatively few readers anywhere, whether
in New York, New Delhi or New Road.
Against this backdrop, I'd argue that our Nepali
newspapers, buffeted as they are by the forces of the
market, know this fact well, and, this is why when
they carry a regular page for serious reviews, it's to
enhance their own image -- akin to, say, Toyota's
enhancing its image by sponsoring a traffic-island
garden on Babar Mahal Road.
Had Onta appealed to the newspapers' self-interest by
addressing this logic of the market, his points would have
come across more as sympathetic criticisms than as
predictably just another instance of easy preaching
from a pulpit.
Third, such a conclusion assumes that book-reviews are
necessarily fun to read. They are not. Often, my
experience as a reader is that most reviews, in both
Nepali and English languages, of Nepal-related books
in our daily newspapers are dull, pretentious, badly
written and just plain boring.
In fact, reading a few of these reviews, one gets the
impression of ostensibly learned people playing the
role an evil school-master -- pulling at your ears,
hitting you on the head, slapping you on your cheeks
and basically forcing you to read because, well, like
cod-liver oil, reading reviews is supposed to be good
for you.
In light of this joyless process, is it any wonder that readers
throw up their hands and end up demanding that editors actually
serve news about "the kind and price of wigs worn by some of
our most famous silver-screen actors"?
Finally, apart from reading and writing reviews, there
is a time-proven method for promoting books. It's a
method that has promoted books ranging from that of
Socrates to Salman Rushdie's, and from Dor Bahadur
Bista's to Shova Bhattarai's. It's called courting
controversies.
This is why, I cannot help but wonder whether many of
our Nepal-related books make such poor promotional
materials precisely because these books
play so safely, are so predictably dutiful and are so
boring that they end up telling us readers nothing about
what's interesting, insightful, challenging,
outrageous, controversial or even funny in their
fields.
Perhaps, at the end of the day, editors are right in
thinking that the public is better off not wasting
its time knowing about or reading such books.
THE END
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