Critics have an armada of fuzzy words that they deploy when they want to avoid taking a stand on books. Editors, agents and others translated some of the reviewers’ evasions in my posts 40 Publishing Buzzwords, Clichés and Euphemisms Decoded, More Publishing Buzzwords Decoded and 23 British Publishing Euphemisms Decoded. The critic Daniel Mendelsohn mentioned another while introducing lifetime-achievement award winner Robert Silvers, editor of the New York Review of Books, at the 2011 National Book Critics Circle Awards ceremony. Mendelsohn said that Silvers asked when a critic described a book as “compelling”:
“Compelling? Compelled to do what?”
You watch Mendelsohn’s introduction to Silvers in a video of the NBCC ceremony.
One-Minute Book Reviews 
Very safe word actually. And gets the critic out of the need to form an actual view on the book.
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Comment by Amritorupa Kanjilal — March 15, 2012 @ 12:22 am |