The Emperor's New Clothes

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Barbara Peters of The Poisoned Pen was so incensed by the glowing review of Dan Brown’s latest opus by Janet Maslin in the New York Times that she waxed long and eloquent about what she calls “the way celebrity authors …can induce a kind of 'Emperor's New Clothes' approach to literary criticism.”

Let me say right off that I myself have not read The Last Symbol. But this isn't really about Dan Brown; it's about all authors/actors/directors who have achieved such a stellar level of popularity that it seems to intimidate reviewers into what can only be called a state of dishonesty. For those who don’t know her, Peters is the owner of very successful bookstore in Phoenix. The Poisoned Pen is so supportive of mystery authors that they actually began their own press for authors of favorite mystery series that had been dropped by New York. So Barbara is not a disgruntled author; she’s a bookstore owner who’s evidently finally had enough of a phenomenon we’ve all noticed: bestselling authors who are given a pass for lousy books simply because no one has the guts to stand up say “the emperor has no clothes”.

The reason? According to Barbara, “The pressures can be financial (from the newspaper or the publisher or...), or editorial (lots of pressure points here), or a fear of being the only one to point out how bare-assed the emperor may be. Who of us wants to be caught naked in public?

“I really hate to think an adulatory review of a bad book is penned because a critic's reading faculties have done a meltdown. And I do allow for variations in appreciation of voice or subject or narrative drive..... But terrible writing speaks for itself. Any of you can recognize it.

“The sad truth also is that with a celebrity author two things can come into play: 1. It's uneconomic to put the effort into editing bad writing as the book will sell anyway. 2. The editor will get no reward in his/her house for alienating an author with criticism and perhaps driving the author to seek another publisher. If you contemplate how bad some bestsellers are, or how surprisingly some writers you have read with enjoyment have deteriorated, apply these two points.

“Brown, under contract to deliver The Lost Symbol back in 2005, sent in a book that is so poorly written, and then has been published with so little if any editing (one hopes no editing since if the submitted text was actually edited the mind boggles at what the draft of the novel might have been), [that he] has done himself no favor. Those who bit on The Lost Symbol -- and I am one, I did buy it to read since I really enjoyed Angels and Demons, the first for symbologist Langdon -- will in large numbers not buy Brown again.

“So in the end, a "rush job" (Why, one asks, is a book over four years late a "rush job"?) like this does no one any favor other than say for Maureen [this reference is to a biting review by Maureen Dowd, who has never been intimidated by anyone’s celebrity] who clearly relished every word she set down in review. Maybe the humorists benefit deriving one set of riches while Brown and Doubleday enjoy their profits at the bank.”

For the curious, Maureen Dowd’s review is here .

All I can say is, Ouch.

And a hat tip to Sphinx Ink for the link.