Alain de Botton caused quite a stir in June when he hit back at a poor review of his new book, The Pleasures and Sorrows of work, with 'snarky' comments. Angry with the reviewer, Caleb Crain, he posted angry and abusive messages on Crain's blog, Steamboats are Ruining Everything.
"Caleb, you make it sound on your blog that your review is somehow a sane and fair assessment. In my eyes, and all those who have read it with anything like impartiality, it is a review driven by an almost manic desire to bad-mouth and perversely depreciate anything of value. The accusations you level at me are simply extraordinary. I genuinely hope that you will find yourself on the receiving end of such a daft review some time very soon - so that you can grow up and start to take some responsibility for your work as a reviewer. You have now killed my book in the United States, nothing short of that. So that's two years of work down the drain in one miserable 900 word review. You present yourself as 'nice' in this blog (so much talk about your boyfriend, the dog etc). It's only fair for your readers (nice people like Joe Linker and trusting souls like PAB) to get a whiff that the truth may be more complex. I will hate you till the day I die and wish you nothing but ill will in every career move you make. I will be watching with interest and schadenfreude."*
He didn't leave it there, either. After a de Botton fan had posted back, berating him for his lack of "maturity and insight", he responded as follows:
"The reason I was led to respond to this review - and I have never done something like this before - is the sheer vindictive lunacy of the accusations levelled against me. My response may seem deranged, but only if you hold in mind two things: the book I've written and what the reviewer said about it. The gap is so large that this goes way beyond a casual and quite understandable case of a reviewer not liking a book. Everyone is allowed their own taste and I'd be the last person to force a consensus. However, there's a point at which a review becomes so angry, cruel and mean-spirited that perspective just disappears and one is into new and uncharted terrain. I'm responding to this review as a way of proposing that forgiveness is perhaps not always the only option when the provocation has been enormous."*
Are de Botton's posts a simple case of snark? The personal attack at Crain - "I will hate you till the day I die" - suggests so. Or, are they a justified defence of de Botton's book in light of the "new and uncharted terrain" Crain's "angry, cruel and mean-spirited" review has created?
*Reproduced from Caleb Crain's blog, Steamboats are Ruining Everything.
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Absolutely classic. I think the Snark is more likely to have occurred in the original review, although it does read relatively reasonably. What de Botton has done transcends Snark and moves into the realm of sheer madness, albeit amusing and hilarious madness. Having written a book about stoicism you would think de Botton could take a few knocks. Obviously not. Still marvelous fun, lets hope he keeps it up.
ReplyDeleteNot snark at all - the snarker, it seems to me, doesn't actually care that much about whatever (s)he is being snarky about; it's more about a snidey, knowing, 'look at me' nod. But de Botton just cares too much here and, as the comment above says, has flipped into madness.
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