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A review by barbz
Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You about Being Creative by Austin Kleon
1.0
The issue of writing a book to your younger self is the risk of sounding condescending to everyone who might not need those specific advices. And I believe this is what happens here.
Kleon takes a bunch of short quotes by famous artists to justify rather shallow ideas.
What he actually defends here is simply having influences and letting go of the illusion that you can create something 100% original. Now, you tell me, what living artist above the age of twenty doesn't know that?
He lost me completely when he claimed that the famous line "All the world's a stage, And all men and women, merely Players; They have their exits and their entrances." from As You Like It, by Shakespeare; was basically saying: "Fake it 'till you make it".
And I get how that line alone might lead someone who hasn't read the play to think that he is right, but to someone who is familiar with the entire scene, it just looks like he searched "Quotes about acting" on Google and clicked on the first link that showed up.
Now, however much I disliked the book says nothing about it's actual impact. Kleon wrote this for his younger self and for people who struggle with the same issues he struggled with.
Am I one of those people? No, not in the past six years at least. But I knew that everytime I saw this book being sold, advertised, talked about...I didn't have any intention of reading it because nothing about it seemed appealing or helpful to me. However, Christmas came around and I got it as gift from a person who I had met quite recently and since I don't like having a pile of unread books laying around, I gave it a try.
Don't let my review persuade you into not giving the book a try if it looks interesting to you, but if you're like me and always thought everything about it felt gimmicky, then trust me my friend, you are definitively right.
Kleon takes a bunch of short quotes by famous artists to justify rather shallow ideas.
What he actually defends here is simply having influences and letting go of the illusion that you can create something 100% original. Now, you tell me, what living artist above the age of twenty doesn't know that?
He lost me completely when he claimed that the famous line "All the world's a stage, And all men and women, merely Players; They have their exits and their entrances." from As You Like It, by Shakespeare; was basically saying: "Fake it 'till you make it".
And I get how that line alone might lead someone who hasn't read the play to think that he is right, but to someone who is familiar with the entire scene, it just looks like he searched "Quotes about acting" on Google and clicked on the first link that showed up.
Now, however much I disliked the book says nothing about it's actual impact. Kleon wrote this for his younger self and for people who struggle with the same issues he struggled with.
Am I one of those people? No, not in the past six years at least. But I knew that everytime I saw this book being sold, advertised, talked about...I didn't have any intention of reading it because nothing about it seemed appealing or helpful to me. However, Christmas came around and I got it as gift from a person who I had met quite recently and since I don't like having a pile of unread books laying around, I gave it a try.
Don't let my review persuade you into not giving the book a try if it looks interesting to you, but if you're like me and always thought everything about it felt gimmicky, then trust me my friend, you are definitively right.