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A review by ravuri
Snark: A Polemic in Seven Fits by David Denby
1.0
Intellectually lazy...
You've had this situation. There's six hours to go before a 10 page paper is due, and you haven't begun writing yet. You have this dynamite thesis and things seem to be really coming together in your head, but once you start putting pen to paper you find out the following: a) your world-shattering idea is not very concrete, b) you only have a couple pieces of good evidence, c) a number of your arguments stem from your own prejudices rather than fact, and d) oh shit, you still have 9.5 pages to go.
This is how I felt when reading Snark. I'm really disappointed, because I know that there is something going wrong in the discourse on public message boards, newspapers, politics, etc. and I was very much hoping that Denby could crystalize these vague feelings. Unfortunately, this book completely failed in this and other regards.
The problems start with trying to find a simple definition of snark. There isn't one. Denby gives us examples of what snark is and isn't, but these examples at best don't really serve to delineate between snark and otherwise, and at worst just serve to confuse. For example, Denby identifies South Park as a non-snark television show, but South Park combines social commentary with "lowbrow"* snark. So, what do you mean, Denby?
The history section is a complete throwaway (it is clear from his reading of Juvenal that he doesn't have a strong grasp of the text... I get the feeling that he likes that type of snark because it's old) and much of the historical context he tries to provide is just empty words on a page. The Anatomy of Style chapter would be better if he replaced his random new-media rants with fact (or even whitespace), and the other three chapters would just seem better if he included details that made me think he had a good grasp on the subject.
There are six pages (78-83) that are actually pretty good about the role of snark in the movie industry. This shouldn't be terribly surprising, as Denby is a movie reviewer for the New Yorker, and he has a good grasp on the subject material. He describes how snarky celeb websites, such as Perez Hilton, etc., use snark to damage the Hollywood star ecosystem and how they actually do reduce the level of public discourse. This material, however, should be in a blog post and not in a published book.
What seems to have happened (and this is just a random hypothesis), is that Denby saw snark in Perez Hilton, etc., thought he understood how it worked, and tried to create a book out of it. Unfortunately, he didn't, and the result is an intellectually lazy book that tells us more about Denby's own prejudices (he really does hate internet media and is much more sympathetic to its traditional counterpart) than about the role of snark in today's society.
In short, not recommended.
*"lowbrow" is according to Denby's "definition", which as far as I can tell, means something that's not "intellectual" (also "defined" by Denby).
You've had this situation. There's six hours to go before a 10 page paper is due, and you haven't begun writing yet. You have this dynamite thesis and things seem to be really coming together in your head, but once you start putting pen to paper you find out the following: a) your world-shattering idea is not very concrete, b) you only have a couple pieces of good evidence, c) a number of your arguments stem from your own prejudices rather than fact, and d) oh shit, you still have 9.5 pages to go.
This is how I felt when reading Snark. I'm really disappointed, because I know that there is something going wrong in the discourse on public message boards, newspapers, politics, etc. and I was very much hoping that Denby could crystalize these vague feelings. Unfortunately, this book completely failed in this and other regards.
The problems start with trying to find a simple definition of snark. There isn't one. Denby gives us examples of what snark is and isn't, but these examples at best don't really serve to delineate between snark and otherwise, and at worst just serve to confuse. For example, Denby identifies South Park as a non-snark television show, but South Park combines social commentary with "lowbrow"* snark. So, what do you mean, Denby?
The history section is a complete throwaway (it is clear from his reading of Juvenal that he doesn't have a strong grasp of the text... I get the feeling that he likes that type of snark because it's old) and much of the historical context he tries to provide is just empty words on a page. The Anatomy of Style chapter would be better if he replaced his random new-media rants with fact (or even whitespace), and the other three chapters would just seem better if he included details that made me think he had a good grasp on the subject.
There are six pages (78-83) that are actually pretty good about the role of snark in the movie industry. This shouldn't be terribly surprising, as Denby is a movie reviewer for the New Yorker, and he has a good grasp on the subject material. He describes how snarky celeb websites, such as Perez Hilton, etc., use snark to damage the Hollywood star ecosystem and how they actually do reduce the level of public discourse. This material, however, should be in a blog post and not in a published book.
What seems to have happened (and this is just a random hypothesis), is that Denby saw snark in Perez Hilton, etc., thought he understood how it worked, and tried to create a book out of it. Unfortunately, he didn't, and the result is an intellectually lazy book that tells us more about Denby's own prejudices (he really does hate internet media and is much more sympathetic to its traditional counterpart) than about the role of snark in today's society.
In short, not recommended.
*"lowbrow" is according to Denby's "definition", which as far as I can tell, means something that's not "intellectual" (also "defined" by Denby).