
The Art of the
Book Review
A Didactic Poem

I know it feels like effort gone to waste,
The way that nature left us with the taste
To crush our rivals with a crushing force,
When laws have blocked now this and now that course;
But luckily one forum does remain
For letting nature do as nature fain:
No laws oppress it and no courts arraign;
The field lies open for a safe attack,
To thwack and have no fear of thwacking back.
The secret is to author a review
And give the killer instinct aught to do.
To let this chance go by, could only be
What critics call missed opportunity.
The first and most important rule of art
For those of you uncertain how to start
Is to be sure to miss the book’s whole point
That like a door that’s hanging off its joint
Or railway car that never had a rail
The book appear an undisputed fail.
The thing is simply done and never stale.
A book with theoretical intent
Though read with interest, you must lament
Empirical shortcomings so severe
That you can find no contribution there.
In contrast is the data-driven book
Whose grasp of theory makes it rather look
Like something that a freshman class mistook.
A book that’s short, is not considered whole,
If it would reach what never was its goal;
A longer book is crammed with excess stuff
(Though even so, its proofs are not enough).
Shed praise upon the research area
But find the contribution weirdly blah.
Reserve your praise for what was never said
So that it stays ambiguous what you read.
A touch of holy innocence will do
Such that reviewing badly seems not you,
You might protest that you sincerely tried
But found all understanding was denied,
Nor could you follow anything it said;
Not one discursive thought came in your head.
The mantic manner, uttering on high
Will also serve for skating details by;
Words like surprising, blithe, and cavalier
But lightly touched, become the basest smear.
But best of all, adopt the tone aggrieved,
Which must be personal to be believed,
So great a shock, your upset arteries seethed,
The book’s an insult and it must be stopped
Lest anyone the perverse thought adopt.
Be guardian of the old and tried and trite:
If anything seems new, reject on sight.
Reserve your praise for theses long since made,
And if the book says anything so staid
It’s in the encyclopedia, praise that.
Already the review is getting fat.
Make sure, the things you criticize
You do yourself: that takes the prize.
If excess generality you brand,
Be every bit as sweeping in your stand.
An undercooked idea will contravene
The undercooked idea that touched your spleen.
It often helps to get the pages wrong,
Reverse some theses and complain too long.
Fail not to skim the bibliography
And chances are there’s something you won’t see,
Some not quite fitting piece that got left out,
Which you then lend a magisterial clout,
As wondrously illumining the field,
And prove how little does the new book yield.
It’s not as if reviews get peer-reviewed:
Say what you will and fear not getting booed.
It’s possible that some of you object
Your gravitas is rendered as suspect
By blatant errors and assertions coarse:
It’s quite untrue. When errors are the worse,
The more your confidence appears secure.
Talent is not what scholarship is for.
The end, of course, demands a different tone;
The calumnies you made, you must disown
With sweetly words like “Worth the reading still”
And unspecific parts called valuable:
The human touch that like a vicious kiss
Shows in relief the pitiableness
That any author spent a life on this.
For really there is only one command
To have the whole reviewer’s art in hand.
This is to make the author cast about
In something like to existential doubt,
No longer seeing what before was seen,
Unclear on what their argument had been,
Until you get them near to full defeat,
Which sooner done or later, means delete.
Andrew Horne
If you have any thoughts about this poem, Andrew Horne would be pleased
to hear them