Louise Willder - Blurb Your Enthusiasm

 

Rating: 5/5

 

Review:

A gem of a book 

 

I absolutely loved Blurb Your Enthusiasm. It was a recommendation and I wasn’t sure I’d be all that keen, but it’s fascinating, laugh-out-loud funny, very perceptive and completely compelling.

Louise Willder has been a copy writer for over twenty years and really knows what she’s talking about. She has read a huge number and a vast range of books, and both her knowledge and her engaging love of books shows through consistently. She is quite brilliant on the use of language, I think, quoting some excellent examples and analysing what makes good writing in a variety of contexts. She also has a very clear-eyed view of publishing and isn’t reverential where she thinks pomposity or pretence needs to be punctured.

There are sections on all sorts of things, including various genres, what makes a good book within them and what makes a good blurb in each case. Willder is often enthusiastic, sometimes withering but always thoughtful and enjoyable to read. There are also some wider reflections on books and publishing, including an excellent section on sexism and how it affects perceptions and the presentation of a book. It’s witty and punchy, making a not-at-all-funny subject very readable. (And boy, did it make me think!)

Most importantly, the book is immensely entertaining; I couldn’t wait to get back to it, which is by no means always the case for me with non-fiction (nor always with fiction, come to that). It has pointed me to a lot of things I really want to read – always a good sign – I laughed regularly and thought a lot. I highlighted far too many passages to quote here, but just as a sample, Willder quotes lots of pithy book comments by others. I really liked Margaret Atwood's 6-word story: "Yearned for him. Got him. Shit!" and the summary of Crime And Punishment: "Man talks about an axe for three chapters. You put down the book never to return." (I have twice struggled to about page 150 of Crime And Punishment before losing the will to live...) Or someone's translation of adjectives in book blurbs:

"Charming: there's a child in it

Heartwarming: a child and a dog

Moving: child dies

Heartrending: dog dies."

Or her take on the sort of Literary Fiction where nothing really happens: “You know the kind of book. They win prizes. There generally isn’t much in the way of a plot. Or if there is, it’s something along the lines of woman goes away and finds herself, someone thinks about an event from their past, or sad middle-aged man has an affair – or even just considers said affair and doesn’t go through with it.” Followed a little later by “... Thomas Pynchon’s notoriously ‘difficult’ (in other words, mainly read by show-offs) novel Gravity’s Rainbow…. I wonder how many people have read it and then not told anybody they’ve read it? Zero, I suspect. Because the point of books like these is that they are an Iron Man literary challenge, and once you’ve been macho enough to read them you can boast about it.”

Or this, talking about thinking one must enjoy “classics”: “My most important classics principle, however, is this: some of them are definitely better than others, and you don’t have to like all of them. Magical realism, the Beats and most ‘Great American Novels’ have never done it for me, and I am at peace with that.” Whether you agree with her taste here or not, that’s a sensible, humane and, for me, helpful and encouraging approach.

I love all that and loved the book. (And anyway, anyone who says that Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker is a masterpiece, that her new favourite detective is DI Manon Bradshaw and that Sue Townsend is a stone cold comic genius can Do No Wrong in my view.) Blurb Your Enthusiasm is a real gem and anyone with any interest in books will enjoy it immensely, I think.

 

(My thanks to Oneworld for an ARC via NetGalley.)