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We’ve all heard of books being reviewed after being lightly read or even unread, but how about a careful reading and a harsh review of a book that doesn’t exist? This news brief from ‘The Local’ forwarded by friend Mirco Tonin:
A book reviewer on a Swedish newspaper has got himself into hot water for writing a review of a book that has not been written. To make matters worse, Kristian Lundberg claimed the book’s plot was ‘predictable’ and said the characterizations were one-dimensional.
Lundberg made the comments in Helsingborgs Daglad, in an article about recently published thrillers, reports Dagens Nyheter. Among those he reviewed were Britt-Marie Mattsson’s novel Fruktans Makt (The Power of Fear).
Unfortunately for Lundberg, while the book had been advertised in Publisher Piratforlaget’s autumn catalogue, Mattsson never actually got round to writing it.
The newspaper has made an ‘unreserved apology’ to Mattsson. Lundberg’s apology was more qualified. He told Svensk Bokhandel magazine that he had ‘got worked up in advance about Britt-Marie Mattsson because I detest her so very greatly. But let’s hope the book is published so I get the chance to say it for real.’
Mattsson has not yet made her views on the subject known. But Piratforlaget’s spokesman Mattias Bostrom said it confirmed what they’d suspected about reviewers.
‘We’ve known for a long time that reviewers skim-read books, but now we know what really happens,’ he told Dagens Nyheter.
Thank you Mirco. I love the wonderful absence of contrition by critic Lundberg: he cannot wait for The Power of Fear to be actually written, so he can review it by not reading it for a second time.
December 18th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
OK, someone please explain to me why this person still has a job reviewing books. Were I the editor, my first words to the reviewer would be, “I thought you should know McDonald’s is advertising for fry cooks. Would you like to postpone this meeting while you fill out an application?”
December 18th, 2006 at 3:36 pm
Oh, nice! This one takes criticism to an altogether different level. It now becomes oracular. Since I don’t believe this happens all that much, and since I have found American reviewers to be generally very forgiving, I’m only amused.
I have to wonder what the author did to make the critic so angry. Does the critic have a motive? Is it personal? Or is she somehow in his view hurting people by writing what she writes? Do authors have a responsibility to the public? Do critics have a responsibility to public and authors?
Does advertising hype enter somewhere into this?
Anyway: thanks. I liked this one.
December 18th, 2006 at 3:58 pm
I agree with Lundberg – Fruktans Makt is a risible book with paper-thin characterization and a plot that can only be described as slight.
As an aside here, for a long time I was listed on Amazon.de as the author of a book called something along the lines of “All the Flowers are Dying” (except in German, of course). It goes without saying that I didn’t write the book and have never had a German deal.
December 18th, 2006 at 7:27 pm
I don’t speak Swedish, but doesn’t Piratvorlaget look a lot like “Pirate Publications”?
April 26th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
The reason Piratförlaget looks like Pirate Publications is that it literally means what it looks like.
The people behind it were controversial thirty years ago. They have since attained great commercial success but failed in their repeated attempts at staying controversial.