It’s an intellectual treat when somebody reviews a really good book, when the reviewer sinks their teeth into an author’s work, adding additional nuance and insight in a review which both explains and expands on the original argument and analysis.
It may be an intellectual treat, but let’s be honest: it’s not half as much fun as when somebody absolutely goes to town on a book (Think: Joseph Esherick eviscerating James Hevia a decade back) shredding it with analysis and a bit of wit.
For those who enjoy a good dust-up (and who among us doesn’t?) be sure to check out Pierre Fuller’s scorch of Jasper Becker’s new book, Beijing: City of Heavenly Tranquility.
I’ve not read Becker’s book yet, so I can’t speak to the validity of Fuller’s critique, but the review was fun to read…the literary equivalent of a crane kick to the face. By the end of it, I could hear the faint voices of academia whispering: “Finish him, Johnny! Sweep the leg!”
So true! And nicely put, as always. Uplift, insight and the advancement of human knowledge are all worthy endeavors and we should sing their praises to our children. But who among us would not prefer to whiff the acrid smoke rising from a systematic and thorough demolition of a deserving target?
brilliant. although, to be fair, fuller was probably being generous with becker, if his most recent book was anywhere near as amateurish as his hackneyed and jingoistic presentation on north korea at the AAS a couple of years ago.
this line in particular is nice:
First off, Beijing’s ugliness, its conveniences, its empty renewals, its state surveillance of people’s lives, these things are no “pretensions to modernity.” These things are modernity.
“…reporting on China – on anywhere – is troubling when uninformed and unhumbled by a comparative look at one’s origins…”
Sounds like Becker deserves a mauling, but I can’t agree with Fuller’s assertion that an author needs to juxtapose the subject with his/her own roots.
A viewpoint or criticism doesn’t necessarily require reflection on one’s origins, or the history of one’s homeland, in order to be valid. Indeed, it could be argued that a more objective report is produced when such intellectual baggage is binned before committing pen to paper.
Syz,
Well put. It’s a guilty pleasure to be sure, but nevertheless…
Wu Ming,
I agree: It’s a lovely turn of phrase and a point worth emphasizing.
Stuart,
I might agree that an explicitly comparative methodology is not always appropriate, but I suspect Fuller is arguing that Becker himself is not always aware of the intellectual baggage weighing down his analysis. Again, I haven’t read the book, so I’m reading into what Fuller might have meant rather than indicting Becker myself.
if i am reading fuller correctly it’s the general way that becker (and many commentators on china) treats the consequences of modernity as uniquely chinese problems, and omitting the global experience of modernity (in all its ugliness, destruction and repression) in his own country, which he’s contrasting favorably (or would that be favourably?) with china for rhetorical purposes.
not only would a comparative approach (or just a nod to same) illuminate what’s actually unique about chinese modernity, kitsch, urban renovation, etc., it would also prevent the sort of “who’s more civilized?” binary that becker toys with.
I can’t help but feel that he’s looking for the wrong things in Becker’s book, though; nobody expects deep analysis out of what is, essentially, a personal memoir of a city’s history by a journalist. (That said, the personal could have done with emphasising to make that point.) It’s not like his terrible book on North Korea, which is supposed to be a work of serious political reportage and analysis and is just … bad. So very, very bad. The strength of the book is in the vignettes and the interviews, not in the grand sweeping statements about the nature of China, but nobody – I hope – was buying it for the latter, whereas the former are very enjoyable and often illuminating.
That said, the book was crying out for a comparative evaluation, not with the British experience, but with other contemporary Asian cities – Seoul, most obviously.
BTW, that video’s pretty awesome.