Snark, It's Mean, It's Personal, and It's Ruining Our… (alkuperäinen julkaisuvuosi 2009; vuoden 2009 painos)

Too much of this slim volume was spent on the history of snark as well as splitting the hairs of snark, satire and criticism. While the definitions are important I would have appreciated more time on the impact that snark has on our conversations these days. Of course, the book was written in 2008 (published in 2009) and I'm reading it through the TikTok, Facebook, Twitter lens of 2020, so perhaps that's enough to slant my view. Perhaps it's time for an update? ( )

The author presents a series of poorly-organised, hostile and ill-supported criticisms of what he sees as poorly-organised, hostile, and ill-supported criticism. There's actually a whole section in here about another writer that he doesn't like. As a monument to the author's lack of self-awareness and the editor's apparent disinterest in the affair, it's actually an intriguing artefact, but it's tedious to read. ( )

Stop trying to make yourself look smart by cutting down other people. Be civil for once. Satire is useful and interesting. Snark is easy and lowbrow. ( )

“Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this.”

That’s a quote from Ecclesiastes. That means people have been going on and on about the good old days for thousands of years. They’ve been doing it for so long that God had to tell them to cut it out, already. (It didn’t work, but I appreciate Him trying.)

Snark is a decent book, but in my eyes it’s marred by frequent laments about how much nicer people used to be. Laments written by a solidly middle class American white man of a certain age. Hmm.

Also – okay, let me preface this complaint by pointing out that because I’m weird, I grew up reading Lewis Carroll’s poem The Hunting of the Snark. We had an illustrated copy around, and as a kid I read it incessantly. I have whole stretches of it memorized, and let me tell you, that’s exactly the kind of thing that will get you not invited to the really good birthday parties.

I’m a fan, is what I’m saying. So when I also say that David Denby’s references to this strange poem are strained and disruptive, he’d best listen. I’m his potential fan base, and he’s alienating me.

This book sets out to explain why snark is dangerous and destructive. To do that, Denby has to define what snark is.

“Snark,” he explains early on, “is a teasing, rug-pulling form of insult that attempts to steal someone’s mojo, erase her cool, annihilate her effectiveness, and it appeals to a knowing audience that shares the contempt of the snarker and therefore understands whatever references he makes.”

Fair enough, and nicely put. Snark also, Denby says, has a certain “whatever” quality. It “attacks without reason,” because the snarker doesn’t care about anything and has no larger point to make. Snarking is kneejerk sneering.

Good point. Definitely something to think about.

But that doesn’t take a whole book to say. And this is a short book that still feels longer than it needs to be, because this should have been an essay. I found myself growing restless long before the end, and this book is only 128 pages including acknowledgements and a reference list.

Also, Denby includes a paragraph of his own New Yorker writing that he was surprised to hear accused of snarkiness, and it’s the snarkiest damn thing you ever read. It’s too long to include here, but here’s a bit of it:

“Ben Stiller’s face seems constructed by someone playing with the separate eyes, noses, and mouths of a children’s mix-and-match book. There’s nothing wrong with the features, but they don’t quite go together.”

He goes on some more about Stiller’s physical features. On and on and on. He admits that this passage might be “nasty. But is it snark? I leave it to the reader to decide.”

Well, Denby defines snark as “hazing on a page.” So far, so snarky. There’s the abovementioned “whatever principle” – snarkers “attack without reason.” What’s the reason behind going on and on about how someone looks? Denby is a movie reviewer for a magazine that prides itself on offering intellectual fare to educated readers. I quoted less than half of what he had to say about Stiller’s face. I think that adds up to “guilty as charged.” And since the Stiller paragraph was quoted early on, it colored the rest of the book for me.

So: get this book from the library. Read the first and fifth chapters. Also the one about Maureen Dowd.

If you’re a control freak, read the rest of it. (Then again, if you’re a control freak, there’s no way you were able to read the fifth chapter without reading the four preceding it, so never mind.) If you’re a more relaxed sort, trust me – you’ve now read all the good parts.
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This book has the dubious honor of being only the second book I have ever thrown in the garbage, so that no one else would waste a moment of their precious time reading my copy. Other reviewers have thoroughly detailed its myriad problems with accuracy and being heinously guilty of the snark it claims to revile, so I won't re-hash. I will, however, chime in with the chorus of reviewers who find Mr. Denby's style pompous and sufficiently awful as to be downright unreadable. If I could give it zero stars, I would. Thank goodness I wasted only a dollar on this horrid little book. ( )