i’ve just finished Malcolm Gladwell’s “outliers”. I find myself in the position of having read each of his three books, which is odd since I don’t really like any of them. There was an interesting blog post citing his (and his growing army of write-alikes) anecdotal style. I think this is a slightly unfair criticism, but as Terry said, when discussing this the other night, “it had to be said”.
the problem with the books is not that they communicate ideas through anecdotes at all. if you removed all anecdotes, what would be left would be worth reading. The guy is a journalist who likes a bit of science, well social science. In another world he would produce pop-science books. but he is a journalist and what he does is write new yorkerish prose, that’s to say that entertainment comes first. but if i wanted to read entertainment i would steer well clear of gladwell. at the end of this book you get an epilogue and, hey, it’s his own family’s story. i read precisely one page and nearly threw it onto the tracks at London Bridge station. i walked to the news-stand and bought the evening standard in the hope that its reactionary invective would remove the icky syrupy taste from my mouth.
no. out of every gladwell book could be made a perfectly satisfying and informative pamphlet, probably 20 pages long. i don’t mean that it could be condensed, rather that all the dross could be expunged leaving something worth reading. and it is worth reading.
