Outside Reading: Book Review

          Dwight Garner opens Carter, Reagan and Freaky Times, his review of Dominic Sandbrook’s “Mad as Hell”, about as awkwardly as a really bad cliché comparison, attempting to intrigue the reader with “The cultural politics of the 1970s is irresistible to historians, the way the decade’s dance music is irresistible to D.J.’s at weddings.” I gave Garner the benefit of the doubt and accepted this could be considered comedic, I then cringed at his attempt at humor; I knew that the article was going to be a struggle. Garner leads into the body of his review with more awkward sentences, his random asyndeton tripping up readers “…these presidencies are so familiar that you can hum nostalgically, dismally along.” It is unnecessary and adds to the recurring inelegance, only causing discomfort that discredits his own criticisms. 
          The following paragraph is a train-wreck, crushing any hope that Garner might have anything useful to say. An elaborate lead in, to the simple point that “Mad as Hell” is special, is used for another pathetic attempt at humor- “At first glance, there’s not much that makes ‘Mad as Hell’ — the title is a reference to a famous scene from the film ‘Network’ — stand out on the history table at your local Borders. (If your town still has its Borders.) But if you look closer, some not uninteresting details pop out.” The stab at Borders is off topic and not funny. And then there’s the explanation of the title, Garner chooses possibly the worst place to tell the reader the origin of the book’s title. The explanation elongates the dizzying sentence; it is as if Garner is saying whatever comes into his mind, whenever he wants. Again Garner finishes his paragraph with poor word choice, “some not uninteresting details pop out.” 
          Garner then goes on to give the reader a brief biography of Sandbrook rather than doing his job and reviewing the book. He starts this history lesson with a half-hearted attempt at anaphora. He then mentions that Sandbrook is a “young fogy” and was born in 1974, contradicting his previous statement that the presidents and times Sandbrook writes about are “are so familiar that you can hum nostalgically”. Garner never properly ends this look at the author. 
          The rest of the article is full of school boy errors and complete lack of flow. I tripped over his wording left, right, and center; “I skimmed the acknowledgments, too, before committing to read ‘Mad as Hell.’” Garner leads into quotes almost as poorly as this lead in, “Here’s the lovely way Mr. Sandbrook thanks his wife at book’s end: ” He then quotes lengthy passages and never explains them. He simply rides off Sandbrook’s humor. After three block paragraph quotes one starts to feel that he is just filling the page.  Garner makes the error that all students are told to vehemently avoid when writing book reviews, do not summarize. He effectively spends the latter half of his article writing a long blurb, barely touching on technique, style, or imagery. He closes suddenly and with the same choppy style one sees throughout the piece.