Is it unreasonable to criticise a book without having read it?

[NumTumDeDum]

I have in mind 50 Shades of Grey as an example here but I suppose it could be any piece of writing - daily mail articles, political books.

I've read reviews of 50 shades, almost all those I read criticise the subject matter, the style of writing and several express a view that they wish they hadn't bothered to read it.

Can't remember why it came up but dp reckons you can't criticise something unless you've read it. Now normally I might be of that view, but in this case, I'm satisfied that particular book is a pile of shite. I refuse to read it. AIBU?

MorrisZapp, ah, but the thing is that a lot of female authors get "pinkified" and the blurb and cover of their books are not under their control. I mean, you're right about Shopaholic, but, eg., Catherine Alliott is bloody brilliant, especially her later books, but because they're technically chicklit they're easily dismissed.

Trills has it with the distinction between criticising the content and the writing, though. I can dismiss Fifty Shades's subject matter without having read it because of its origin as Twilight fanfic, the squicky awful power dynamics, etc (and I do think that if you've read enough trusted reviews, talked to enough people, etc., you can trust the consensus view). I can dismiss it as a load of poorly written shite having read the first chapter.

It's nonsense to say that you have to read a book all the way through to form an opinion of it. There is no way in hell I am ever reading Dan fucking Brown, and I am utterly and completely right about that.

Depends, I read the first two books of the Twilight series and didn't have to read Breaking Dawn to know it made no sense Jacob was secretly in love with Bella's period and that was just bad, creepy writing.

Tortoise has a very good point about "pink" books - authors don't generally say "my book is a pink book", their books get placed there by the marketing departments of the publishers, by people who probably know little more than "it's about a 20something woman and her friends". I don't want to let them decide if a book is for me or not. They haven't even read it themselves.

I recently got sent a book about runaway children from the MN book club. It's a very good book for children and a serious topic. Yet the cover was pinkified chick lit light (because the main character is a girl and it was written by a woman, so it must be only for girls). Honestly it looks like a fairy princess book. The cover really does the book a disservice. DS1 looked at it in horror, but I might eventually persuade him to read it once he's finished reading about vampire apocalypse.

I only have to look at the people I know who liked 50SoG and the people I know who didn't, to know it is complete and utter tosh.

YANBU. You don't have to directly experience something in order to decide you'd rather not experience it. It's called 'judgement' rather than criticism.

Cogito - therefore you are saying that it is not unreasonable to make a judgement, but it may stilll be unreasonable to criticise.

(I think you are right that that is what the OP is asking - she is not talking about literary criticism)

YANBU

I slagged off Bridget Jones (unread) to, unbeknown to me - Helen Fielding's best friend.

Arbitrary you are so right. I write novels and they have gradually been pushed into the category of 'women's fiction' by my editors (some of them women). This means they get silly covers, usually with the backs of women in them. Because, obviously, you wouldn't want a man to read one of them by mistake. Even though the novels cover subjects such as (male) prisoners-of-war, (male) returning soldiers, murder, among other things. And because they have 'women's' covers and the silly women's fiction tag, it's much harder to get reviews, because books by men are much more likely to be reviewed. But that's a whole 'nother subject.

oxford - well, clearly it can be compared. We just did. There are books you might feel, morally, that you never want to read.

I mean, if you pay for a book, you're not just engaging in airy-fairy literary stuff, are you? You're propping up the author who wrote it.

I don't get why people are so scared to admit that some books might be full of bigotry that the world would be better off not seeing. They're not sacred objects, we are allowed to be disgusted by some plots/subjects on principle without first checking to see if the writer has a lovely literary style.

half - whoops! What did she say?

I read the first chapter of 50sog, and then flicked through and read bits and pieces to get a broad idea of the story. I've done the same with the other two.

I think that gives me enough insight to say, with some confidence that it is crap! The writing is repetitive and juvenile. It's full of annoying little writer's ticks, and the "hero" is a controlling twat who seems to revel in his ishoos as an explanation for why he likes to dominate and humiliate women. The main character appears completely bewildered by the whole scenario and her motivations are odd and clunky.

I've also seen some thoroughly unpleasant stuff in the bits I read - the bit about the baby liking sex already for example.

I can't criticise the story in any sort of depth from dipping in and out. But I can still form the opinion that the writing and premise are shit!

Yy tortoise - I've seen a pinkified Lionel Shriver cover which I'm sure she was about, and there was that Anne of Green Gables cover with a blonde, teenage, pouting Anne.

There is no way that one can read all the well written books in the world. So you have to make some judgements, and I think Trills's distinction between judgement and criticism is a good one.

@Trills... exactly. You can, on the strength of other people's reactions, newspaper reports, past record of the author etc, form a judgement about a book. Isn't that how most of us are persuaded to read something new in the first place? The OP is entitled to criticise the genre, the subject matter and so on. Whether it's well-written or not probably can't be judged unless you've read it.

I'm sure everyone's read a book they've heard good things about and found it disappointing. I'm sure everyone's read a book they were determined to avoid and found either it was just as bad as they thought or it was a pleasant surprise. Judgement...

Malenky She was surprisingly gracious - I think I'd stolen her thunder though as it was just a couple of days before the premiere of the film and I think she was about to stealth boast and I wrote it off as "piece of shit for lily-livered women in need of a grip".

*Obv. I actually in the end read the book and loved it. [doubleblush]

What I mean is, what with HF being a singleton, the woman in question was Helen's significant other for the red carpet and I totally poo-poohed her big day.

50 Shades is dire. I also gave up after Chapter One. It's very poorly written and the sex scenes are laughably bad. Erotic my arse. It's no surprise to me that it started life at Twiglight fan fix, because those books are also a load of badly written shite.

I haven't read 50 Shades because I knew it would not be for me.

I've read enough bad books to be able to recognise and avoid (at least some) other bad books when I see them now.

Lionel Shriver's Kevin is one of my favourites though, and I once had a discussion with someone about why she didn't like it.

I'm used to people not liking Eva (although I love her) or worrying about the subject being too upsetting but this person didn't like the book because "there were too many words in it, I think there could have been less of them."

I always like to make my own decisions about things, but each to their own I guess.

Incidentally, I loved 50 shades, but that's because having read the reviews, I wasn't expecting Shakespeare, just a bit of light reading Erotica. And that's what it was.

Everyone is different and everyone enjoys different things. I also loved HP, Twilight Saga, City of Bones etc and now I'm reading the Beautiful Creatures series. I like easy, light and entertaining reading without having to think too much about it.

Malenky, saying you just made a comparison, doesn't make it a logical or valid one. If I was to break an egg into a bag of flour and call it a cake, it wouldn't actually be a cake. And if you weren't determined to limit yourself, you might actually discover that Nabokov wasn't actually a paedophile, nor does Lolita support, minimise or excuse that sickness at any point. It does the exact opposite. You don't need to read any book in the world, ever, but you seem to be under the impression that it, and the author, are something they are not. Of course you don't have to read it, but at least find out some basic facts before you start asserting totally wrong stuff about it!

Actually, if people really want curb paedophilia, they could do worse than read Lolita, because it really lays bare the mindset of such perverts, and the subtle techniques they use to inviegle their way into the lives of children, their families, etc.

Anyway, I'll shut up now, cos I'm not that bothered about Lolita, just get annoyed with people asserting misinformation.

Of course you can form an opinion of anything at face value.

But I don't think your opinion can carry any real weight if you haven't read it?

Of course you can criticise the idea of something. Saying"From what I've heard about it I don't fancy it at all, it doesn't look like the kind of thing I'd enjoy" is fine.

But criticising the content without reading is surely impossible. Plus I find that I'm often surprised and books I thought I would dislike I enjoy, and vice versa!

Making a comparison is not the same thing as stating that one thing is another. That's why it's called a comparison.

I'm not particularly determined to 'limit' myself, nor did I say Nabokov was a paedophile. That was the product of your own fevered imagination.

I just said there are some things I don't especially want to read, on principle, and I reckon it's fine to say that.

You are demonstrating rather well that reading something (in this case, my posts) doesn't necessarily mean you actually understood what was there, since you seem to have extrapolated some rather bizarre conclusions!

How's about not calling it 'misinformation' when you've made up a little story and attributed it to me, huh?

I wouldnt read Fifty shades of whatever it sounds awful a sex contract and the author looks a bit desperate . I also Judge twilight have never read them dont want to I think they send out a terrible message to girls, I have seen the film good gawd it was awful

I think what bothers me more is people who choose to judge your intelligence based on the books you read. Yes, I've read 50 Shades (it wasn't amazing but it killed an hour) and you'll find it on my Nook along with To Kill a Mockingbird, Hamlet and Homer's Iliad.

I can't actively criticise what I haven't read but I do know what I like. I can say that I'm 99% sure I'd not enjoy Ian Fleming books but unless I actually read them I can never be certain.

I agree with that, plain. I read the 'pink' books that are getting a kicking on this thread and I find they vary a lot. Some are terrible, some are well-written. It seems to be acceptable to say you're not that into chick lit, or genre fiction of one or another kind, but not acceptable to write off even one author from the pantheon of 'classics'.

I get that reading classics probably gives you a higher chance of finding something amazing, but it's only a consensus and in some ways quite a snobby/biased one, IMO.

I've read enough about Twilight and 50 Shades to know they're not what I would choose to pick up, and I am happy to say that is because they sound like they're shit.

Life is too short.