So here’s a funny thing, I was just checking my Facebook account and noticed that I had two new friend requests. Neither were from people whose names I recognised. One had a message attached saying “John Donnelly said I should get in touch”, and then, more oddly - since these two requests were supposed to be from different people - the message from the second prospective ‘friend’ just read: “Same here.” Was it mere coincidence that I had just joined the Facebook group for Donnelly’s forthcoming play Songs of Grace and Redemption at Theatre 503, or had I just made friends with two fictional characters?
As a way of marketing a piece of fringe theatre, using Facebook came into its own as a virtual Royal Mile throughout August with at least three new groups springing up every day to shove paperless flyers in your face in the months leading up to the Fringe. But this is far more interesting. By putting characters from a play on Facebook (or similar) writers, performers or directors can offer tantalising glimpses into the play, characters’ back-stories, or even playing out parts of the script in “Wall posts” - interacting all the while with potential audience members. It’s a clever new variant on the old guerrilla-marketing tactics deployed by films like The Blair Witch Project, or the LonelyGirl_15 phenomena on YouTube.
I wonder if we’ll reach a stage where this sort of thing becomes de rigueur. As West End musicals start to crank up their publicity campaigns ahead of opening, will we all be being invited to make “friends” with Edna Turnblad and Velma Von Tussle and watch videos of these fictional creations singing in real-lfe settings, while reading about their likes and dislikes? When the RSC comes to the Roundhouse, is Hamlet going to be friend-requesting me, so I can continually watch him update his status: “Hamlet is too much i’ the sun”; “Hamlet is a rogue and peasant slave”; “Hamlet is but mad north-north-west” etc. Will it become the natural first step for any method actor playing a part to immediately register their new character on Facebook? (Incidentally, on the subject of Hamlet, who thought this was a good idea?)
Of this current experiment, Donnelly says:
“If Songs of Grace and Redemption is about anything, it’s about living in the moment. And the characters try and sometimes fail to do that. Partly they do this by reinventing themselves, and Facebook seems like a good way of doing that, so it’s not completely random. The characters who’ve poked/made friends with/bitten you are doing it because they’re lonely. So be nice to them.”
The Facebook group in question is here.
Theatre 503's website
Update: Ian Shuttleworth reminds me that the Channel 4 series Skins was probably the first to use this virtual character interaction, with its cast of characters all having their own MySpace profiles.
In the meantime, fragments of Donnelly's imagination have now started flirting with me. I was surprised to discover that one had written the following on my Wall: "Hey sexy boy. when am I going to see you next for cocktails and gossip?"
_____________________________________________
I saw A Disappearing Number last night and when the red mist clears I'll write it up. Andrew Field describes the show brilliantly here and has pretty much the same problems with it that I did, albeit with an apparently better temper about the whole thing.
*Term first coined as attempt to describe Hippo World Guest Book. Remind me that at some point I want to write an article about representations of the internet in theatre.
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Friday, 14 September 2007
Saturday, 8 September 2007
The Wolf is just crazy for representations of himself...*
Mixed Bag
As you will have noticed, following the over-productive splurge last weekend, posting rather dropped off this week on account of going back to my week-on/week-off day job. I shan’t bore you with details, suffice it to say that it involves some pretty anti-social hours which largely prohibit theatre-going (except matinees – see: The Emperor Jones). It also involves reading a lot of newspapers, summaries of newspapers, and some very odd magazines (both consumer and trade). As a result, I wind up better-informed but often depressed about: the state of the country, the state of its economy, health issues, or, most usually, the appalling rubbish in some of our nation’s newspapers...
Standards (double)
The snippet which caught my eye today comes from page 11 of the Daily Star:
“Model Danielle Lloyd and Big Brother bitch Charley Uchea compete for the title of Dumb and Dumber on tonight's charity edition of the Weakest Link.”
To fully appreciate this slight, if jaw-dropping, item, one must know that Danielle Lloyd is a regular on the pages of the Daily Star through her “glamour modelling” work. One must then remember that Danielle Lloyd was one the three young women involved in the Celebrity Big Brother racism farrago. Those with an eye for detail may also wish to recall that, in spite of the relish with which the Daily Star roundly traduced Danielle’s co-CBB housemate Jade Goody, the paper dismissed any charges against Lloyd herself almost out of hand. Fact fans might also like to note that “Big Brother bitch Charley Uchea” herself was on the receiving end of a racial epithet during the series that has just finished.
Tactless or pointed?
Meanwhile, over at the Daily Telegraph grumpy opinion-former Simon Heffer is fulminating over the newest ravages of modernity in his Saturday round-up. Under the unambiguous heading “Don't hire anyone who is on Facebook” (scroll down) the incorrigible Tory pumpkin rages against the “overgrown children” who are wasting a reported 233 million hours a month by looking at Facebook while they are at work instead of working. His solution is strong medicine indeed. Employers are urged to “see whether prospective employees are signed up to this service, and not even to ask them for an interview if they are.”
It is tempting to wonder what has prompted this outburst. It is also interesting to ponder what would happen were the policy to be applied retrospectively; perhaps in Simon’s own workplace. After all, the Telegraph would be a very different creature without Matthew D’ancona, Sam Leith, Harry Mount, Bryony Gordon, and Damian Thompson – all of whom have Facebook accounts. The question is, is Simon trying to tell everyone something?
Pointeder and Pointeder
Staying with the Telegraph, David Cameron - trailing a live online interview session with readers of the paper on Tuesday – has the following to say:
“I know, that many Daily Telegraph readers want answers to some simple questions - about what our party stands for today, and about what Britain will look like after five years of a Cameron government... I have campaigned on new and - for some, unfamiliar - issues such as the environment and our quality of life, the NHS and the causes of crime; because I have said that gay people who make a commitment to each other should be valued in the way we value other couples who commit to each other; because I have argued that businesses should take their social responsibilities seriously; because I have tried to create opportunities for women and black people to get on in our party, many of you think that I'm not really a Conservative at all.”
Pretty damning stuff. I wonder if he’s thinking of anyone in particular; possibly someone without a Facebook account...
And on to The Wolf*
Firstly, thanks to everyone who made comments under my recent post on critical distance. I’m still thinking about it, and I’m not sure I’ve got any closer to working out what I think.
Alison, Australia sounds like a crazy place. All the critics are women? And they have relationships with artists, you say? Inconceivable! Actually, it was really refreshing to hear you say that. It at least demonstrates that another model is not only possible, but up-and-running somewhere. I have to confess Lyn's piece on critic/artist relations did provoke further soul-searching.
One of the things I think I ought to clarify is what I meant by “friends” or “know”. Or whatever. Happily, this also bleeds into a new topic that seems to have bubbled up on the blogs this week.
Let me start by saying, there’s nothing so wretched as trying to define how well you know someone, or to quantify how good a friend you are in someone else’s eyes - so bear with me when I sound especially awkward in the forthcoming couple of paragraphs. Another pair of similarly awful things is name-dropping and the idea of “fame” and/or “success”. I mention this as a plea of mitigation before launching into something that I really hope won’t turn into an article which should be called...
My Famous Friends
Bugger.
Part of the reason I was interested in what critics should do with artists who were their friends (or acquaintances, or whatever – I don’t want anyone to feel I’m staking claims on them here), is that at this year’s Festival a lot of people I know seemed to be doing spectacularly well. People with whom I was at University, or knew through the NSDF, or through friends were starting to appear on critical A-lists: Third Angel (featuring Lucy Ellinson, who was the first person I ever directed in a play, way back in 1998) were part of the British Council showcase season; Unlimited Theatre (who I’ve also known since Leeds) were much-garlanded for their show The Ethics of Progress; Richard Hurst (who I was introduced to a decade ago in Edinburgh) achieved West End transfers for two of the five Edinburgh shows he directed this year ( ); and Tom Basden (who –deep breath – I first met when he was in my friend Sarah Punshon’s 2001 Edinburgh ADC production of Agatha Christie’s The Secret Adversary); fellow blogger and erstwhile theatre critic Dan Bye (who incidentally is Sarah Punshon’s husband, and even before that was my friend at Leeds University)’s longstanding company Silver Tongue also gathered warm reviews for The Man Across The Way (currently running at Theatre 503).
Actually, a lot of other critics do have the same problem - not whether to avoid meeting new artists whose work interests and excites you, but what to do about longstanding friends or acquaintances whose work you can’t ignore. After all, these are longer-standing friends and acquaintances. When I was researching Raw Talent I was continually surprised by the number of critics who had appeared in productions which were selected to appear at the festival: Michael Billington (as director), Nicholas de Jongh (actor), Jane Edwardes (actor) and Dominic Cavendish (actor) all made appearances. I was even more surprised by who had appeared alongside them. Michael Billington has blogged before about acting with famous Oxford contemporaries. But how many people [unless the photograph was completely inaccurately labeled – which is entirely possible] knew that Jane Edwardes was at university (Manchester) with Anthony Sher and Bernard Hill and appeared in a production of ___ with them at the NSDF? Or that Dominic Cavendish played Claudius in a post-modern version of Hamlet directed by David Farr alongside a young Ben Miller (Armstrong and Miller, etc.) as The Dane? Ian Shuttleworth has certainly written before on the subject of being directed both by Sam Mendes and Roxanna Silbert, and on the legions of Cambridge actors with whom he appeared during his seven years there.
As I concluded last time, it needs must boil down to honesty. One gets a renewed sense of how hard that must sometimes be reading a very young (i.e. younger than me now) Ian Shuttleworth being honest about a production of Troilus and Cressida directed by his Cambridge contemporary Sam Mendes.
I want to be “typical”
Moving on a bit, to some of the questions that the responses to that Critical Distance argument for me, I’d like to start by noting two contrasting pieces on criticism. The first, by Lyn Gardner, asks simply “What separates theatre critics from other theatregoers?” The second, by Ian Shuttleworth for Theatre Record in 2004 looks at “the strategic - why a reviewer adopts a particular voice or perspective that runs through their work - and the tactical - the motivation behind a particular piece, or even a particular phrase.”.
Lyn asks: “How do you balance knowledge and previous experience in a way that is useful and provides context, but which doesn't create a barrier between you and the actual piece of work you are watching?”
This is a beautifully weighted way of putting it. Following on from reading her piece on critical distance, in which she argued “knowing too much about a production can be as disadvantageous as knowing too little... I try to avoid programmes for the same reason. I want to review the show, not the talk; what the theatre-maker is doing, not what they've told me in great detail that they intend to do.” The question this threw up for me was: if you've already seen umpteen Hamlets, why *not* read the director’s notes in the programme for the umpteenth-plus-one? I’m not sure that knowing what a director intends is any greater or lesser obstacle to really *seeing* the play as having seen a million previous version. It’s different, and of course I completely understand the impulse not to read programme notes – at least until afterwards.
The question also relates to the point Statler raises about trying to represent a “typical theatre-goer” - who might well read a programme before the show starts as part of the experience. This “typical” standpoint relates in part to what Ian Shuttleworth is discussing in his piece, and to the brief misunderstanding in the comments section between what Alison was deploring and Statler was actually standing for as regards the position of critic as “ordinary member of the public/typical theatergoer”. As Shuttleworth suggests, in 2004 there were at least two critics writing regularly for national publications whose basic positions were various shades of philistine skepticism (my words, not Shuttleworth’s). Statler’s position is clearly not that.
Screw “pretentious”
I am a little wary of reviewers who claim that they have a better claim to represent “ordinary/typical” people than other reviewers. Although all those who actually buy tickets (and indeed, don’t go to the theatre every night of the week) do make their case several notches more effectively. My problem, I guess, is that ultimately, if one is being honest, it is hard to gainsay how universal your own experience of anything might be. Indeed, trying to do so can potentially lead to problems.
After all, there’s nothing more frustrating than a critic who suggests: “I loved this, but I’m not sure you proles will really get it” – unless it is a critic who says: “Well, I didn’t much like it, but I bet all you common folk will lap it up.”
Actually, worse than both is an intelligent critic who – at the very least – understands a work’s merits, quite possibly enjoys it, and then feigns ignorance and damns the whole things as “pretentious crap.” That, I think, is unforgivable. If one has understood and enjoyed some pretentious crap, then one should have the guts to admit it (and indeed drop the pretence that it is “pretentious”– probably the most over-used and irritating word in Arts criticism - or “crap”).
If you want an example of two wildly differing approaches, compare and contrast Chris Goode’s description of Apollo/Dionysus with Johann Hari’s from a year earlier.
It would be wrong for me to argue that I think Johann is being in the least bit disingenuous. I don’t doubt that he saw absolutely no merit in the piece whatsoever. But his article enjoys swallowing in a rather nasty brand of sneering philistinism, which I’m sure in other contexts he would utterly deplore. And I would suggest that the reason for this is because he is writing about himself as much as about the work, about his reaction to it, and with the purpose of being funny at the expense of the piece. I know it’s not a review but a personality piece, but it does rather illustrate exactly what no review should ever be.
Stop. Stop. Please stop
I think I should probably leave it there. It’s not like anyone else can possibly have read this far (my sincere apologies if you have).
Last word, as ever, to Ian Shuttleworth. Not quite on the subject – but from the same article as previously quoted:
“When younger, I used to joke that, in my own reviews, the adjective "astonishing" was code for "This is a performer into whose costume I should like to get". I've been trying to rehabilitate the word for some time now, but some friends and colleagues won't let me forget past sins.”
*The title of today’s mammoth post is taken from To a Wolf by Luke Kennard (another friend - sorry) from his first collection of poems The Solex Brothers. A fuller explanation can be found here. I intend it to allude toward and slightly ironise the apparent fact that theatre critics do sometimes seem to love talking about theatre criticism almost as much as actually talking about theatre.
[excerpt]
“The wolf is just crazy for representations of himself.
‘Here’s a picture of you, wolf.’
‘Great!’ cries the wolf.
‘Here’s a story about you.’
‘Give it here!’ cries the wolf.”
Quite right too. It is an imperfect art and who better to sit around and work out what it all means and how we might make it better.
As you will have noticed, following the over-productive splurge last weekend, posting rather dropped off this week on account of going back to my week-on/week-off day job. I shan’t bore you with details, suffice it to say that it involves some pretty anti-social hours which largely prohibit theatre-going (except matinees – see: The Emperor Jones). It also involves reading a lot of newspapers, summaries of newspapers, and some very odd magazines (both consumer and trade). As a result, I wind up better-informed but often depressed about: the state of the country, the state of its economy, health issues, or, most usually, the appalling rubbish in some of our nation’s newspapers...
Standards (double)
The snippet which caught my eye today comes from page 11 of the Daily Star:
“Model Danielle Lloyd and Big Brother bitch Charley Uchea compete for the title of Dumb and Dumber on tonight's charity edition of the Weakest Link.”
To fully appreciate this slight, if jaw-dropping, item, one must know that Danielle Lloyd is a regular on the pages of the Daily Star through her “glamour modelling” work. One must then remember that Danielle Lloyd was one the three young women involved in the Celebrity Big Brother racism farrago. Those with an eye for detail may also wish to recall that, in spite of the relish with which the Daily Star roundly traduced Danielle’s co-CBB housemate Jade Goody, the paper dismissed any charges against Lloyd herself almost out of hand. Fact fans might also like to note that “Big Brother bitch Charley Uchea” herself was on the receiving end of a racial epithet during the series that has just finished.
Tactless or pointed?
Meanwhile, over at the Daily Telegraph grumpy opinion-former Simon Heffer is fulminating over the newest ravages of modernity in his Saturday round-up. Under the unambiguous heading “Don't hire anyone who is on Facebook” (scroll down) the incorrigible Tory pumpkin rages against the “overgrown children” who are wasting a reported 233 million hours a month by looking at Facebook while they are at work instead of working. His solution is strong medicine indeed. Employers are urged to “see whether prospective employees are signed up to this service, and not even to ask them for an interview if they are.”
It is tempting to wonder what has prompted this outburst. It is also interesting to ponder what would happen were the policy to be applied retrospectively; perhaps in Simon’s own workplace. After all, the Telegraph would be a very different creature without Matthew D’ancona, Sam Leith, Harry Mount, Bryony Gordon, and Damian Thompson – all of whom have Facebook accounts. The question is, is Simon trying to tell everyone something?
Pointeder and Pointeder
Staying with the Telegraph, David Cameron - trailing a live online interview session with readers of the paper on Tuesday – has the following to say:
“I know, that many Daily Telegraph readers want answers to some simple questions - about what our party stands for today, and about what Britain will look like after five years of a Cameron government... I have campaigned on new and - for some, unfamiliar - issues such as the environment and our quality of life, the NHS and the causes of crime; because I have said that gay people who make a commitment to each other should be valued in the way we value other couples who commit to each other; because I have argued that businesses should take their social responsibilities seriously; because I have tried to create opportunities for women and black people to get on in our party, many of you think that I'm not really a Conservative at all.”
Pretty damning stuff. I wonder if he’s thinking of anyone in particular; possibly someone without a Facebook account...
And on to The Wolf*
Firstly, thanks to everyone who made comments under my recent post on critical distance. I’m still thinking about it, and I’m not sure I’ve got any closer to working out what I think.
Alison, Australia sounds like a crazy place. All the critics are women? And they have relationships with artists, you say? Inconceivable! Actually, it was really refreshing to hear you say that. It at least demonstrates that another model is not only possible, but up-and-running somewhere. I have to confess Lyn's piece on critic/artist relations did provoke further soul-searching.
One of the things I think I ought to clarify is what I meant by “friends” or “know”. Or whatever. Happily, this also bleeds into a new topic that seems to have bubbled up on the blogs this week.
Let me start by saying, there’s nothing so wretched as trying to define how well you know someone, or to quantify how good a friend you are in someone else’s eyes - so bear with me when I sound especially awkward in the forthcoming couple of paragraphs. Another pair of similarly awful things is name-dropping and the idea of “fame” and/or “success”. I mention this as a plea of mitigation before launching into something that I really hope won’t turn into an article which should be called...
My Famous Friends
Bugger.
Part of the reason I was interested in what critics should do with artists who were their friends (or acquaintances, or whatever – I don’t want anyone to feel I’m staking claims on them here), is that at this year’s Festival a lot of people I know seemed to be doing spectacularly well. People with whom I was at University, or knew through the NSDF, or through friends were starting to appear on critical A-lists: Third Angel (featuring Lucy Ellinson, who was the first person I ever directed in a play, way back in 1998) were part of the British Council showcase season; Unlimited Theatre (who I’ve also known since Leeds) were much-garlanded for their show The Ethics of Progress; Richard Hurst (who I was introduced to a decade ago in Edinburgh) achieved West End transfers for two of the five Edinburgh shows he directed this year ( ); and Tom Basden (who –deep breath – I first met when he was in my friend Sarah Punshon’s 2001 Edinburgh ADC production of Agatha Christie’s The Secret Adversary); fellow blogger and erstwhile theatre critic Dan Bye (who incidentally is Sarah Punshon’s husband, and even before that was my friend at Leeds University)’s longstanding company Silver Tongue also gathered warm reviews for The Man Across The Way (currently running at Theatre 503).
Actually, a lot of other critics do have the same problem - not whether to avoid meeting new artists whose work interests and excites you, but what to do about longstanding friends or acquaintances whose work you can’t ignore. After all, these are longer-standing friends and acquaintances. When I was researching Raw Talent I was continually surprised by the number of critics who had appeared in productions which were selected to appear at the festival: Michael Billington (as director), Nicholas de Jongh (actor), Jane Edwardes (actor) and Dominic Cavendish (actor) all made appearances. I was even more surprised by who had appeared alongside them. Michael Billington has blogged before about acting with famous Oxford contemporaries. But how many people [unless the photograph was completely inaccurately labeled – which is entirely possible] knew that Jane Edwardes was at university (Manchester) with Anthony Sher and Bernard Hill and appeared in a production of ___ with them at the NSDF? Or that Dominic Cavendish played Claudius in a post-modern version of Hamlet directed by David Farr alongside a young Ben Miller (Armstrong and Miller, etc.) as The Dane? Ian Shuttleworth has certainly written before on the subject of being directed both by Sam Mendes and Roxanna Silbert, and on the legions of Cambridge actors with whom he appeared during his seven years there.
As I concluded last time, it needs must boil down to honesty. One gets a renewed sense of how hard that must sometimes be reading a very young (i.e. younger than me now) Ian Shuttleworth being honest about a production of Troilus and Cressida directed by his Cambridge contemporary Sam Mendes.
I want to be “typical”
Moving on a bit, to some of the questions that the responses to that Critical Distance argument for me, I’d like to start by noting two contrasting pieces on criticism. The first, by Lyn Gardner, asks simply “What separates theatre critics from other theatregoers?” The second, by Ian Shuttleworth for Theatre Record in 2004 looks at “the strategic - why a reviewer adopts a particular voice or perspective that runs through their work - and the tactical - the motivation behind a particular piece, or even a particular phrase.”.
Lyn asks: “How do you balance knowledge and previous experience in a way that is useful and provides context, but which doesn't create a barrier between you and the actual piece of work you are watching?”
This is a beautifully weighted way of putting it. Following on from reading her piece on critical distance, in which she argued “knowing too much about a production can be as disadvantageous as knowing too little... I try to avoid programmes for the same reason. I want to review the show, not the talk; what the theatre-maker is doing, not what they've told me in great detail that they intend to do.” The question this threw up for me was: if you've already seen umpteen Hamlets, why *not* read the director’s notes in the programme for the umpteenth-plus-one? I’m not sure that knowing what a director intends is any greater or lesser obstacle to really *seeing* the play as having seen a million previous version. It’s different, and of course I completely understand the impulse not to read programme notes – at least until afterwards.
The question also relates to the point Statler raises about trying to represent a “typical theatre-goer” - who might well read a programme before the show starts as part of the experience. This “typical” standpoint relates in part to what Ian Shuttleworth is discussing in his piece, and to the brief misunderstanding in the comments section between what Alison was deploring and Statler was actually standing for as regards the position of critic as “ordinary member of the public/typical theatergoer”. As Shuttleworth suggests, in 2004 there were at least two critics writing regularly for national publications whose basic positions were various shades of philistine skepticism (my words, not Shuttleworth’s). Statler’s position is clearly not that.
Screw “pretentious”
I am a little wary of reviewers who claim that they have a better claim to represent “ordinary/typical” people than other reviewers. Although all those who actually buy tickets (and indeed, don’t go to the theatre every night of the week) do make their case several notches more effectively. My problem, I guess, is that ultimately, if one is being honest, it is hard to gainsay how universal your own experience of anything might be. Indeed, trying to do so can potentially lead to problems.
After all, there’s nothing more frustrating than a critic who suggests: “I loved this, but I’m not sure you proles will really get it” – unless it is a critic who says: “Well, I didn’t much like it, but I bet all you common folk will lap it up.”
Actually, worse than both is an intelligent critic who – at the very least – understands a work’s merits, quite possibly enjoys it, and then feigns ignorance and damns the whole things as “pretentious crap.” That, I think, is unforgivable. If one has understood and enjoyed some pretentious crap, then one should have the guts to admit it (and indeed drop the pretence that it is “pretentious”– probably the most over-used and irritating word in Arts criticism - or “crap”).
If you want an example of two wildly differing approaches, compare and contrast Chris Goode’s description of Apollo/Dionysus with Johann Hari’s from a year earlier.
It would be wrong for me to argue that I think Johann is being in the least bit disingenuous. I don’t doubt that he saw absolutely no merit in the piece whatsoever. But his article enjoys swallowing in a rather nasty brand of sneering philistinism, which I’m sure in other contexts he would utterly deplore. And I would suggest that the reason for this is because he is writing about himself as much as about the work, about his reaction to it, and with the purpose of being funny at the expense of the piece. I know it’s not a review but a personality piece, but it does rather illustrate exactly what no review should ever be.
Stop. Stop. Please stop
I think I should probably leave it there. It’s not like anyone else can possibly have read this far (my sincere apologies if you have).
Last word, as ever, to Ian Shuttleworth. Not quite on the subject – but from the same article as previously quoted:
“When younger, I used to joke that, in my own reviews, the adjective "astonishing" was code for "This is a performer into whose costume I should like to get". I've been trying to rehabilitate the word for some time now, but some friends and colleagues won't let me forget past sins.”
[source]
*The title of today’s mammoth post is taken from To a Wolf by Luke Kennard (another friend - sorry) from his first collection of poems The Solex Brothers. A fuller explanation can be found here. I intend it to allude toward and slightly ironise the apparent fact that theatre critics do sometimes seem to love talking about theatre criticism almost as much as actually talking about theatre.
[excerpt]
“The wolf is just crazy for representations of himself.
‘Here’s a picture of you, wolf.’
‘Great!’ cries the wolf.
‘Here’s a story about you.’
‘Give it here!’ cries the wolf.”
Quite right too. It is an imperfect art and who better to sit around and work out what it all means and how we might make it better.
Saturday, 1 September 2007
Books do furnish a social networking site profile
Today’s musing is brought to you by over-exposure to Facebook; specifically to its Visual Bookshelf application. As a survey of current literary tastes it is deeply flawed, but fascinating nonetheless. For a start, it is one of at least three such applications on Facebook. Assuming that anyone with a passing interest in showing off their bookish can-do will only select one such widget, there is already a random division of the sample on show.
The second problem is that since the programme takes all its book information from Amazons .com and .co.uk, which counts each imprint of any given book as a separate item, there is no quick way of discerning overall readerships for any given title. And moreover, since there are vastly more Americans on the site than anyone else, the snapshot deals pretty much exclusively with American tastes. The last point, and one worth making, is that mention of any given book is self-electing - that is to say, the reader needs to actively note that they are reading a book for it to make an appearance. This will be influenced by hundreds of factors, but most significant is probably whether the book has either been read since the reader joined Facebook, or else it made such a good or bad impression that a reader was moved to record it. Bearing this in mind, it is perhaps not surprising that the top ten books recorded as read by Facebook Bookshelf application owners looks like this:
More interesting is the Most Reviewed category. Although still top-heavy with Potter it also throws up a couple of surprising results:
Most interesting is Ms Meyer’s Twilight. I’d never heard of it before, it has significantly fewer readers than everything else on the list (if you discount the Harry Potter box set, which is clearly cheating) and yet more than a quarter of its 8,372 readers felt moved to comment. Having looked at these reviews, I can reveal that Twilight sounds like some kind of post-Anne Rice vampire fiction. A lot of its fans professed themselves to be “in love” with its leading man. It is the first of at least a trilogy. No doubt we can look forward to a dreadful film sometime soon. Staying with films, I was much more heartened to see Khaled Hosseini's novel The Kite Runner doing so well. Not least because my friend Khalid is playing the lead role in the forthcoming film adaptation (of which, more another time, possibly).
So what is the substance of these reviews? Here are the top ten most recent posted on the most reviewed book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:
Brooke Phillips, 35 minutes ago*:
Excellent ending to the series. The epilogue was too much.
Saira Khan, about 1 hour ago:
A bit of a downer but a great way to end the series. Too many of my fav characters died. :-(...
Erika Sologuren, about 1 hour ago:
An excellent end to Harry Potter. Before the book came out, I tried to predict what would happen, and some of the stuff that I thought of as a joke actually happened (ie. Sev becoming HM) I will never get tired from reading this book, it was brilliant!
Christy Clark-Heaslip, about 2 hours ago:
Good! Couldn't put it down at the end!
Riaan Bosman, about 3 hours ago:
Awesome... die einde is bietjie corny, maar dit is eintlik goed so!!
Jacqueline Bronzage, about 3 hours ago:
It is beautifully clever. ( a.k.a missing out - if you're not reading it.)
Sean Ryan, about 11 hours ago:
Just started book number 7 in good old Harry’s life. Saw the movie, it was the worst one yet unfortunately. Will let you know how the book is.....:)...Yip Finished..... Riveting...!!!!! Go JK.
Caitlin Menzies, about 12 hours ago:
AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Shruti Bhutada, about 12 hours ago:
severus snape is my favorite character from the harry potter now! and no matter what the psuedo intellectual, anti jk rowling ppl say, the fact is that, JK is an amazing writer.
[all very much sic, btw]
And here are some of those raves about Twilight:
Magan Glidewell, 3 hours ago:
This is the first of the series and probably my favorite. (Although the third is very close). I love Edward. : )
Alyssa Hamilton, about 12 hours ago:
this is the most amazing book i have ever read! its my favourite
Mallory Armstrong, about 12 hours ago:
I was sitting, bored in the library when this book caught my attention on display. I recognized the cover and realized someone had recommended it to me. It was absolutely amazing. It was my kind of book. The author's style of writing was really fantastic, and just the story in general was so good. I can't wait to read the next one. The word vampire has a whole new meaning to me now.
Alexandra Voyles, about 13 hours ago:
wow, amazing, if you have not read this book i really would reccomend going out, buying it, and reading it.
Sasha Leigh, about 13 hours ago:
Bella Swan falls in love with Edward Cullen. Later to find out that he is a vampire.
?, about 14 hours ago:
BEST BOOK EVER!
[I’m trying very hard to resist the temptation to comment on all these. Suffice it to say that I’m getting strong Hippo World flashbacks]
Amy Wilkinson, about 14 hours ago:
I loved it :) The characters all seemed very realistic
Andrea Churchill, about 15 hours ago:
Absolutely AMAZING book. The next 2 are just as good. Awesome author.
Marrianne Pappas, about 15 hours ago:
Greatest book I have ever read part 1
So now you know. You’ve read the reviews. Judge for yourself.
Like much else on Facebook, this study very quickly becomes addictive. There is a way to find out the top reviewer using the application. This honour currently rests with one Sandra Crease Ryan, whose current profile photograph is of a rooster. She is top reviewer because she has “reviewed” 520 books. It is possible to see what she is currently reading (Dreaming: Remembering, Interpreting, Benefiting by Derek Parker), and some of many books she has read in the past (Funk & Wagmalls Hammond World Atlas Including World History Section by Unknown; Fundamentals of Marketing, 6th Canadian Edition by Barnes, Stanton, Etzel, Walker Sommers; Leadership, Management and the Five Essentials for Success by Rick Joyner; Straight As Never Made Anybody Rich: Lessons in Personal Achievement by Wess Roberts; Chancing It: Why We Take Risks by Ralph Keyes). It is also possibly to enjoy her enormous back catalogue of reviews:
Of her current read, she deems Derek Parker’s opus: “Pretty good. It doesn’t have all that foolishness in it that this genre seems to spawn.”
Not all of it. Thank God. That’s the whole review, by the way.
Next up is her review of Pinches of Salt, Prisms of Light edited by Carmel Leal, a collection of essays, stories, and poems, which according to the publisher’s blurb promises, “you will experience and behold the divine in the world around you”. According to Ms Ryan (Ms Crease Ryan?):
“This was written by a friend of mine. It’s OK”
With friends like Sandra, who needs publicists?
Of The Frances Parkinson Keyes Cookbook she has more to offer:
“An old cookbook written by a woman who seems to have a high opinion of herself and her talents.”
Hmm.
Sandra Crease Ryan’s legendary literary powers don’t come without a price, though. She was clearly fatigued when forced to comment on Armistead Maupin’s Babycakes (Tales of the City series, v. 4) allowing herself only the desultory summation:
“Another instalment of the series about the inhabitants of a boarding house.”
It’s tough getting to be number one book reviewer on Facebook’s Bookshelf application. Sometimes detail has to be sacrificed. And so it continues.
Nicholas Lezard will no doubt be loosing sleep for weeks to come.
For the record, my own reviewing activity has so far been limited to very brief raves for my own book, books by a couple of people I know, and one for Unity by Michael Arditti - a quite brilliant and apparently largely overlooked recent novel about Cambridge students doing a play at the Edinburgh Fringe, getting picked up by a Fassbinder type figure, becoming involved with a Baader Meinhof-analogue terrorist cell all mixed up with a history of post-war Germany, British fascism and the Mitfords. If I've not just killed it for everyone with that Crease-like despatch, I can't recommend it highly enough. It's hugely intelligent, literate and acute, and possibly my favourite novel written in recent years.
*All correct at time of copying and pasting.
The second problem is that since the programme takes all its book information from Amazons .com and .co.uk, which counts each imprint of any given book as a separate item, there is no quick way of discerning overall readerships for any given title. And moreover, since there are vastly more Americans on the site than anyone else, the snapshot deals pretty much exclusively with American tastes. The last point, and one worth making, is that mention of any given book is self-electing - that is to say, the reader needs to actively note that they are reading a book for it to make an appearance. This will be influenced by hundreds of factors, but most significant is probably whether the book has either been read since the reader joined Facebook, or else it made such a good or bad impression that a reader was moved to record it. Bearing this in mind, it is perhaps not surprising that the top ten books recorded as read by Facebook Bookshelf application owners looks like this:
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: 56,479 people; 8,963 reviews
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: 43,956 people; 1,037 reviews
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: 43,317 people; 1,176 reviews
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Philosopher’s Stone in UK): 42,997 people; 1,984 reviews
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: 42,641 people; 1,138 reviews
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: 41,784 people; 1,333 reviews
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: 41,777 people; 1,468 reviews
- To Kill a Mockingbird: 24,166 people; 1,323 reviews
- The Catcher in the Rye: 21,440 people; 1,238 reviews
- The Da Vinci Code: 20,589 people; 1,478 reviews
More interesting is the Most Reviewed category. Although still top-heavy with Potter it also throws up a couple of surprising results:
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: 56,479 people; 8,963 reviews
- Twilight (by Stephenie Meyer): 8,372 people; 2,131 reviews
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: 42,997 people; 1,984 reviews
- The Kite Runner: 16,008 people; 1,586 reviews
- The Da Vinci Code: 20,589 people; 1,478 reviews
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: 41,777 people; 1,468 reviews
- Harry Potter Boxset Books 1-7: 4,441 people; 1,439 reviews
- Angels & Demons (more Dan Brown): 19,652 people; 1,380 reviews
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: 41,784 people; 1,333 reviews
- To Kill a Mockingbird: 24,166 people; 1,323 reviews
Most interesting is Ms Meyer’s Twilight. I’d never heard of it before, it has significantly fewer readers than everything else on the list (if you discount the Harry Potter box set, which is clearly cheating) and yet more than a quarter of its 8,372 readers felt moved to comment. Having looked at these reviews, I can reveal that Twilight sounds like some kind of post-Anne Rice vampire fiction. A lot of its fans professed themselves to be “in love” with its leading man. It is the first of at least a trilogy. No doubt we can look forward to a dreadful film sometime soon. Staying with films, I was much more heartened to see Khaled Hosseini's novel The Kite Runner doing so well. Not least because my friend Khalid is playing the lead role in the forthcoming film adaptation (of which, more another time, possibly).
So what is the substance of these reviews? Here are the top ten most recent posted on the most reviewed book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:
Brooke Phillips, 35 minutes ago*:
Excellent ending to the series. The epilogue was too much.
Saira Khan, about 1 hour ago:
A bit of a downer but a great way to end the series. Too many of my fav characters died. :-(...
Erika Sologuren, about 1 hour ago:
An excellent end to Harry Potter. Before the book came out, I tried to predict what would happen, and some of the stuff that I thought of as a joke actually happened (ie. Sev becoming HM) I will never get tired from reading this book, it was brilliant!
Christy Clark-Heaslip, about 2 hours ago:
Good! Couldn't put it down at the end!
Riaan Bosman, about 3 hours ago:
Awesome... die einde is bietjie corny, maar dit is eintlik goed so!!
Jacqueline Bronzage, about 3 hours ago:
It is beautifully clever. ( a.k.a missing out - if you're not reading it.)
Sean Ryan, about 11 hours ago:
Just started book number 7 in good old Harry’s life. Saw the movie, it was the worst one yet unfortunately. Will let you know how the book is.....:)...Yip Finished..... Riveting...!!!!! Go JK.
Caitlin Menzies, about 12 hours ago:
AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Shruti Bhutada, about 12 hours ago:
severus snape is my favorite character from the harry potter now! and no matter what the psuedo intellectual, anti jk rowling ppl say, the fact is that, JK is an amazing writer.
[all very much sic, btw]
And here are some of those raves about Twilight:
Magan Glidewell, 3 hours ago:
This is the first of the series and probably my favorite. (Although the third is very close). I love Edward. : )
Alyssa Hamilton, about 12 hours ago:
this is the most amazing book i have ever read! its my favourite
Mallory Armstrong, about 12 hours ago:
I was sitting, bored in the library when this book caught my attention on display. I recognized the cover and realized someone had recommended it to me. It was absolutely amazing. It was my kind of book. The author's style of writing was really fantastic, and just the story in general was so good. I can't wait to read the next one. The word vampire has a whole new meaning to me now.
Alexandra Voyles, about 13 hours ago:
wow, amazing, if you have not read this book i really would reccomend going out, buying it, and reading it.
Sasha Leigh, about 13 hours ago:
Bella Swan falls in love with Edward Cullen. Later to find out that he is a vampire.
?, about 14 hours ago:
BEST BOOK EVER!
[I’m trying very hard to resist the temptation to comment on all these. Suffice it to say that I’m getting strong Hippo World flashbacks]
Amy Wilkinson, about 14 hours ago:
I loved it :) The characters all seemed very realistic
Andrea Churchill, about 15 hours ago:
Absolutely AMAZING book. The next 2 are just as good. Awesome author.
Marrianne Pappas, about 15 hours ago:
Greatest book I have ever read part 1
So now you know. You’ve read the reviews. Judge for yourself.
Like much else on Facebook, this study very quickly becomes addictive. There is a way to find out the top reviewer using the application. This honour currently rests with one Sandra Crease Ryan, whose current profile photograph is of a rooster. She is top reviewer because she has “reviewed” 520 books. It is possible to see what she is currently reading (Dreaming: Remembering, Interpreting, Benefiting by Derek Parker), and some of many books she has read in the past (Funk & Wagmalls Hammond World Atlas Including World History Section by Unknown; Fundamentals of Marketing, 6th Canadian Edition by Barnes, Stanton, Etzel, Walker Sommers; Leadership, Management and the Five Essentials for Success by Rick Joyner; Straight As Never Made Anybody Rich: Lessons in Personal Achievement by Wess Roberts; Chancing It: Why We Take Risks by Ralph Keyes). It is also possibly to enjoy her enormous back catalogue of reviews:
Of her current read, she deems Derek Parker’s opus: “Pretty good. It doesn’t have all that foolishness in it that this genre seems to spawn.”
Not all of it. Thank God. That’s the whole review, by the way.
Next up is her review of Pinches of Salt, Prisms of Light edited by Carmel Leal, a collection of essays, stories, and poems, which according to the publisher’s blurb promises, “you will experience and behold the divine in the world around you”. According to Ms Ryan (Ms Crease Ryan?):
“This was written by a friend of mine. It’s OK”
With friends like Sandra, who needs publicists?
Of The Frances Parkinson Keyes Cookbook she has more to offer:
“An old cookbook written by a woman who seems to have a high opinion of herself and her talents.”
Hmm.
Sandra Crease Ryan’s legendary literary powers don’t come without a price, though. She was clearly fatigued when forced to comment on Armistead Maupin’s Babycakes (Tales of the City series, v. 4) allowing herself only the desultory summation:
“Another instalment of the series about the inhabitants of a boarding house.”
It’s tough getting to be number one book reviewer on Facebook’s Bookshelf application. Sometimes detail has to be sacrificed. And so it continues.
Nicholas Lezard will no doubt be loosing sleep for weeks to come.
For the record, my own reviewing activity has so far been limited to very brief raves for my own book, books by a couple of people I know, and one for Unity by Michael Arditti - a quite brilliant and apparently largely overlooked recent novel about Cambridge students doing a play at the Edinburgh Fringe, getting picked up by a Fassbinder type figure, becoming involved with a Baader Meinhof-analogue terrorist cell all mixed up with a history of post-war Germany, British fascism and the Mitfords. If I've not just killed it for everyone with that Crease-like despatch, I can't recommend it highly enough. It's hugely intelligent, literate and acute, and possibly my favourite novel written in recent years.
*All correct at time of copying and pasting.
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