Comments on: Praise Inflation: Is Good No Longer Good Enough?

By: George V. Reilly

George V. Reilly — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 08:31:53 +0000

I’ve been rating books on my blog for the last year, on a 0-5 scale. I hardly ever give more than a 4.0. I have to really, really like a book to give it a 4.5, and only one book so far has captured a 5.0, Ian McEwen’s Saturday. On the other hand, hardly anything gets less than 3.0 because I’m good at avoiding books that I won’t like.

I gave the The Naming of the Dead 4.0. It fell apart for me towards the end when he gratuitously tied the two investigations together.

By: Dan Ronco

Dan Ronco — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 18:39:02 +0000

Praise in book blurbs is certainly inflated. Not every book released this year is breathtaking, thoughtprovoking, populated with fascinating characters … but that’s what the reader sees on the cover. If your best blurbs say that this is a pretty good story with solid characters, well, don’t bother to check your Amazon sales rank. Besides, my book was populated with fascinating characters.

By: Kate Elliott

Kate Elliott — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 07:03:31 +0000

Even Bs can be suspect these days, which is a pity. It’s kind of an extension of the Winner-Take-All society, perhaps. Or, indeed, Lake Woebegone. It’s got to be rough to write evaluations and reference letters these days, because of that.

Catie, yeah, when I write a quote I try to figure out a specific element I want to praise rather than a generic gush of adjectives, which mean much less to me as a reader than an indication of what are the strengths and/or tone of any given book. Or as Mad says: what the different aspects of the book are like, and how likely they are to fit what I want to read.

By: Mike Brotherton

Mike Brotherton — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 06:49:57 +0000

Reference letters in academia have also suffered from praise inflation. It’s becoming more important to read through the specifics to see what the qualifiers actually mean.

By: Mark Sutherland

Mark Sutherland — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 18:52:18 +0000

My first evaluation as a Navy Hospital Corpsman was made by a new charge nurse who was doing her first evaluation. She evaluated me very honestly as someone new to the job who still made mistakes but was trying hard and doing a “good” job. When I turned the evaluation in, the clerk who received it looked it over and said, “Man, this nurse must really hate you”. It turns out that anything less than “outstanding” or “superior” on a military evaluation was the kiss of death. It probably cost me a promotion a few months down the road. Now, as a college teacher, I feel like I’m destroying student dreams when I give out what used to be a good grade of C. I guess we all live in Lake Woebegone.

By: Charles

Charles — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 17:38:21 +0000

“Good” is one of those words that - because people may interpret it in so many different ways - requires it be spoken to really get the person’s intention.

However, “Really Good” would seem to - in written form - convey more of the meaning you attribute to just “Good”.

I think “Good” has been devalued. The fault most likely lies with advertising agencies pitching products to consumers.

One could suggest the moment Tony the Tiger exclaimed “They’re Great!!!” the meaning of “Good” was instantly and permanently diminished.

By: Madeleine Robins

Madeleine Robins — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 17:33:09 +0000

I'd have to say tone of voice is all: I take a bite of something wonderful and my reaction is "Omigod that's good." I read something that directly connects with my forebrain and good comprises (in my mind) quality of story and quality of storytelling. The work may also be wonderful, thoughtful, hilarious, heartbreaking, etc. but those qualities I generally tend to apply to aspects of the work (the characters are wonderful, the voice is hilarious, and so on). The work, overall, is good.

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 16:50:41 +0000

Having taught at the college level, I am experience the dreaded grade inflation and it is somewhat similar. To me, a ‘C’ is an average grade, unfortunately, that’s not what a lot of students think these days. So while in my book, a ‘C’ means one thing, they will argue that it means another. Do you get into college by being average? Of course. Do you get into college with ‘C’s? Probably, but maybe not as easy of a sell.

So are you damning the author because you are giving what you think is an adequate representation of their work? Too some people maybe, to others, probably not. But I can’t just inflate my own rankings, just because that’s what others want. If we stayed true to what we actually thought, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place!

By: Kristine Smith

Kristine Smith — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 14:21:08 +0000

I’m a fan of Rankin/Rebus. Yes, “good”, said with emphasis, means more to me than “greatest mystery writer since Christie” (if you’re no fan of Christie, you’ll run the other way) or any other bucket of superlatives. It implies above average abilities in all areas–character, plot, style, setting–that tells me I’m in for a fine overall read. I won’t admire a single aspect while shoving the rest under the mental rug because it just doesn’t match up.

By: C.E. Murphy

C.E. Murphy — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 10:04:03 +0000

See, I’m a lot more likely to trust, “He’s good,” than “He’s fantabulously wonderfully amazingly brilliant,” because, well, look, not much is actually fantabulously wonderfully amazingly brilliant, and furthermore, if you think it’s all of those things I’m not necessarily going to, because if it’s hitting you that hard it’s probably written for Just Your Particular Kink, whatever that might be, and odds of us sharing that kink are perhaps not skyrocketingly high.

I think, for example, pretty much everything Guy Gavriel Kay writes is in fact fantabulously wonderfully amazingly brilliant (even when I dissect it, and know how and what he’s doing, it *gets* me. Every time. In the gut. So it clearly *works* for me.) I know a number of people who absolutely can’t stand him, and others who just twitch at the way he puts together sentences, etc. It’s an enormous YMMV situation, and if I’m willing to wax rhapsodical, it doesn’t necessarily mean everybody’s going to want to.

Of course, sometimes books are as good as everybody says they are. I think TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD was the first book I ever read that was, despite everybody saying so, was in fact brilliant. Kind of like Shakespeare and Casablanca.

I’ve noticed that when I do cover quotes I tend to try to specific things I *am* impressed by, and pull those things out. If the worldbuilding’s especially good, I like to mention that. If the author’s done something with a sequel I didn’t expect and am pleased by, that’s worth talking about. If the emotional impact of the story is what leaves me reeling, that’s what I say, ’cause those are all selling points to me.

But I think I’m most likely to actually pick up a book and read it if somebody I know says, “Oh, yeah, you know, that’s pretty good.” I can see why editors and marketing don’t feel like that’s a resounding recommendation, but for me at the bookstore, it’s about the most reliable indicator I could ask for.

(…and this has nothing to do with what you said about THE QUEEN’S BASTARD, which quote Betsy forwarded to me and which I keep going back and gazing at with admiration. Thank you so much for that. Wow.)

-Catie