१७ नोव्हेंबर, २००८

"'Outliers' ... is peppy, brightly written ... provocative ... glib, poorly reasoned and thoroughly unconvincing."

Michiko Kakutani says okay, that's it, enough of Malcolm Gladwell. Is that a gut reaction (see "Blink") that will spread like some kind of disease (see "The Tipping Point")?

९ टिप्पण्या:

Joe M. म्हणाले...

Unrelated to the merits (or lack thereof) of Gladwell's writing, I must object to Kakutani's use of "italicize" here:

"Mr. Gladwell’s latest book, employs this same recipe, but does so in such a clumsy manner that it italicizes the weaknesses of his methodology."

I would like to italicize the ridiculousness of this usage.

John Althouse Cohen म्हणाले...

I'm surprised it didn't spread when Richard Posner wrote this devastatingly accurate review of Gladwell's Blink.

joe m.: Great catch!

ricpic म्हणाले...

Does someone as obviously withit as Mr. Gladwell even need a methodology? Not in my experience. The fucker will make out like a bandit. Count on it.

ricpic म्हणाले...

Does Michiko Kakutani's kaka kome out

K
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k
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Sometimes mine does.

George M. Spencer म्हणाले...

Eh, so what, big deal...it'll make a great cable TV series.

Sounds like this Kakutani woman reads too many books. She has high expectations.

KCFleming म्हणाले...

A book I don't want to read reviewed in a newspaper I don't want to read.

What a pleasant combination. The trifecta will be when the article is discussed on CNN, which I will never see. A lefty circle jerk.

Revenant म्हणाले...

Mr. Gladwell does not explain why [...] groups like the Rolling Stones or the Beach Boys, who didn’t play as many Hamburg shows as the Beatles, also went on to shape music history.

Did the Beach Boys "shape music history", really? They popularized a musical fad, but the fad didn't last long.

Joe M. म्हणाले...

Yes, the Beach Boys did "shape music history." Pet Sounds. Not just surf rock.

halojones-fan म्हणाले...

Yeah, I saw this excerpt. I'm not really sure what Gladwell's trying to argue. First he claims that you need to work a lot if you want to succeed. Then he tells you that you won't succeed unless you get a lucky break--even if you work hard.

Congratulations, you've justified the beliefs of 230 million Dem/Left slackers who believe that there's no such thing as success...