Snark (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: David Denby, New York, Private Eye (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

[Audio Review] New York Times best-selling author Denby (Great Books), a staff writer for The New Yorker, here presents a detailed and enjoyable argument regarding snark, today's ever-prevalent combination of snide and sarcasm. He traces the history of snark through the ages, defines it into subcategories (e.g., literary snark equals satire), and divides contemporary snark into acceptable and unacceptable categories based on his personal assessments. Six-time Audie Award nominee William Dufris (The Futurist) gives a terrific read, his tone and pacing bordering on the snark-astic. Highly recommended for adult audiences. Cliff Glaviano, Bowling Green State Univ. Libs., OH --Library Journal --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Product Description

What is snark? You recognize it when you see it -- a tone of teasing, snide, undermining abuse, nasty and knowing, that is spreading like pinkeye through the media and threatening to take over how Americans converse with each other and what they can count on as true. Snark attempts to steal someone's mojo, erase her cool, annihilate her effectiveness. In this sharp and witty polemic, New Yorker critic and bestselling author David Denby takes on the snarkers, naming the nine principles of snark -- the standard techniques its practitioners use to poison their arrows. Snarkers like to think they are deploying wit, but mostly they are exposing the seethe and snarl of an unhappy country, releasing bad feeling but little laughter.

In this highly entertaining essay, Denby traces the history of snark through the ages, starting with its invention as personal insult in the drinking clubs of ancient Athens, tracking its development all the way to the age of the Internet, where it has become the sole purpose and style of many media, political, and celebrity Web sites. Snark releases the anguish of the dispossessed, envious, and frightened; it flows when a dying class of the powerful struggles to keep the barbarians outside the gates, or, alternately, when those outsiders want to take over the halls of the powerful and expel the office-holders. Snark was behind the London-based magazine Private Eye, launched amid the dying embers of the British empire in 1961; it was also central to the career-hungry, New York-based magazine Spy. It has flourished over the years in the works of everyone from the startling Roman poet Juvenal to Alexander Pope to Tom Wolfe to a million commenters snarling at other people behind handles. Thanks to the grand dame of snark, it has a prominent place twice a week on the opinion page of the New York Times.

Denby has fun snarking the snarkers, expelling the bums and promoting the true wits, but he is also making a serious point: the Internet has put snark on steroids. In politics, snark means the lowest, most insinuating and insulting side can win. For the young, a savage piece of gossip could ruin a reputation and possibly a future career. And for all of us, snark just sucks the humor out of life. Denby defends the right of any of us to be cruel, but shows us how the real pros pull it off. Snark, he says, is for the amateurs.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (January 13, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416599452
• ISBN-13: 978-1416599456
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (81 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #206,316 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars intellectually lazy , January 31, 2009

By	okm - See all my reviews

This is a work defined by intellectual laziness and poor grasp of subject matter. It is a fine example of false teleology; The author attempts to construct a chronology of a recent cultural episteme without full knowledge of its discursive history then completely illogically projects it back throughout time. Also, in addition to turgid prose, it is wrought with factual errors.

78 of 102 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Totally worthless., January 30, 2009

By	Kimba W. Lion "kimbawlion.com" (the East Coast) - See all my reviews

(What's this?)

This book is nothing more than an extension of the extreme nastiness that we had to endure during the 2008 election campaigns. While Denby tries to confuse the reader with scholarly pretensions, the book basically boils down to "people who made nasty comments I agree with are true wits; those I don't agree with are harming our culture". That's why people are saying they aren't getting a clear idea of what Denby means by "snark": he doesn't have one any better than that. Fortunately for him, he picks the correct people to praise, and so he can get favorable reviews in most of the press. For myself, I'm sorry I wasted my time with this book.

Some books are so bad, I refuse to inflict them on others by reselling them or giving them away. This book is in that category. Straight into the recycling bin.

30 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A Fascinating Case Study In Cluelessness, February 1, 2009

By	J. Neil Gieleghem "Neilist" (The Living Hell That Is Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is worth reading only - repeat only -- as a example of a reviewer/commentator who completely misunderstands his subject matter; utterly fails the basics of research/fact checking; and mistakes his own ignorance of modern society for legitimate issues.

A much more interesting book would be something along the lines of "Why Denby Failed: Intellectual Pretense and The Decline of Criticism."

Or something.

But the bottom line remains the same: Don't waste your money on this book.