Worried that a lack of knowledge or an unbiased attitude will get you nowhere in journalism? Don?t fret. Follow these simple steps and you, too, could get your byline in respected weekly magazines, making the rich and famous quiver at your approach. Let us take as our model an article [hyperlink] which purports to be an analysis of the literary status of Salman Rushdie on the publication of his The Enchantress of Florence.
* 1. Ignore facts. They only get in the way. Trumpet this ignorance right at the start, by proclaiming that the title is ?Salman Rushdie?s ninth book….? In fact, it?s his tenth novel and 14th book.
* 2. Fire over someone else?s shoulder. Use [one particularly bad review] to inform your entire argument. Quote lavishly from The Times [hyperlink] review that this is ?…by a long chalk, the worst thing he has ever written.? In order to appear even-handed, quote from other reviews that are more favourable. Also throw in a ?fellow Indian writer? who says, ?Rushdie?s recent books have been long and awful and this new novel doesn?t sound any good.?
* 3. If you can?t impress, baffle. This is when you really come into your own. Write: ?…this is a place… where the signboard he has put up announces universality of reach, oneness of civilisations, and the power of the narrator to remind you of it.? Be generous with generalisations: ?[Rushdie] thrives now on the loyalty of a band with a sense of the progressive, almost a brand now of intellectual acceptance than a great read… For too long now, a declared admiration of Rushdie has been our forged passport to literary standing.?
* 4. End with an ungrammatical outburst.
?The Rushdie talk is now into its new round. And between this book and the next we will have no doubt another Rushdie affair to keep us going.? See? It?s easy.
Antiblurbs
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