I have to apologise. Lately, I have been very remiss in posting these occasional book reviews, which some people tell me are the only thing I should bother posting on Facebook and which some others don't seem to have registered at all. Since my epic read of "Chronic City", a book I should possibly reconsider, as its banal-apocalypse imagery keeps coming to mind as I watch an Icelandic ash cloud bring Europe to a standstill, I have actually completed two books: this one and another (last night) which I hope to post about straight after this.
So, "Outliers"…
It must be great to be Malcolm Gladwell; he is the master of a very, very clever trick. He takes something everybody knows, tells them about it, illustrating it with a barrage of telling anecdotal evidence, lays claim to a great insight and sells quadrillions of books. The really smart trick is spotting the thing that everybody knows, but which, for reasons of social, educational or cultural conditioning, they don't realise that they know. That way, the reader goes through the book saying: yes, yes, … YES! all the time. And the cash register ticks over.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not running the guy down. What he does is extremely valuable and enlightening. It's just not great thought, which doesn't actually matter too much, except that it inevitably means his books are just a bit long. Once you've got the idea, you've got it, and the accumulation of new surprising stories to illustrate it, though at times entertaining, can also be just slightly irritating insofar as you ultimately realise that each new bit simply illustrates the same point as you already grasped a while back.
Here, Gladwell tackles the question of why some people are phenomenally successful, and others, of equal intelligence, insight, strength, etc. aren't. The book takes issue with the notion that success can be ascribed exclusively to the particular qualities or attributes of an individual. He demonstrates, through a stack of examples, how chance of birth, location, timing, culture and good old fashioned luck, are at least as much to do with it as personal qualities. YES!!! You knew that, right? But Gladwell tells you in a way you hadn't quite seen it before. Smart.
In fact, on this occasion, I feel comparative culture comes into it rather more than, say, in "Tipping Point", insofar as he is arguing against a cultural disposition to believe in the myth of the extraordinary individual triumphing over all odds which is peculiarly American. I suspect a European audience will find it rather easier to accept the role of environment and luck in individual outcomes than the author seems to expect in this book.
So a hint of "yep, thanks", about this book… That doesn't stop it being a quick, straightforward and entertaining read. Illuminating too, and could be useful in countering the next person who tells you that Bill Gates is the richest man in the world because he entirely deserves to be on his own merits, which will probably happen to you in a bar in Denver, Colorado, rather than Rochdale, Lancashire.
Recommendation? I have Gladwell in my light-and-entertaining category, a bit like the tales of the Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency, books to be read when you need a break from "Chronic City" and the like. So yes, why not? But Gladwell's imagery won't be pervading my subconscious the next time an Icelandic volcano goes up.
So, "Outliers"…
It must be great to be Malcolm Gladwell; he is the master of a very, very clever trick. He takes something everybody knows, tells them about it, illustrating it with a barrage of telling anecdotal evidence, lays claim to a great insight and sells quadrillions of books. The really smart trick is spotting the thing that everybody knows, but which, for reasons of social, educational or cultural conditioning, they don't realise that they know. That way, the reader goes through the book saying: yes, yes, … YES! all the time. And the cash register ticks over.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not running the guy down. What he does is extremely valuable and enlightening. It's just not great thought, which doesn't actually matter too much, except that it inevitably means his books are just a bit long. Once you've got the idea, you've got it, and the accumulation of new surprising stories to illustrate it, though at times entertaining, can also be just slightly irritating insofar as you ultimately realise that each new bit simply illustrates the same point as you already grasped a while back.
Here, Gladwell tackles the question of why some people are phenomenally successful, and others, of equal intelligence, insight, strength, etc. aren't. The book takes issue with the notion that success can be ascribed exclusively to the particular qualities or attributes of an individual. He demonstrates, through a stack of examples, how chance of birth, location, timing, culture and good old fashioned luck, are at least as much to do with it as personal qualities. YES!!! You knew that, right? But Gladwell tells you in a way you hadn't quite seen it before. Smart.
In fact, on this occasion, I feel comparative culture comes into it rather more than, say, in "Tipping Point", insofar as he is arguing against a cultural disposition to believe in the myth of the extraordinary individual triumphing over all odds which is peculiarly American. I suspect a European audience will find it rather easier to accept the role of environment and luck in individual outcomes than the author seems to expect in this book.
So a hint of "yep, thanks", about this book… That doesn't stop it being a quick, straightforward and entertaining read. Illuminating too, and could be useful in countering the next person who tells you that Bill Gates is the richest man in the world because he entirely deserves to be on his own merits, which will probably happen to you in a bar in Denver, Colorado, rather than Rochdale, Lancashire.
Recommendation? I have Gladwell in my light-and-entertaining category, a bit like the tales of the Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency, books to be read when you need a break from "Chronic City" and the like. So yes, why not? But Gladwell's imagery won't be pervading my subconscious the next time an Icelandic volcano goes up.
Telling what you don't know you know. Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers
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