So often, book reviews simply summarize the book, weakly saving the ending from being revealed. Book reviews nowadays function to simply allow the reader a basic gist of the book without ever having to read it. The book reviews are weak attempts at capturing the attention of the audience and persuading them to go out and experience the book firsthand. However, in reality, book reviews are really supposed to be extended analysis on the book for those who have already read it.
With that thought in mind, Sam Tanenhaus’s book review of Open: An Autobiography by Andre Agassi, proved to be a wonderful surprise to the reader in that it did so much more than just summarize the book. This review is not just some weak summary of the book. Tanenhaus provides a strong hook into the review, using the real-life image of Andre Agassi to pull at the reader’s interest. He starts out talking about Agassi’s personality, an element in which all people agree, in the fact that Agassi has a very colorful and interesting personality. Even though Tanenhaus has a subtly admirable image of Agassi, he does well to stick to neutral ground when analyzing the book, keeping in mind that not everyone agrees that Andre Agassi is one of the best tennis players.
After slowly capturing the reader’s attention with a series of information aboutAgassi’s personality as well as on-court style, Tanenhaus begins to start turning toward the analysis of the book. Then he drops the real shocker (to those who perhaps hadn’t read the book) by revealing the Agassi considered tennis to be a prison that had been containing him for some 30 years. Although he does summarize the book at times, Tanenhaus follows up the summaries with sharp analysis. For example, Tanenhaus summarizes the pain of Agassi’s childhood but analyzes that “all this was nurturing, at least compared with his next incarceration, at the Florida tennis academy” (Agassi). It even seems that Tanenhaus does some outside research to enhance his review of the book when he mentions statistics on Andre Agassi’s game compared to Pete Sampras. This could almost be considered a New Historicism analysis because he looks at the authors's (Agassi's) background to analyze the book. I can connect this to many of our discussions in class because when analyzing the work, with all of the various techniques, we also look at the author's background, just like Tanenhaus. Also, his level of formality (a diction choice) involved more scholarly words (such as incarcerated).
In regards to other literary techniques that were used, Tanenhaus paid particular attention to his syntax choices. Often, he kept long, elegant sentences that fit in well with his diction choice of scholarly words. However, if he wanted to place a special emphasis on a certain fact, he did make sure to cut the sentence into a quick, concise one with a high-impact words towards the end. Tanenhaus even used imagery, to a certain extent, to appeal to the readers. He illustrated what the response was to Agassi's book and did quite a good job with it.
Tanenhaus stays balanced and neutral. While he does not give a solely negative review, he also does not give a solely positive review; Tanenhaus sticks to neutral ground by pointing out some flaws in the book while also pointing out the good elements. It is important for a book reviewer not to be too biased, and Tanenhaus does a good job to offer his viewpoint (as an Agassi admirer) but still focus on some aspects of the book that were maybe not so pleasing, like when Agassi “at times in ‘Open’ seems bent on reprising the full catalog [of wins and losses at each and every tournament]”.
What is most impressive about this book review, distinguishing it from all the other “good reviews” as an “excellent” review, is that this review even analyzes tone.Tanenhaus makes sure to acknowledge the tone of the book, highlighting how the book is “darkly funny yet also anguished and soulful”.
With that thought in mind, Sam Tanenhaus’s book review of Open: An Autobiography by Andre Agassi, proved to be a wonderful surprise to the reader in that it did so much more than just summarize the book. This review is not just some weak summary of the book. Tanenhaus provides a strong hook into the review, using the real-life image of Andre Agassi to pull at the reader’s interest. He starts out talking about Agassi’s personality, an element in which all people agree, in the fact that Agassi has a very colorful and interesting personality. Even though Tanenhaus has a subtly admirable image of Agassi, he does well to stick to neutral ground when analyzing the book, keeping in mind that not everyone agrees that Andre Agassi is one of the best tennis players.
After slowly capturing the reader’s attention with a series of information aboutAgassi’s personality as well as on-court style, Tanenhaus begins to start turning toward the analysis of the book. Then he drops the real shocker (to those who perhaps hadn’t read the book) by revealing the Agassi considered tennis to be a prison that had been containing him for some 30 years. Although he does summarize the book at times, Tanenhaus follows up the summaries with sharp analysis. For example, Tanenhaus summarizes the pain of Agassi’s childhood but analyzes that “all this was nurturing, at least compared with his next incarceration, at the Florida tennis academy” (Agassi). It even seems that Tanenhaus does some outside research to enhance his review of the book when he mentions statistics on Andre Agassi’s game compared to Pete Sampras. This could almost be considered a New Historicism analysis because he looks at the authors's (Agassi's) background to analyze the book. I can connect this to many of our discussions in class because when analyzing the work, with all of the various techniques, we also look at the author's background, just like Tanenhaus. Also, his level of formality (a diction choice) involved more scholarly words (such as incarcerated).
In regards to other literary techniques that were used, Tanenhaus paid particular attention to his syntax choices. Often, he kept long, elegant sentences that fit in well with his diction choice of scholarly words. However, if he wanted to place a special emphasis on a certain fact, he did make sure to cut the sentence into a quick, concise one with a high-impact words towards the end. Tanenhaus even used imagery, to a certain extent, to appeal to the readers. He illustrated what the response was to Agassi's book and did quite a good job with it.
Tanenhaus stays balanced and neutral. While he does not give a solely negative review, he also does not give a solely positive review; Tanenhaus sticks to neutral ground by pointing out some flaws in the book while also pointing out the good elements. It is important for a book reviewer not to be too biased, and Tanenhaus does a good job to offer his viewpoint (as an Agassi admirer) but still focus on some aspects of the book that were maybe not so pleasing, like when Agassi “at times in ‘Open’ seems bent on reprising the full catalog [of wins and losses at each and every tournament]”.
What is most impressive about this book review, distinguishing it from all the other “good reviews” as an “excellent” review, is that this review even analyzes tone.Tanenhaus makes sure to acknowledge the tone of the book, highlighting how the book is “darkly funny yet also anguished and soulful”.
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ReplyDeleteGreat intro, you're right about the way book reviews usually are. I had a difficult time finding a good one anywhere.
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ReplyDeleteI like your commitment to making sure you make all the necessary points. You might consider condensing your language to make briefer analyses just to make sure you don't lose the reader. Still, nice job!
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ReplyDeleteWell done! I really liked your intro, but I think that you could have summed it up in a couple sentences and put it into your (currently second) paragraph. And I agree with Hannah: you have a lot of good points, just try to make them a bit more succinct. :) Great job!