Don't Believe the Hype

David Kirby had an amusing piece in Sunday's Chicago Tribune. Kirby had previously reviewed David Foster Wallace's new story collection Oblivion, giving a rather guarded recommendation which Kirby summarizes as follows:

I said Oblivion is an extremely demanding read, a hyper-realistic type of fiction with sophisticated philosophical underpinnings and a worthy book in many ways, though one intended for readers with very specialized tastes--in other words, not a beach novel.

Yet somehow the marketing honchos at Little, Brown generously interpolated Kirby's review to come up with the following pull quote:

'Superb.' David Kirby, Chicago Tribune.

Obviously, quite a stretch. Kirby goes on to discuss other dubious pull quotes, after rather nicely describing how a reviewer's words can be completely taken out of context:

Thus a jacket might trumpet "Amazing . . . constantly surprises . . . great fun for the reader" when the actual quote was something like "Amazing piece of drivel that constantly surprises with its total and complete inanity, thus providing great fun for the reader who truly knows the difference between competent writing and complete ineptitude."

Conclusion? When reading pull quotes as presented by publishers, bear in mind what Lou Reed once undeniably said: "Don't believe half of what you see, and none of what you hear."