Walk away. You will not win this one no matter how right or otherwise you are. Before you get too entangled over this, trump the TT - go to the SCMP or Bangkok Post, etc. But do not do that if you’ve stirred up a nest back at the TT or the others are just as likely to run the TT review. It would cost them nothing, and if you flew in with letters, they’d love you dearly.
HG
Thank you, but I’m not concerned with winning. I’m more concerned with standing my ground. I’ll disentangle myself after they’ve addressed the complaints - which is going to be soon - this Friday (the date was pushed back). So far. things seem to be going OK. I don’t know if they’ll pull it or not, but we’ll have to see.
May I ask? After reading those points, do you think I have a valid point?
To the last reviewer (‘fee’). A sincere thank you for taking the time to review book and for you words of encouragement. Really. Sorry you didn’t like it. I shall certainly strive for something far superior in the future.
Ed
No, I don’t think you do.
HG
OK. In your opinion, what would justify calling a review into question? And by ‘call into question,’ I mean: make a complaint, as I have done.
Thank you.
Ed, my apologies for getting personal with you earlier. I promise to be more civil in future discussions.
As you wrote yourself, such “standards” are nebulous. The reason that it is nebulous is due to the fact that there is no fixed standard at all, just vague judgement calls by the newspaper editors.
Again, what standards? Who’s standands? Who’s ethics?
Is bad taste not allowed in reviews? I don’t feel the title or the byline was in bad taste, but rather straight forward and to-the-point in summarizing the reviewer’s feelings. So who is supposed to the be arbitar of tastes?
Ed, this is a memoir. You are the content. You are the central character. With fiction, the reviewer can criticize the main character as shallow, one dimensional, and boring. With a travelogue, you, yourself, are the focus of the book. Any criticism laid towards the main character is well within the scope of the review.
How’s that misquoting you? You did write those words, right? You may accuse him of taking it out of context or failing to give it proper nuance, but it wasn’t a misquote per se, was it?
This is nit-picking. Shades of gray, really.
To you it’s a misrepresentation. To him, he felt that your words weren’t enough to convince him that Taiwanese friendliness is genuine. In fact, he felt otherwise. It’s his personal opinion. It’s subjective. It’s a review.
Again, I feel you are nit-picking here, combing through every word and nuance in the review to find ammunition. Why should a reviewer be neutral? Every reviewer has his or her own tastes and biases. By using “claim/claiming”, the reviewer is conveying his feeling that he finds your stories hard to believe. Again, that’s his personal opinion. He never called you a liar or said that the claims are patently false; he merely hinted at his perceived improbability of your stories.
[quote=“Ed Lakewood”]7. When a reviewer reviews a book, he or she is bound to finish it. Again, the Taipei Times expects their reviewers to do so, and the industry believes overwhelmingly that failing to do so is unethical. To quote the review, “The book concludes with a journey down the length of Vietnam. By that time, I’d had as much as I could stomach and more.”
In the English language, we customarily use the phrase “by then” to denote a point or stage during a process. We do not use it to describe the point or stage at or after a conclusion. For that, we use phrases like “by the end,” “at the end,” “by the time I’d finished,” and so on, as you well know. What’s more, “I’d had” is past perfect. Upon finishing a book, one would use present or past tense (ex. “I think the ending was poor”, “I didn’t like the ending,” etc.). One does not finish up a book and say, “By then, I’d had as much as I could stomach,….” [/quote]
OK, so you don’t like his grammar. And yes, if the reviewer didn’t finish the book, then he should do so. But before pointing fingers at being misquoted, you seem to have done the same thing (see bolded words above). Misquotes are easy to make, but was the reason behind it simply carelessness, indifference, or something more sinister like trying to put words in your mouth to make you look bad?
I agree with Huang Guang Chen in that your points are certainly not strong enough to make a formal written complaint. If the review went something like “Parfitt’s book sucks and the cover picture sucks even more. He’s a weed smoking loser from Vancouver, I’m sure.”, then you got yourself a cause for complaint.
Your post states that “this is not about an inability to accept criticism”. But with the objections that you’ve detailed above regarding Winterton’s TT review (not to mention the exchange with jdsmith and Poagao), I feel that it is exactly an inablity to accept criticism that has led you to make such a kerfuffle of it all.
SJCMA,
Well, you certainly bring up some interestiing points; food for thought, certainly. I don’t agree with everything you are saying, mind, but with some of it, I can see your point. And, yes, I slipped on ‘by then’ and ‘by that time.’ Thanks - really - for pointing that out. I’m just waiting to see what the TT does. Don’t worry about “getting all personal” or whatever in the previous post. No hard feelings.
Take care,
Ed
Yes, you certainly directed me to edit not only my posts on Forumosa.com, but ALSO my review on Amazon.com.
In fact, you certainly even provided pre-written sentences that you wanted me to post after deleting the ones I had posted.
And I wasn’t the ONLY person you PMed about doing the very same thing.
Don’t bring me up in your posts, Ed. I didn’t move on. I stopped communicating with you because you were being totally outrageous and acting without a shred of professionalism.
jdsurly
oh, and this is a one time post. I’m not back. Little birds told me you were mentioning me by name. Please don’t. We have nothing to talk about.
Right. Well.
I didn’t want it to be known that I solicited a review. I meant to ask people that - as a condition (along with “not being mean,” and ‘posting the review in a timely fashion’), but it was an after thought - which is my problem, not yours; or so I realized later. And, like you pointed out to me: ‘what does it matter if people know the review was solicited or not?’ And I realized you were right. I did ask someone else to delete the part about me asking them to do a review, but after what you said, I stopped doing this. As for supplying you with what to say; yes, I gave you a suggestion, and that was a very stupid thing to do. Sorry. I thought that we ended on a peaceful note, with me essentially conceding that you were right.
What can I say? I made a mistake. A couple. OK, a few. I do it all the time. I went to Subway the other day and forgot to bring my wallet. I slipped on a flight of stairs on the weekend. I brought the wrong batch of tests home to mark. I thought that Betamax couldn’t possibly lose to VHS. There was a brief period there when I thought Iraq just might have WMDs.
My apologies.
Chewy Mate, these things are not mutually exclusive. Why not do the writing in the same state as the travels were carried out?
I was pretty well wankered for much of my travels and the six-month writing up period was one of my Golden Ages of Intoxication.[/quote]
Sage advice from the Fridgemaster.
I’d definitely need to drink if I wrote a Star Wars horror fictional story that I’d like to write. Basically, the storyline would involve the son of Chewbacca. Chewbacca impregnates an Ewok woman on the forest moon of Endor and then leaves to fight a war on his home planet of Kashyyyk. Unfortunately though, while almost to term with the baby, the Ewok woman steps on a land mine [from an ancient war) in a desolate, uninhabited part of the moon and is instantly killed. Somehow, the baby manages to exit its mother’s womb and is able to survive on its own, but it is severely deformed and unable to grow hair. When it does re-establish links with the Ewok community, it is shunned by the other Ewoks because it is half Wookie/half Ewok (and is much taller than the other Ewoks) and because it has no hair. As a result, the half Ewok/half Wookie hairless “Chewbaccalitz” becomes a “bounty hunter”-with the caveat that he will hunt only hairy beasts. He then searches for hairy beasts from all corners of the galaxy.
Write it it in the first person and employ a lot of dialogue. That way it might get turned into a movie. Make sure you choose a name that can easily be mimicked and used as an adult film name. That’s just free publicity for you.
[quote=“Chewycorns”]
Sage advice from the Fridgemaster.
I’d definitely need to drink if I wrote a Star Wars horror fictional story that I’d like to write. Basically, the storyline would involve the son of Chewbacca. Chewbacca impregnates an Ewok woman on the forest moon of Endor and then leaves to fight a war on his home planet of Kashyyyk. Unfortunately though, while almost to term with the baby, the Ewok woman steps on a land mine [from an ancient war) in a desolate, uninhabited part of the moon and is instantly killed. Somehow, the baby manages to exit its mother’s womb and is able to survive on its own, but it is severely deformed and unable to grow hair. When it does re-establish links with the Ewok community, it is shunned by the other Ewoks because it is half Wookie/half Ewok (and is much taller than the other Ewoks) and because it has no hair. As a result, the half Ewok/half Wookie hairless “Chewbaccalitz” becomes a “bounty hunter”-with the caveat that he will hunt only hairy beasts. He then searches for hairy beasts from all corners of the galaxy.[/quote]
That would be an awesome book! Now if you could figure out how to incorporate some zombies into it…
Well, now, I dunno.
I have not read Mr. Lakewood’s book. But I have read the Taipei Times.
I don’t think Mr. Lakewood is holding himself out as a professional, much-published author. This is his first effort at writing a book. He did his best and a publisher seemed to think it was of a sufficient standard to be published. The folks at the TT, on the other hand, ARE holding themselves out as professionals (I’m sure there are sufficient threads on that elsewhere on f.com so that I don’t have to go into that in greater detail). Whether every word in the TT is of a standard to be published every day, I won’t say. 
I believe that a “professional writer” [at least that’s what it says on the ARC; which journalism school did you graduate from again?] who is writing for what amounts to a community paper (given the size of the English-speaking community in Taiwan) might consider that it is a small community and might want to trouble himself to be even a little bit nice, even if he absolutely hates the book start to finish. You can still pan a book without being vicious.
Yeah, they want to believe the TT is a national paper. Oh boy! I write for the leading English language paper in Taiwan! (Let’s think about that statement for awhile…hmmm…the Past, the Snooze…leading? What an honor!) But at the end of the day, they have two groups reading it: expats who want a decent crossword puzzle, and people trying to learn English. The first group is probably considerably smaller than the second. It’s a frustrating place to work, I’m sure. I know it was his job to write a review, but there are degrees of everything. People who are secure in their own competence have the grace to do their jobs – wherever they end up – without having to barbecue others to stroke their egos. And I strongly suspect there was at least a goodly element of barbecuing going on in this review.
[quote=“Durins Bane”][quote=“Chewycorns”]
Sage advice from the Fridgemaster.
I’d definitely need to drink if I wrote a Star Wars horror fictional story that I’d like to write. Basically, the storyline would involve the son of Chewbacca. Chewbacca impregnates an Ewok woman on the forest moon of Endor and then leaves to fight a war on his home planet of Kashyyyk. Unfortunately though, while almost to term with the baby, the Ewok woman steps on a land mine [from an ancient war) in a desolate, uninhabited part of the moon and is instantly killed. Somehow, the baby manages to exit its mother’s womb and is able to survive on its own, but it is severely deformed and unable to grow hair. When it does re-establish links with the Ewok community, it is shunned by the other Ewoks because it is half Wookie/half Ewok (and is much taller than the other Ewoks) and because it has no hair. As a result, the half Ewok/half Wookie hairless “Chewbaccalitz” becomes a “bounty hunter”-with the caveat that he will hunt only hairy beasts. He then searches for hairy beasts from all corners of the galaxy.[/quote]
That would be an awesome book! Now if you could figure out how to incorporate some zombies into it…[/quote]
After capturing many hairy beasts from the far reaches of the galaxy, Chewbaccalitz marries a harum of hairless zombies and they become his associates in the global fight against animals with hair. This includes a trip to Earth to find one of the girls in Edison Chen’s group of photographs.
Well,
I just got off the horn with the features section editor at the Taipei Times. Here’s the verdict. The review stays… with a few changes. A text box will appear alongside the slightly altered version explaining how it is the writer’s opinion that the review doesn’t aptly reflect the book’s contents or the writer’s intent or something to that effect. The words ‘insulting and ill-informed,’ will be removed from the header and some other corrections will be made. An elipsis here (re a misquote) the snipping of a couple of words there (re a factual error), and that’s about it really. There was no budging on a couple of points, namely the ‘Taiwanese friendliness toward foreigers as something slightly ridiculous (supported by a quote about daft clerks at Chung Hwa Telecom)’ and my questioning of whether the book was actually completed or not. But, what can you do? So now I may write a letter to the editor which would be linked to the review (and could be countered with Mr. Winterton’s own letter),… or I may not. And if you’ve been following this thread, this is not really new news, as it were.
The fellow I dealt with, Steven Price, was always above board and courteous, I might add.
I suppose I should give up; go see No Country for Old Men, have a couple of beers, chat up fully grown women on the MRT who possess Hello Kitty accessories (‘You headed to Ximending?’), and work on my next book All You Ever Wanted to Know about the Swedish Porn Industry (But were Afraid to Ask), and move on. And so that’s what I’ll probably do. I still maintain that the review teeters on the edge of honest portrayal in places, but there is no doubt that the reviewer honestly didn’t like it. I suppose there are preconditions for liking it; having a sense of humour wouldn’t hurt, nor would the ability not let a profound, emotional attachment to Taiwan, ROC preclude the reading of criticism about or the poking fun of said nation-state and/or Chinese province.
So, anyhow, thanks for tuning in. Take care, stay warm, and be nice to each other.
Ed
I read very little of Forumosa these days, but this thread certainly has been entertaining.
I wrote my review on Amazon, maybe nearly a week ago, and it still hasn’t gone up. Does it usually take so long?
Brian
Sincere congrats on winning concessions from TT, Ed. I think the compromise reached was a fair one and I actually think a little more highly of the Times for offering it up. As for the letter to the editor thing, I still think it’s a bad idea. My sense is you’ve gotten about as much as you’re going to get in the way of concessions. Push any more with a critical letter and you may get a response from the reviewer that makes you and your book look even worse. Best to move on.
Yeah, you’re probably right.
Here’s a review from Michael Turton, who was kind of enough to accept a copy and write something thoughtful (and, I might add, without factual errors) on his website. His site is very impressive and worth a look, btw, although most of you are probably aware of that.
michaelturton.blogspot.com/search?q=troy+parfitt
The book actually broke into the top 100 on Amazon in the travel category recently. That’s not a huge thing, but it’s something I suppose.
Ed
Congratulations on breaking into the top 100, for what it’s worth. I’m almost finished the book, though I’m not sure you’d care to hear my review.
Well, in response to the deluge of PMs I’ve received, I don’t have any more copies, but Notes from the Other China is on sale at Amazon.com for only $11.16.
Wow! Did somebody say $11.16? At that low low price (that’s a savings of 51% folks), who could afford not to buy it?
Heh Heh.
amazon.com/Notes-Other-China … ef=ed_oe_o
In other news, the Taipei Times still - still - has not made the changes to the review they promised they would. They got very apologetic about the ‘insulting and ill-informed’ bit, but, well, it’s still there. I mentioned this to them again and they apologized again and said they’d change it. Again. They didn’t. Funny, they only fixed a couple of factual errors, without the accompanying box they said they would include explaining how they had made factual errors. So, now it’s as if they never made any errors in the first place.
After they promised to make these changes, they asked if I’d need to see a statement to that effect in writing. I told them (well, I told Steven Price) that I was all for bypassing formalities and that I trusted him to keep his word. So much for that.
Oh, I might add that when I pointed out that the reviewer’s statement “By then I’d had as much as I could handle,” indicated that he hadn’t completed the book (you don’t complete something and then use the phrase “by then” to signify you have) it was explained to me that this was due to a difference between the North American and UK dialects.
Here’s something else you just may be interested to know. When I first made the complaint about the review, I was told that the reviewer, Bradley Winterton, was willing to have it removed from the newspaper’s website. However, the newspaper said it couldn’t automatically comply with my request and his assent but would have to decide for itself what to do in order to ‘protect its integrity.’ By fixing mistakes without stating they did so (as the promised they would) I now see what they meant by that.
And of course, in coming to their decision, it was very much a matter of protecting their man. I figured it would be, but they could have at least pretended. The feature’s section editor, usually quite calm, errupted once, saying that Winterton had been writing reviews for their newspaper for years so who did I expect him to support: him or me?
I know I said before that he was always on the level. But I was just being polite.
And one last thing. In the final decision (re whether to pull the review or not, which, I might add was delayed at least three times) one the of reasons cited to leave it was that it mirrored a subsequent review - one I solicited and which appears on this thread. Indeed, that review is a virtual carbon copy of Winterton’s review. One of the only places it diverges is at the point where it makes statements about the book that are not true, which is to say both contain comments about the book which are not true although those comments are not the same. I found this to be a very curious defence.
Oh, well. Fuck it. And fuck the Taipei Times. (I do hope that’s what they say in Britain.)
Back to the drawing board. (Please note: this is an expression used in the North American dialect of the English language. It is a reference to starting again. It does not signify that I will be drawing anything.)