Writing a book review

This review of the novel Heat and Dust is spoiled by a number of weaknesses. Underline examples of
where the writer fails to follow each of the numbered pieces of advice given below.

1. Write for the reader.
Always bear in mind who you are writing for. If youre writing for a magazine, think of the kind of people
who read that particular magazine. A book review is intended for people who have not read the book, so
dont assume that your readers already know the story.

2. Don't talk about yourself.
When giving your opinion, whether in a review or elsewhere, be careful not to fall into the trap of talking
about yourself. Try to be objective. One way of testing for objectivity is to check your writing for the
words I, me, my, myself.
Similarly, phrases such as in my opinion, to my mind, I think should be used as little as possible; any
more than once in the first paragraph and once in the last, and your review seems to focus on yourself,
not your subject.

3. Write in an impersonal style.
Many students spoil their articles and reviews by writing in a chatty, informal style as if they were talking
to a friend. On the contrary, essays, articles and reviews should be relatively impersonal. Your readers are
not particularly interested in you: they need information, description and narrative more than they need
your opinion. Finally, you dont know your reader, so be careful about using the word you.

4. Use precise, descriptive vocabulary.
Generalizations such as This book is boring communicate very little to the reader. Specific observations
and concrete facts, on the other hand, help the reader to share your experience. If you have strong
feelings about your subject, this should make your writing more interesting - but be careful! Strong
feelings must be given form and coldly translated into precise words.

Heat and Dust
by Ruth Prawer Jhabvata
A writer of genius ... a writer of world class a master storyteller it says on the dustjacket. Can they
really be talking about the same writer, the same book? Personally, I cant see what distinguishes Heat And
Dust from any of those cheap romantic novels that you get at railway stations.
What on earth is so remarkable about the story of a bored expatriate who leaves a dull husband for
someone richer, more intelligent and totally exotic? In my opinion, if Jhabvala was really a good writer she
would have written instead about a much more interesting phenomenon, the typical colonial who clings
absurdly to the behaviour, traditions and even dress of his mother count ry. Alternatively, Olivia could have
really gone native, instead of just being seduced by a Nawab with a Rolls-Royce, an Alfa Romeo and an
intmate knowledge of the best hotels of Paris and London.
The plot too is corny: the idea of someone retracing someone elses life, and then (surprise, surprise!)
finding parallel events happening in their own lives. Thousands of writers have used this device and to much
better effect. So what makes Jhabvala such a great wri ter? It cant be her prose, surely, which is quite boring.
The words heat and dust appear frequently, but I for one certainly never get any impression of heat or dust.
I dont know about you, but the impression I get is of a very literary, upper-class woman sitting at her
typewriter drinking tea.
Finally, what really annoys me personally about this book is the writers morality. You can see shes a
romantic and a moralist: she looks down on her narrator with a patronizing attitude, and paints a degrading
picture of modem love by giving her narrator a kind of abject promiscuity in the place of a love life. And
incredibly, the message of the book seems to be that the best thing that can happen to a woman even an
unmarried woman, without a boyfriend, travell ing abroad is to get pregnant. Im sorry, but if you think
that, youre living in another world.