Praise for....

This is something that has bemused me for some time. Who writes those testimonials that appear on billboards for third-rate Hollywood movies and on the inside pages of fiction best-sellers? You can tell much about the likely quality of a movie from these helpful one-liners. For example, "Rocky Balboa is the best Rocky movie yet!", is hardly a ringing endorsement, is it? The word "yet" also warns you that it's not outside the realm of possibility that Sylvester Stallone might appear in one further installment, in which it doesn't matter if the guy is blind and in a zimmer frame, he'll still knock the crap out of an opponent 60 years younger after 12 rounds in the ring. Or what does it say about Final Destination 15 that the best the distributors could do was an endorsement of "Thrilling!" from the News of the World, as if, somehow, a thriller shouldn't be expected to be "thrilling".

Books don't escape this sort of disingenuous advertising either. Take Jacques Pépin's autobiography, The Apprentice, which I'm currently reading. It's a great book describing his early years as a trainee chef, going on to cook for Charles de Gaulle, emigrating to New York, almost becoming JFK's personal chef and eventually becoming a TV personality. Yet, the Washington Post seemingly has nothing more helpful to say than "Fascinating", Entertainment Weekly chips in with "Colourful memories", or how about this from the Chicago Tribune: "Well told", as if somehow they're commending this charming Frenchman on his competent command of English grammar. Some others have clearly read the book more carefully and offer far more useful commentary. Anthony Bourdain, ever-enthusiastic, has this to say: "I've been waiting for this book my whole life!... A well-written, funny, sad, informative, and always enchanting account of an incredible career.... An instant classic." And this brings me to Bourdain's own hefty tome, Les Halles Cookbook, which I recently purchased. This, by the way, is an excellent book, replete with classic French recipes accompanied by Bourdain's odd-ball commentary: "So, let's make fries. But do it right. There's no half-ass way to make French fries." You can almost feel him watching over your shoulder. "No, you f*cking idiot! You're supposed to blanche them first!" That's the kind of thing he might say if you didn't give due respect to your fries. The introduction alone is worth the 9.99GBP (reduced...) I paid for it. Yet the front carries this dubious endorsement from Gordon Ramsay: "A workable, usable book with attitude", which in my impression of Gordon Ramsay, translates as: "Yeah, this book is f*cking sh*t! Usable! I use it as a f*cking doorstop! And I don't care what people say about his attitude, I still think he's a f*cking a***hole!" Of course, that might just be me being unkind....

Here's another book I'm reading: The Tapestries, by Kien Nguyen, a novel set in early 20th Century Vietnam. Now, some people are just full of themselves. What the heck is this?

"The Tapestries stirs and bleeds and blushes, fully fleshed. Its every leaf glimmers with sunlit rain, its every anguish burns the eyes. It breathes... No detail escapes Nguyen's watchful eye, no shape or surface slumps into soft focus... The pictures, thousands of them and almost every one jewel-bright, tell the story... Under the swoosh of the story itself lie the backdrops crafted so exquisitely that their silver blades and lanterns gleam long after the drama fades from view."

I get the feeling that whoever it was at the San Francisco Chronicle who wrote this was suffering from a severe case of post-colonial romaticism. Firstly, the place was run by French people; there were probably bakeries selling baguettes to rich white people all over the place. Secondly, the poor guy was sold into slavery to the household of the magistrate who murdered his father. Thirdly, there were probably rats everywhere, and cockroaches, and malaria. And it was hot, and sweaty, and humid.