In Which I Review a Book

I’m not one to write book reviews. If you ask me for my opinion of any book I’ve read, I’ll do my best to tell you how I feel about it with one caveat: I will be purposefully vague. I feel that a lot of the magic that happens from reading a book is based on how the individual interprets the words. 

If a reader turns to the first page of a book with a preconception of how it will be, they may not be open to accepting (in their own frame of mind) what the author has written. The reader’s resulting thoughts towards the book once they’ve finished it may not be truly organic. That is why I choose to be vague when asked my thoughts on a book, because I want the reader to be able to make up as much of their mind about a book with as little outside influence as possible. Disappointment is a sliding scale, and I don’t want to be responsible for tipping it in either direction. 

With all that being said, I was asked to proffer my opinion of a book, and that is what I will do. I’ve already given you the disclaimer warning you of my intentional separation from detail, so my conscience is clean. I give unto you my thoughts on “Show Me TheFunny: At the Writers’ Table with Hollywood’s Top Comedy Writers,” by Peter Desberg and Jeffrey Davis.

First off, I really like the idea of this book. You take one central premise for a new sitcom, spin it to some of the best comedy writers in Hollywood, and tell them to run with it. How interesting would it be to hear the different takes on the same idea? How much would the show vary with different teams of writers at the helm? What genre or subgenre of comedy would the show cater to? Right off the bat, this book had a lot of potential, and I was eager to read it. After the first six or seven interpretations of the same premise, however, I began to feel bored.

I suppose I should have had the foresight to consider the fact that hearing the same idea rehashed over and over again would get old quickly. This book would have benefitted from reducing number of interviews (there are twenty-two in total). Taken individually, the ideas these writers came up with on the fly were great. It was definitely interesting to see their process unfold, and see how their past experience helped steer them in the direction they chose. String them all together, though, with all the gratuitous tangents and anecdotes of the “back in the day” variety that were thrown in, the book was often difficult to follow and borderline tedious.

While the book was put together very well, I feel that this project would have been better suited for a video documentary. Imagine hearing the writer’s ideas, and then see some of them come to life in short sketches a la SNL? I would watch that all day long. What better way to show the creative process than to see it unfold right in front of you? Reading it on a page only goes so far with a reader’s imagination.

There clearly was a lot of time, effort, and love put into this book. I appreciate it for what it is, and I understand that I am likely not the target audience for it. For those who geek out on the “behind the scenes” stuff and like to know creative minds work would really enjoy it.

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Have a good weekend, everyone.