Give the Dog his Due-If You Are Jealous of Malcolm Gladwell…Get Over It and Read ‘What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures’
By Mark Monchek − October 20, 2009
I just read a review by Janet Maslin in the New York Times of the new collection of New Yorker stories by Malcolm Gladwell that came out today. Maybe it’s too early in the morning (6:30 AM) but I just can’t figure out whether she liked the book or not. Does she admire Gladwell, who has had 3 #1 NY Times best sellers to his credit (The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers)? In fact, the Tipping Point and Blink are still on the list even though the first title came out in 2000 and the second in 2005. Outliers (2008) is currently the number one hardcover bestseller. Maslin spends most of her words on what she views as Gladwell’s bait and switch approach- he starts with what you think is one subject and then deftly switches to another, or makes what you think is one argument and then, like an accomplished magician, tricks you and makes the opposite argument while you are still looking at his hand to see how he did it.
In making her main point on how powerful Gladwell has become, she hypothesizes that one of his stories (Late Bloomers) that compares the much older and lesser known writer Ben Fountain to the young best -selling author Jonathan Safron Foer got readers to buy Fountain’s short story collection, Brief Encounters with Che Guevera. She goes on to predict that Gladwell’s new work will become a best seller because all four books have similar covers and are written in the same style. She writes about how the new collection of stories previously published in the New Yorker may be too similar to each other and hence unexciting, but goes on to conclude that if you look at the book as Malcolm Gladwell’s Greatest Hits, then it’s OK. WOW, Janet, did you really conclude that there was nothing much to write about the content of Gladwell’s book?
Is Gladwell only interesting to you because of his success? Did you miss the fact that he is a first class intellectual whose extraordinary ability to make extremely technical and complex subjects accessible and fascinating has made him not only the most successful non-fiction writer of this decade but a sought after speaker and consultant to major corporations. After reading the Tipping Point, I was able to see how businesses can get to the next level of growth by analyzing which factors are really the most important within their business model and focusing on them. His book offered a well researched proof of Pareto’s Law (otherwise known as the 80-20 Rule), using modern examples, that also shed light on social phenomena- from the unlikely resurgence of Hush Puppies to the astounding drop in New York City crime beginning in the early 1990’s. Yes, his style is simple and dispassionate; but that style has served him well in getting readers to look at the world through fresh eyes, with a deep understanding that things are not what they appear to be. That by approaching the world as Gladwell does, with the innocence of a child and the discipline of a scientist you can find the extraordinary in the ordinary and understand what previously seemed beyond understanding. And, if you read his first three books carefully, you are likely to see Gladwell shift from being very journalistic and impersonal in the Tipping Point to revealing his personal interest in the subject of bias (in his case racial profiling specifically) in Blink and becoming even more personal in Outliers when he looks at his own career and the debt he owes to his mother, and her lifelong pursuit of mastery in her profession.
Gladwell, who looks like a elf that came from a different pole than Santa, has not yet gotten his due as a profound thinker and contributor to the way we think about life despite his commercial success. Maybe he just makes it look too easy. But Gladwell has paid his dues as a writer at The American Spectator, a conservative monthly. From 1987 to 1996, he was a science writer—and later the New York bureau chief—for The Washington Post. He is currently a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1996. He probably could have been an Olympic distance runner. During his high school years, Gladwell was an outstanding middle distance runner and won the 1500m Midget Boys title at the 1978 Ontario High School championships in Kingston, Ontario, in a duel with eventual Canadian Open record holder David Reid.
My copy of his new book, pre-ordered from Amazon as soon as I heard about it- should arrive tomorrow. I will read it with an even greater excitement than I did with Outliers, only because I have developed a greater appreciation of his agile mind and unique ability to help me see the world in new and surprising ways. Thanks Malcolm.
