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Blurbs are quite important in today's competitive world of books, comics, movies and music. I am afraid that most of my Netflix picks are based on a 3-4 sentence summary of a show, and a short video clip. In the domain of books, the success of the book hinges on the cover, the blurb, and the first chapter. I picked up Moby Dick in the third grade. How many other books begin with these compelling lines:
"Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world."
Not too complicated, but Melville further draws us in with this sentence:
"Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time tozz get to sea as soon as I can."
When I was a child, my standards were not as snooty as today. Anything new would have probably grabbed my attention. That included Ted Sturgeon, Harlan Ellison, Philip K. Dick, etc. Both the great and third tier writers need a hook to draw the reader into the novel. It's how they earn their money, and avoid falling into the pit of forgotten writers. R.A. Lafferty was superior to the three science fiction writers mentioned, but he may have been missing a hawker who was a master blurb writer.
I do have reservations about embellishing the novels of Pynchon, Delillo, Murakami, et. al., with a flashy blurb. The average reader of best-seller fiction might feel cheated in buying a novel above his intelligence/education level. And, thus, it might be better to praise the author with a generic phrase such as, "One of the most brilliant writers of his generation." But, please do not use the line if it came from Lee Child.
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