The Wisdom of Strangers

I love reading the letters of complaint that authors write in response to negative reviews. The New York Times Book Review and the New York Review of Books print many of them. These letters are like poetry -- brief and difficult to write (it's hard to avoid sounding grumpy) -- but more emotional and easier to understand. So when Dr. John Ford, a professor at the UCLA medical school, posted a review of my recently-published book The Shangri-La Diet , I was eager to reply. At some schools for sushi chefs, students do not touch fish until their third year. Likewise, I would finally get to do something I had studied a long time.

I tried to write a spare, just-the-facts response correcting Dr. Ford's mistakes. Here is what I wrote.

Had years of observation and appreciation paid off? Had I managed to write a reply that wasn't irritating? This complaint from a blogger made me uneasy: "What I found surprising was Roberts' cheap shot about how slack medical school professors/ researchers are when it comes to contribution to the collective pool of knowledge in medical science of weight loss." I wasn't sure what cheap shot meant, but obviously it was a criticism. Then a friend said "I liked your reply up until the end." Uh-oh. Two people had complained about the same thing.

To get a better picture of the quality of my reply, I posted it on the forums at shangriladiet.com: and asked for comments. The forums have more than 10,000 posts and about 1000 members. Among the 30-odd replies was this: "The content of your rebuttal seems valid but I wonder if a less reactive/emotional tone to your response would be warranted. . . . A courtier-like style of conduct would serve you well and would be a stark contrast to the arrogant and dismissive tone of [Ford's] review." This, I could tell, was excellent advice, even if I didn't know exactly what "courtier-like" meant. (Later, it was explained that "a courtier learned to master the art of indirection; he asserted power over others in the most oblique and graceful manner.") It made me wish I had solicited comments before I posted my reply.

At the same time we have Stephen Colbert's truthiness, a new type of truth (based on instinct rather than fact), could network TV's polar opposite, the Internet, be bringing us another new type of truth (wise, hard, and not yet named)? During 20-odd years as a university professor, I have showed most of my work to colleagues but rarely have I gotten feedback so sensible, helpful, and far-reaching. The usual critique I receive -- and I assume others receive -- is about this and that detail, not something comprehensive and original. Not that my colleagues can't be comprehensive and original, it's just that they don't show these qualities when they comment on my papers. My guess is it's a rule they follow: no serious critiques. I learned this lesson the hard way. Years ago a professor at another university sent me her paper for comments and I replied with some broad and non-trivial questions I thought she could answer. Oops. She never spoke to me again.

The "courtier-like" comment was from someone named Cleo. I know nothing about her. She owes me nothing. I owe her nothing. How hard it is "to see ourselves as others see us," wrote Robert Burns in "To a Louse" (1786). Maybe it is no longer hard. Start by posting your picture on www.hotornot.com . . .