"Parody is the most flattering form of imitation": Malcolm Gladwell on Blink and Blank
Earlier this week Fishbowl brought you an exclusive report on the upcoming parody of parody of Malcolm Gladwell‘s Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking called Blank: The Power of Not Actually Thinking At All.
Blank isn’t even out yet, but it’s already gotten its most important review: that of Blink author Malcolm Gladwell.
Fishbowl asked Gladwell for his thinly-sliced thoughts on Blank: Did he like it? Was he flattered? Did he know who the heck was behind it? This was his emailed response:
“Blank is completely hilarious. I have no idea who Noah Tall is, although I’m slightly terrified to meet him. He obviously knows me or at least my writing a bit too well at this point. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the parody is the most flattering form of imitation (or something like that).”
It’s not surprising that Gladwell is such a good sport, given that he is Canadian and Canadians are generally an excellent breed of people (that is an objective opinion). Please note that we as Fishbowl editors took the liberty of capitalizing certain words in the above quote as clearly Mr. Gladwell saves his crucial seconds of response time by using the lower-case email response method, which is statistically proven to cut down on Warren Harding error.
FISHBOWL EXCLUSIVE: Don’t think about reading this book [FishbowlNY]
