Fans, by Michael Bond - Steve
There’s liking something and there’s really liking something. This is what separates the subject matter of Fans from those of us who merely quite like Star Wars, have a passing affection for Doctor Who - they wear their devotion like the badges on the book’s cover.
Michael Bond has made his name writing about psychology before, but there’s surprisingly little insight to be gained here. The quality of his research can’t be faulted - you can expect to gain an unexpected insight into certain pop culture obsessions - but there’s not much to be gleaned on the actual psychology front.
While some academic texts can be accused of over-egging things, Fans has the opposite problem. In its attempts to pay lip service to the number of things people have devoted themselves to, he stretches himself thin, meaning that beyond some small gobbets of knowledge, not much else is revealed. It’s hard to ascertain exactly what he’s trying to achieve.
You sense that he would have been better off limiting his case studies to a mere few examples, or else greatly increasing the word count. As it is, what we’re left with is something that pays lip service to the phenomenon of fandom, and may be a reasonable place to start on the subject, but is far from the definitive word on it.
Steve
