‘Every Book is a Failure’ (But Typically Not for the Reasons Envisaged by the Author): A Response to My Interlocutors Concerning Cultural Sociology of Cultural Representations

Abstract

This article responds to only a small number of the questions and comments raised by my interlocutors in relation to my book, Cultural Sociology of Cultural Representations: Visions of Italy and the Italians in England and Britain from the Renaissance to the Present Day. The article begins by clarifying the key points I wanted the book to make and the reasons why, before turning to address the comments of my interlocutors in light of their respective interpretations and readings of the text. Rather than adopting a defensive posture, the article operates instead with the assumption that to varying degrees all books fail to realise the intentions of their authors. As such, the article is receptive to the comments of the interlocutors, and, in various cases, identifies and reflects on additional ways in which the book might have been a more successful one had I elected to do certain things differently. The article concludes by noting that while ultimately all books fail, the small victories they achieve on the road to failing are perhaps what matter most, together with the fact that the highly-patterned nature of certain failures is instructive for demonstrating to one’s peers the pitfalls associated with particular types of intellectual endeavour.