Sometimes, part way through reading a book, I find myself thinking Who would read this book? as if the obvious answer isn’t staring me smack in the face. Who would read this book? Me. I would. For instance, I requested The Inkblots from Netgalley and then laid in bed reading it and I don’t know why I never took that teeny logical jump to realize that. Maybe I needed to read a book about Rorschach and Rorschach tests and start thinking all psychologically to make that leap, because that’s what The Inkblots is all about.
The Inkblots can be divided into three (unofficial — it isn’t like there’s a Section I and Section II and Section III delineated within the text) sections: All about Rorschach, All About People Mucking About With Rorschach Tests after Rorschach Died, Random Segue Into Randomness For The Last Thirty Or Forty Pages Or So. Attacking Section Three first: why? For instance, the vague prison story where no details can be revealed so what’s the point? Or Searls’ Hey I got a Rorschach test done on myself but since it wasn’t for any real purpose except for saying I did it, the process didn’t have meaning the way a Rorschach test would if I did it for actual psychoanalytical purposes? So, Section Three needs serious editing. Kill your darlings Searls. The shift in tone as we go into Section Three (basically in the middle of a sentence) is a bad jolt to the reader and most of Section Three’s content is a shrugs shoulders emoji.
Now let’s go back to Sections One and Two. They were, well, I mean, I don’t really have to attack them the way I did Section Three. They were there, in the book, at the beginning and middle, like a high school report. You know, not everyone needs a biography, even people who come up with important psychological tests (to apply something from the book, total cult of personality thing for Searls to assume that we needed a hundred and fifty-odd pages about Rorschach The Man, that his personality/life merit investigation alongside his test.) Section Two could be thought of as the Rorschach Test’s biography. Again, it isn’t as if the test has that great a personality that it merits another one hundred and fifty-odd pages. I didn’t mind reading about the little changes here and there and the professional squabbling between different psychologists and psychiatrists about what/how/when/why the test should be administered, but I also didn’t mind watching Blended on an airplane when there was absolutely nothing else to do for a few hours. Section Two ends up being superficial because its the biography of a test and tests don’t have fascinating inner lives.
I mean, I want to take a Rorschach Test now and I’m totally the sort of person who would read this book and I did, so I guess the book is a success? Is it? Did I see a butterfly in all those inkblots? I don’t know.
The Inkblots by Damion Searls went on sale February 21, 2017.
I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.