False Advertising?

How much thought goes into coming up with the title for a book? Obviously that varies wildly from case to case. To give one self-serving example, the title of my doctoral dissertation was: Hegel's Aesthetics and the Explosion of the Arts: A Hegelian Account of the Arts in the Twentieth Century. It took some time—and the consideration of several variations—to come up with this title. In the end, I felt it worked fairly well, because it gave a sense of the content of the thesis and, with the use of “Explosion,” had a more interesting ring to it than many other dissertation titles. A few years later, when approached by a publisher who wanted to publish it as a book, I took the opportunity to make some revisions to the content as well as the title, settling on: A Hegelian Account of Contemporary Art. Gone was the notion of an explosion, with its confusing but intended double meaning. Gone also were thirteen words, relative brevity being a desired commodity in the world of book titles. Yet still the title seemed a fairly accurate indication of what the reader would find inside.

Which brings me to the point of today’s sermon. Many titles are the result of much consideration and calculation. However, when thoughts of marketing seep into the process—an unfortunate but almost unavoidable thing these days—the result can sometimes be deceiving, or at least misleading. Case in point: Mayflower, by Nathaniel Philbrick (2006). I had the qualified pleasure of reading this book recently (or more accurately—having it read to me via an audiobook played during a long drive from Manhattan to Ann Arbor, Michigan and back). Having just been in Provincetown, MA, where I took a walking tour that was filled with references and tributes to the Mayflower and its travelers (whose first stop in the New World was in fact Provincetown), I thought I would enjoy hearing about the famous transatlantic trip and the pilgrims’ adventures setting up a new colony in America.

The book certainly delivered on my expectation. However, these topics were quickly exhausted during the first 40% of the book and then we were on to something related, but quite different—the so-called King Philip’s War of 1675-1676, a war between the natives and the colonists that resulted in a major shift in population and power in the New World. This is clearly an important and compelling historical event. However, not only is it not really about the Mayflower (which, by the way, had long since returned to Europe and eventually been scrapped), the whole tone of the book shifts dramatically as we enter a long, detail-filled account of every battle and strategic decision. A fine example of military history writing, perhaps, but not what I was expecting or particularly interested in at the moment.

A more accurate title would have been something like, “The Adventures of the Pilgrims en Route to and in the New World from 1609 to 1676.” Or maybe “The Mayflower and Then What Happened.” Terrible titles, I admit, but not misleading. So, was this a marketing decision to take advantage of people’s interest in the Mayflower coupled with the realization that most people are not interested in reading about King Philip’s War?

How about fiction? Does the writer have an obligation not to be misleading in the choice of title? I wouldn’t have thought so until I read (yes, this book was read, not listened to) the novel World’s Fair by E.L. Doctorow (1985). Having just read The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (not a novel) about the Chicago World’s Fair (Columbian Exposition) of 1893, I was curious to learn more about my own city’s world’s fair (not the one I visited in 1964-65, but the one my parents visited in 1939-40). To my astonishment, the fair wasn’t even mentioned until page 193 (out of 288) and then didn’t become a narrative topic until the final 10% or so of the book. I should also mention that I didn’t think it was a particularly good novel. It seemed more like a “book for young adults” than a novel—another question of expectations.

My point? I don’t know. Buyer beware? Don’t judge a book by its title? We’re entitled to something less misleading?