feedback on acknowledgments

Side Effects disagrees with my views on acknowledgments in books. Fine. I think it’s a personal decision. Here’s a sample:

“At any rate, Harman’s reservations appear prima facie at odds with his commitment to the philosopher’s biography, which I would agree with. A book, wherever it is published, is invariably a messy affair, a sticky hybrid of the ‘personal’ and the ‘professional,’ and more or less an ambiguous chunk of space between these poles. Seldom is a list of names an indulgence and that alone. No, it seems to me that an extend list of names, unless it involves cryptic allusions and insular remarks, does not exclude the [reader], but invites them into an already established world in which they themselves are now contributing.”

All I can say is that, for me as a reader, a long list of 40 or 50 names with little or no explanation is a total bore whenever I see one. It feels like clutter in the book.

By contrast, recall how much better it is when authors start with a “story of how this book came to be written” preface. Those are often quite fascinating, and do address Side Effect’s concern about showing the hybrid character of a book’s emergence. But my interest in a book never increases merely from seeing the whole list of an author’s friends and colleagues. It always reminds me of the liner notes to a hip-hop album where every hipster in sight is getting a “shout out.”

As for the worries about presenting a book as autonomous– it is an autonomous object once it’s created. There’s nothing wrong with black-boxing a book, or anything else. The reader don’t need to know all the sticky details of its creation, unless you can make those details interesting. I don’t see how a mere list of names can function as an invitation.

In any case, you all know what I think about this point. Do your own books as you please; there’s room for variation on this point.