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Topic: Are Book Reviewers Too Mean? Or Not Enough?
| Author | Message |
| GalleyCat | Posted – 10/24/2007 12:03:37 PM | show profile Readers at GalleyCat have been discussing an alleged mean streak at the NY Times Book Review, with one commentator suggesting that the paper's reviewers aren't harsh enough. "My benchmark for a reliable review source is that at least one third of the reviews actually printed/published should be at least disapproving," he says, "if not outright pans." Do you agree? |
| Stephanerd3 | Posted – 10/24/2007 12:26:54 PM | show profile | email poster It's always been my understanding that most publications don't want to publish too many negative reviews, as info on which books to AVOID is not nearly as helpful as which books to run out and grab immediately. Still, I always feel slightly PR-like when gushing about something I actually did love to bits. I feel as if I need to really reach far down inside of my self to come up with something...anything...negative. |
| GraceVictoria | Posted – 10/24/2007 1:38:44 PM | show profile Vitriol, etc Years ago, I was at a writers' conference and found myself at the same table with a well-known writer. I was doing a bit of book reviewing for my local newspaper (2nd tier city paper), and had just reviewed a book *she* had just reviewed in the NYTimes. I was struck because I thought the novel (by a writer of with a fairly long career) was third rate and shallow, and the writer with whom I was sitting had given it a positive review in the Times. For some ungodly reason, I found myself bold enough to say as much. She looked at me and said, "Well, I agree with you. But [this writer] deserves support in her career, and if you read my review carefully, you'll see that I really don't critique the book itself very much." I did go back, I did read carefully, and she was correct. The review was mostly synopsis of both the novel and the writer's career, and any actually evaluation of the book hit on a few vague qualities like "tightly written" or something. I got a very "we scratch each other's backs" vibe from that conversation, a sense amplified by much reading of critiques of book reviewing in the mainstream press since. It's a given. Vitriol is not the issue. Honest reviewing is, and a willingness to risk making your friends and acquaintances mad is sorely needed. Russo's latest is a case in point. Not a negative word about the book in the mainstream press - lauds and praise all around - and when I actually read the book (and I'm a Russo fan in general), I was shocked by how...let's see...badly in need of an editor the thing was. It ididn't deserve vitriol, but someone, somewhere taking an honest look at whether it was a successful work of art, instead of just repeating, "In luminous prose Russo limns the horizons of small-town life in decay..." That's the reason I pay little attention to newspaper and most magazine reviews of books these days and depend mostly on Amazon reader reviews - when there are enough of them, you can sift through, filter out the idiots who are put off by big words, and figure out what the real strengths and weakness of a book are, if it matches your tastes and interests, and not waste your money or time. What then gets lost, though, is honest, interesting criticism. |
| charlesr | Posted – 10/24/2007 4:42:08 PM | show profile | email poster "Not a critical word on Russo in the mainstream press"? I don't think that's entirely fair. I enjoyed "Bridge of Sighs" a lot, but I also included these complaints in the Wash Post Book World review: "I couldn't help letting out a few sighs of my own as the plot continued to branch out. There's simply too much here and too much redundancy. Lucy suggests that 'it's all important,' but as much as I enjoyed the book, I'm not convinced. Two of these characters are obsessed with writing very long stories, and Russo seems to have picked up the same compulsion. When he gets caught up in the thrills of a high-school romance -- Which boy will she choose? -- the Bridge of Sighs seems to be crossing over 'Dawson's Creek.' A late section involving Lucy's wife and an adorable little black child sounds extraneous and precious. And there's a tendency toward portentous profundity: 'Odd, how our view of human destiny changes over the course of a lifetime. In youth we believe what the young believe, that life is all choice. We stand before a hundred doors, choose to enter one, where we're faced with a hundred more and then choose again. We choose not just what we'll do, but who we'll be,' etc., etc. At such times, the plot, which is never particularly energetic, stalls, and the characters seem overwhelmed, rather than sustained, by the author's wisdom." |
| Metro Writer | Posted – 10/24/2007 10:26:53 PM | show profile How about constructive criticism? It helps the writer and helps the reader evaluate whether a book is worth buying. ALso, you don't always know the circumstances in which an author wrote the book. I wrote a kind review on a book I didn't particularly like because I knew his wife was dying of cancer while he was writing it. If I were in his shoes, I wouldn't be doing my best writing, either. |
| dribbledrive1 | Posted – 10/24/2007 10:42:35 PM | show profile You're being a little contradictory. Either a reviewer is a guide on whether a book is worth buying or not. I can understand and sympatesize that a writer might not produce his best work in that situation; however, that doesn't mean I want to plunk down $25 for a boring book. --How about constructive criticism? It helps the writer and helps the reader evaluate whether a book is worth buying. ALso, you don't always know the circumstances in which an author wrote the book. I wrote a kind review on a book I didn't particularly like because I knew his wife was dying of cancer while he was writing it. If I were in his shoes, I wouldn't be doing my best writing, either.-- |
| BluePooka | Posted – 10/25/2007 12:12:31 PM | show profile Mean? I'm not allowed to be mean I tend not to write mean reviews. If I think a book sucks, I'll simply review something else. That said, I've had two reviews pulled, both for assigned books, because I wrote unkind reviews. In both cases, the reviews were, I believe, justified. One was a novel by a radio personality that sucked like an industrial vacuum cleaner. The other was a book on comparative myth by a well-known author, only it contained a bunch of wrong facts and a take on myth that archaeologists, historians and comparative lit folks long-ago abandoned as borderline racist. Both reviews were killed. I mean, I kept an even tone, didn't use the 'r' word, and backed up my statements with the book on myth. Got paid for one review, didn't get paid for the other. I've only had three reviews killed in my life, and I've written well over a hundred now. The third one was pulled because the paper ran over its freelancing budget. So now, whenever I feel inspired to say something unkind about a book, I check with my editor first. This sounds craven, even to me, but I don't like working without getting paid. |
| fourfold | Posted – 10/25/2007 1:33:37 PM | show profile | email poster Thanks, GraceVictoria, for that fascinating anecdote. One other point: isn't there a certain snarky satisfaction in reading a really, really bad review? Certainly, one function of book reviews is to help readers figure out whether they want to buy the book--and clearly, from the discussion here, that's not always foremost in reviewers' minds. But I enjoy reading reviews for their own sake. Witness yesterday's slam in the NYT against Susan Faludi's new book. I probably wouldn't have picked it up anyway, but I did read Michiko Kakutani's review beginning to end. |
