By Apr 25 2012
Why do lovers of literature take such joy in criticizing the critics?
Lamenting the state of the book review has been the literary world's favorite pastime ever since Edgar Allan Poe reviewed for Graham's Magazine in the 1840s. From Henry James to Heidi Julavitis, writers seem to delight in publishing manifestos that outline the book review's shortcomings and inadequacies.
One popular complaint is that book reviews are merely a byproduct of the publishing industry and therefore stink of mediocrity, elitism, nepotism, or all three. In 1846, Poe wrote that book reviews (and the publishing industry) were a sham and riddled with nepotism: "We place on paper without hesitation a tissue of flatteries, to which in society we could not give utterance, for our lives, without either blushing or laughing outright." In 1917, H.L. Mencken bemoaned the "inconceivable complacency and conformity" of journalistic criticism. Forty years later, Elizabeth Hardwick echoed these sentiments when she said of reviewing, "Sweet, bland commendations fall everywhere upon the scene; a universal, if somewhat lobotomized, accommodation reigns."
Another criticism is that book reviews lack intelligence. In 1891, Henry James, the ultimate aesthete, complained that we publish too many reviews and none of value. Reviewing, James wrote, was all presumption and chatter and lacked "concrete literary fact"—that is specific references to and examples from the work reviewed. In his 1928 essay "The Critic Who Does Not Exist," Edmund Wilson wrote nearly the same thing: "It is astonishing to observe, in America, in spite of our floods of literary journalism, to what extent the literary atmosphere is a non-conductor of criticism." This line of criticism continues today: In 2007, Steve Wasserman wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review, "The pabulum that passes for most reviews is an insult to the intelligence of most readers."
A recent trend amongst literary hipsters (and aging literary hipsters) is to whine that reviews are "too mean." This strand of book-review-griping emphasizes the need to protect and support "the artist." In 2005, the literary magazine N+1 protested against reviews published in The New Republic for being wholly negative. In 2001, Zadie Smith, formerly the New Books columnist for Harper's magazine, published a response to critic James Wood's a review of White Teeth in The Guardian, entitled "This is how it feels to be me". In it, she asked critics to behave "more like teachers": "I wonder sometimes whether critics shouldn't be more like teachers, giving a gold star or a black cross, but either way accompanied by some kind of useful advice." In a manic 2005 article on the "Teflon age of criticism," Heidi Julavitis veered off on many tangents—including a hagiography of the New York Intellectuals, a recap of the James Wood-Zadie Smith smackdown, a bit about movies and television, a defense of workshop fiction, an attack on anti-intellectualism, an awkward confession about her "intellectual crush" on James Wood (an anti-intellectual move in and of itself), and a declaration of her belief in literature's "intrinsic value"—before concluding that book reviews should never be mean and never, ever be "snarky."
But the problem with book reviews is not that they reek of mediocrity, elitism, or nepotism; aren't smart enough or are too pretentious; or are too negative or too positive. It's that they come from a source—a human being—and we sometimes fail to take that into account.
The other issue is that these sources aren't necessarily "experts" in the field of literature. Fiction and poetry reviews usually aren't written by literature professors or scholars; instead, they're written by freelance writers or columnists, some who are qualified and some who are not.
Full story at The Atlantic.
Lamenting the state of the book review has been the literary world's favorite pastime ever since Edgar Allan Poe reviewed for Graham's Magazine in the 1840s. From Henry James to Heidi Julavitis, writers seem to delight in publishing manifestos that outline the book review's shortcomings and inadequacies.
Another criticism is that book reviews lack intelligence. In 1891, Henry James, the ultimate aesthete, complained that we publish too many reviews and none of value. Reviewing, James wrote, was all presumption and chatter and lacked "concrete literary fact"—that is specific references to and examples from the work reviewed. In his 1928 essay "The Critic Who Does Not Exist," Edmund Wilson wrote nearly the same thing: "It is astonishing to observe, in America, in spite of our floods of literary journalism, to what extent the literary atmosphere is a non-conductor of criticism." This line of criticism continues today: In 2007, Steve Wasserman wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review, "The pabulum that passes for most reviews is an insult to the intelligence of most readers."
A recent trend amongst literary hipsters (and aging literary hipsters) is to whine that reviews are "too mean." This strand of book-review-griping emphasizes the need to protect and support "the artist." In 2005, the literary magazine N+1 protested against reviews published in The New Republic for being wholly negative. In 2001, Zadie Smith, formerly the New Books columnist for Harper's magazine, published a response to critic James Wood's a review of White Teeth in The Guardian, entitled "This is how it feels to be me". In it, she asked critics to behave "more like teachers": "I wonder sometimes whether critics shouldn't be more like teachers, giving a gold star or a black cross, but either way accompanied by some kind of useful advice." In a manic 2005 article on the "Teflon age of criticism," Heidi Julavitis veered off on many tangents—including a hagiography of the New York Intellectuals, a recap of the James Wood-Zadie Smith smackdown, a bit about movies and television, a defense of workshop fiction, an attack on anti-intellectualism, an awkward confession about her "intellectual crush" on James Wood (an anti-intellectual move in and of itself), and a declaration of her belief in literature's "intrinsic value"—before concluding that book reviews should never be mean and never, ever be "snarky."
But the problem with book reviews is not that they reek of mediocrity, elitism, or nepotism; aren't smart enough or are too pretentious; or are too negative or too positive. It's that they come from a source—a human being—and we sometimes fail to take that into account.
The other issue is that these sources aren't necessarily "experts" in the field of literature. Fiction and poetry reviews usually aren't written by literature professors or scholars; instead, they're written by freelance writers or columnists, some who are qualified and some who are not.
Full story at The Atlantic.
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