As for literary criticism in general: I have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel or a play or a poem is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae or a banana split.
– Kurt Vonnegut
Book reviewers get tired of tepid, damn-with-faint-praise, middle-ground writeups of books they really want to rip – and I’m all for letting it fly sometimes and slamming a book that deserves to be slammed. But the fiercely negative review has always and must still demand a higher standard.
A harsh review has to be fair, it has to be carefully thought through and all-encompassing, actively working to take in mind other points of view, and it has to avoid at all costs committing the same sins for which it condemns an author. Cheap shots are discouraged, fun as they might be, and relying on guesswork should also be avoided.
This set of standards ought to be easily agreed upon, and yet: Pie-in-the-face reviews, those that make almost an audible ker-splat, so nasty and intentionally hurtful are they intended to be, seem to be enjoying a boom – and the trend threatens to escalate. No one gives social-media love to a boring review – if your goal is to inspire strong reactions that might lead people to tweet or post or comment, then over-the-top mean and nasty might be the ticket.
Over the weekend an author friend of mine emailed me a link to a New York Times review, with the comment “Don’t know if I’ve ever read a nastier book review in the NYT.”
I’ve read nastier, but my friend had a point: Anand Giridharadas went so far over the top in attacking The Long Shadow of Small Ghosts: Murder and Memory in an American City, a new book by journalist Laura Tillman, that reading it was like watching someone kick a small dog repeatedly.
Some of the points made by the reviewer seem entirely fair. In a book about murder, for example, it’s a bad sign that, as Giridharadas contends, “We don’t learn the basic facts of the murders until the book’s second half.” Also not promising: “The work becomes about the work. Tillman writes of failed attempts to reach people by telephone. ‘I took notes on a reporter’s pad, cataloging every detail,’ she writes of an interview, recalling the comedian Chris Rock’s admonition about not taking credit for doing what is expected of you.”
What the reviewer never does, though, is show that he can tune into the book on its own terms; there is never a sense of him giving the work the benefit of the doubt. So after landing a big early punch with the Chris Rock quote and related condemnations, he moves on to declare, in a flourish that for many comes off as look-at-me writing: “Her metaphors don’t merely mix. They have orgies.” He also, after complaining about the author’s first-person asides, sprinkles multiple first-person asides of his own into his review, some of which feel more like chatty elevator conversation than brisk critical writing, like: “I write empty, high-minded claptrap all the time.”
My question is: Would it have hurt so much to come up for air, in such a review, and stop kicking the dog long enough to show a little more humility as arbiter of the worthiness of the book, or even of the person who wrote it? I think there is almost always room to be generous, even in a devastating critical evaluation.
Here are some tests to apply to a harsh review you’ve written before you actually publish it:
ARE YOU REVIEWING THE BOOK ITSELF, OR YOUR IMAGINED VERSION OF IT? If anyone can share an example of a great review written that includes some variation on the theme of “what a book this could have been,” I’d love to see it. If I can pull from sports, any sportswriter covering a game and writing “What a game this could have been” would be ridiculed, and rightly so. Write about what’s in front of you, not what you wish was in front of you. You’re a reviewer, not a book doctor looking to do a rewrite.
IF YOU RUN INTO THE AUTHOR OUT THERE IN THE REAL WORLD, ARE YOU WILLING TO LIVE WITH THE AWKWARDNESS? The mentality of pie-in-the-face reviewing relies on feeling that one is in a bubble, with no actual connection, but that’s a real person out there, living in the real world, who has just been on the receiving end of your big, loud ker-splat. Authors have to accept that criticism, even shrill, off-point criticism, is a given, but unlike random Amazon reviewers who write reviews without ever cracking the book itself, gleefully inured to the notion of responsibility, anyone writing an actual book review for publication ought to have a healthy awareness of what it would be like, say, to be seated next to the targeted author at a literary lunch.
ARE YOU WORKING OUT YOUR OWN ISSUES? The Vonnegut quote above referenced hostile reviews of novels, rather than nonfiction books, but his point is worth considering: What about this book has you so worked up? Book reviewing is not therapy, it’s work, and it ought to carry an air of high purpose, more Edmund Wilson than Matt Drudge.
ARE YOU GOING AFTER A BIG FISH OR SMALL FISH? Most if not all book-review editors, at least for newspapers, will tell you that in general they shy away from full-on negative reviews of lower profile books by first-time authors. The idea is: With so many books to review, why spend time attacking a book few have heard of anyway? Writers with many books behind them – and perhaps puffed-up reputations – are, on the other hand, considered fair game. I was a finalist for the Online Journalism Award in commentary back in 2001 for a few pieces I did for Salon and this review for Wired.com, taking on Matt Drudge, who at the time was a very big fish indeed.
– Steve Kettmann
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