How slack I have been on reporting back from last Thursday’s excellent PEN event
Everyone’s a critic. Well, the upshot was that yes, everyone is a critic, yes review culture in the UK is changing, but with a few old certainties thrown in. The discussion was led by Erica Wagner, the literary editor of
the Times, Sam Leith, the ex-literary editor of
the Telegraph, John Mullan, an academic, journalist and judge for the 2009 Man Booker Prize and of course the wonderful Lynne Hatwell AKA
Dovegreyreader. There was more consensus that I was expecting, but then, as I walked home in the drizzly night I took to wondering why I had not expected consensus.
Basically reviewing culture has been changed by an increasingly pluralist body of critical voices. There are more critics from more places and they, unsurprisingly have a greater selection of comments to make. One of the “new voices” is the voice of the blogger and the panel spent quite a lot of time talking about the thorny question of what separates the blogger from a newspaper reviewer.... Sam Leith pointed out that reviewing even in newspapers had always been an amateur activity and that the real difference was one of format rather than substance. That having been said, one major difference in approach seems to be in relation to negative reviews. Lynne only posts positive reviews as she (like me!) rarely finishes a book she really dislikes. Also, and very laudably she aims to create a critical but kind space for thinking about books in. This is in contrast to point widely accepted amongst the journalists present that stinking reviews make good copy. Of course, as Lynne pointed out bloggers do it for free where as journalists get paid, however pitifully.
John Mullan really made me think about what academics add to reviewing culture. I have never been a great fan of critical theory and find that it can ruin a perfectly good book in acres of arcane and generic nonsense. He inspired me to realise that academics are useful in this area because they provide context and a meta narrative to read books inside. They can
help you to understand why a book is good, sort of.
Print media reviews are more hidebound by fashion, public interest and “significance” in publishing than blogs. They are often deluged with review copies (Erica Wagner reported receiving a stonking 150 books per day). If an “important” book comes out there is an expectation that the major newspapers will review it and what is more, they may look to a particular writer to review it for historical or personal reasons. This is in contrast to the happy go lucky blogger who can review whatever they damn well like (such as something as unknown as
Forlorn Sunset for example). But then
the Times is read by rather more people than your average blog.... so I suppose you could say it is a case of swings and roundabouts.
Personally, I love the flexibility of the blog format, but that maybe because I have odd tastes. So, for the sake of “pluralism” and ignoring the fact that there is likely to be bias here, I am throwing this one open to the floor.
Whose reviews do you read and trust the most? What or who really influences your reading?
And if you don't believe me, have a read of any of Ismail Kadare's novels. My favourite is Broken April which I read last summer whilst travelling in Albania's Thethi national park, one of the most remote parts of Europe and the setting for this haunting novel. Feast your eyes on this picture, which I took at the bottom of the Thethi valley.
