Gangs of Dullards

In a post commenting on Jack Schafer's recent defense of bias in book reviewing, Kevin Holtsberry (Collected Miscellany) correctly identifies this statement as the core asssumption of Shafer's argument:

The point of a book review isn't to review worthy books fairly, it's to publish good pieces.

Shafer continues: "Better to assign a team of lively-but-conflicted writers to review a slew of rotten books than a gang of dullards to the most deserving releases of the season."

Kevin takes issue with Shafer's "discarding" of the standard of fairness, asking "Isn't a fair review of worthy books what [readers of book reviews] are looking for?".

If I have to choose between "fair" reviews and "good pieces," I'll side with Kevin and take the former, if by "fair" we mean attentive to the tangible features of the book under review, as well as to the needs that a reader might have in placing the book in an appropriate context. Apparently Shafer believes this leads to "dull" writing, but that will be true only if the reader is more interested in the forced "liveliness" so many American journalists seem to think is a good substitute for thinking, or if the reviewer implicitly believes that reading the book in question is probably too much to ask of most readers and thus the "piece" he or she is writing ought to itself substitute for doing so. (Kevin identifies the problem with Shafer's position by noting how publications like Slate "get on [his] nerves" because so many of their writers "seek to be clever and entertaining" rather than informative.)

Shafer cites a review of John Updike's Villages Walter Berthoff as an example of the kind of "gutless" reviewing he opposes. Reviewers like Berthoff "genuflect to 'major writers'. . . composing fawning reviews that barely hint at how bad the books are." But Berthoff doesn't think Villages is a bad book. He attempts to put it in the context of Updike's other novels about his native region of Pennsylvania, establishes that it is "the most directly autobiographical of all Updike's novels," calls attention to Updike's signature prose style and attempts to describe how it works, provides a judicious summary of the novel's plot and characters. In other words, he tries to give as thorough an account as he can of the relevant issues to be considered in assessing this novel, to be as "fair" as possible both to a writer who's surely earned fair treatment and to readers who may or may not be as familiar with Updike's work as the reviewer. In my opinion it's a very scrupulous review, and why Shafer would choose to characterize it as "fawning" and "gutless" is a mystery to me.

(Obviously Shafer disagrees with Barthoff's conclusion that Villages embodies "a certain rueful but forgiving intelligence and, yes, wisdom about the accumulating passages, overt and hidden, of ordinary human existence," but that Walter Berthoff liked this novel while Shafer did not certainly seems an insufficient reason to call Berthoff dishonest. Shafer disdainfully notes that Berthoff is "the Henry B. and Anne M. Cabot Professor of English and American Literature Emeritus on Harvard University's faculty of arts and sciences," but if anything this information makes me more inclined to take his review seriously, while Shafer's qualifications to judge American fiction are. . .well, whatever they are.)

On the other hand, this is what Shafer takes to be a model of book-review prose:

Not all American novels are too long, but most novels which are too long these days are American. The bloated book belongs in a category with the yard-long hot dog and the stretch limo. The main difference is that the craving for extended sausage and limo comes from the customers—the eaters, the renters.

The need to publish ever-larger books, such as John Irving's 800-plus page Until I Find You, is a mysterious part of the psychology of the writer. It may be that readers like a book they can get their teeth into, but one which will dislocate their jaws? Not likely.

AS far as I'm concerned, this is babble. The generalization in the first paragraph is vacuous, and the remaining "clever" analogies are just puerile. Quite frankly, whenever I encounter a book review employing these kinds of tricks, I stop reading. The reviewer wants to impress me with his peppy prose and his cheeky views, wants to convince me his knowing attitude is much more entertaining than anything I'll find in the target of his wit. (Writers like Irving, who have unfortunately made themselves an easy mark for this kind of approach, are especially likely to receive such sophomoric treatment.) But I'm not interested, thanks. Maybe I'm just a dullard, but I'd rather have book reviews that take literary works seriously, that are not just excuses for the posturing of reviewers.

Shafer suggests that the best policy for book reviewing is anything goes, that even biased reviews can create "tension": "Can the prejudiced reviewer write against his personal feelings to tell the truth, the readers wonder?" But why should the reader have to wonder this? Why should I be more interested in some ridiculous squabble going on behind the scenes or in the banal jabbering of mod book reviewers than in the book purportedly under consideration? I take this issue of what book reviewing is for seriously because newpaper and magazine book sections are about the only forums remaining for what used to be called literary criticism. Academic journals have long abandoned text-based criticism, and literary magazines, which might be expected to compensate for this lack of serious criticism where contemporary fiction is concerned, publish very little critical commentary at all.. If general interest literary criticism is reduced to Shafer's brand of "let it all hang out" hokum, the future of serious writing in this country is bleak indeed.

Comments

[Birnbaum]

Daniel:

I have high regard for your optimism but really the evidence for your claim " because newpaper and magazine book sections are about the only forums remaining for what used to be called literary criticism." has escaped me. Perhaps they offer the hope of an occasional literary critique which, I guess, is true.

It's funny David Milosky and I have been bemoaning (am I getting this right David?) the degraded state of newspaper reviews —the allotted 700-800 words is barely enough for a cogent point or two, much less the nuance that any book worth discussing deserves. It woud appear that book editors are inclined toward the weaselzoid Wiesalter-like take down ala his NYTBR Nicholson Baker thingy. Glib commentators like Shafer are speaking for his fellow journalist journeymen in his Slate piece

I must admit that in the context of scanning a newspaper I am glad to encounter a "good read" since in my experience most papers are lacking in such, in almost all areas. Not to mention that positing it as an either/ or is specious. But then Shafer was trying for the same thing for which he was arguing.

[Dan Green]

Robert: I do only mean to suggest that, as you put it, "they offer the hope" of an occasional piece of real literary criticism.

[Kate S.]

I completely agree with your take on book reviews. I frequently find myself railing at reviewers as I read the weekend book pages. Those most likely to make me throw down the paper in disgust are the reviewers who are more interested in displaying their own cleverness than in addressing the book at hand (ie. Schafer's idea of a lively review). If it's about "good pieces" rather than fair reviews of worthy books, we might as well dispense with the book under review altogether. Why not just write an entertaining article without pretending that it serves as a book review? Schafer says that if we are interested in fairness, it should be fairness to the reader not fairness to the author. But he seems to be referring exclusively to the reader of the publication containing the review rather than to potential readers of the book under review. And he seems to think that the reader of the publication containing the review is interested in being entertained rather than in learning something about the book under review. When I read a review, I want to learn something about the book. To my mind, part of the problem with Schafer's article is that he confuses fairness with politeness. I'm not interested in a review that is overly polite, that is, one in which the reviewer is reluctant to speak plainly for fear of hurting someone's feelings (or for fear of repercussions). But it is entirely possible to be fair and still be lively, interesting, and critical. I want to hear positive and negative assessments of books under review, but at both poles, I want reviewers to back up their assessments with textual support from the book.

[Dan Green]

"To my mind, part of the problem with Schafer's article is that he confuses fairness with politeness."

This is a very good point. Too many people seem to think that "critical" means vituperative or sarcastic. It simply means, as you put it, backing up an assessment, positive or negative, with "textual support from the book." It means engaging with the book at hand rather than regarding it as an opportunity for journalistic showmanship.