Deserving Little Praise

In the New York Times recently, Joe Queenan acknowledges that "the vast majority of book reviews are favorable, even though the vast majority of books deserve little praise." Queenan proceeds as if this were a revelation of a carefully-guarded secret, but anyone who reads newspaper book review sections with any frequency knows that they are filled with reviews that are not just reflexively laudatory but are rhetorically empty in every way that might otherwise qualify them as "criticism." Plot summary substitutes for analysis, effusive approval for critical judgment, nitpicking for reasoned objection.

Queenan believes this happens because "Reviewers tend to err on the side of caution, fearing reprisals down the road" or "because they generally receive but a pittance for their efforts, they tend to view these assignments as a chore and write reviews that read like term papers or reworded press releases churned out by auxiliary sales reps." While neither of these explanations speaks well of American book reviewing--even though Queenan does try to make excuses for it--I believe the simplest explanation goes even farther in clarifying the problem with newpaper book reviews: Honest criticism can't be found in these pages because criticism itself can't be found there, for reasons that are inherent to the medium.

Newspaper book reviews exist as extensions of "lifestyle" reporting. Some books also provide more refined grist to the conventional newsreporting mill, but in either case reviews function not as instances of literary criticism, not even in its most limited gereralist mode, but as sources of information, sometimes as "stories" in their own right. Since most readers of lifestyle journalism undoubtedly want mostly feel-good stories (negative stories only get in the way of "lifestyle" contentment), it only makes sense to provide book reviews, book coverage in general, that portrays the "bookworld" as full of pretty nice stuff. Anyone who thinks that real criticism--either as the serious examination of literary works in general or as the frank assessment of any particular "current book"--can be found in such coverage just hasn't come to terms with the shallow and complacent practices of contemporary journalism.

In the most recent issue of The Jewish Quarterly, Tadzio Koelb makes a similar point concerning the adulatory reception of Irène Némirovsky's Suite Française:

Whichever approach reviewers of Suite Française took — whether they followed the ‘lost book by dead writer’ angle, or played the French guilt card — they all used the limited space left after biography to indulge in fulsome but often strangely detached praise. In a perfect example of the abdication of critical responsibility in exchange for the more sensational copy to be had from Némirovsky’s biography, many reviewers used the language of the marketing material (e.g., ‘… hailed as a masterpiece …’, Financial Times; ‘hailed as a lost masterpiece’, The Times; ‘… hailed …as “a masterpiece…”’, The Scotsman). Some reviewers compared Némirovsky to great writers (to Tolstoy in the Saturday Guardian; to Chekhov in the New Statesman). Others, however, preferred to note that Némirovsky herself mentioned Tolstoy in her journals (see reviews in the London Review of Books, for example, or the Telegraph Magazine) or wrote a biography of Chekhov (as in the Evening Standard or the New Statesman) and let the implication sink in.

Both the sensationalism and the emphasis on biography, as well as "the fulsome but often strangely detached praise," to be found in the reviews of Némirovsky’s unfinished novel are entirely representative of the kind of attention works of fiction especially are accorded in newspaper book sections. Only books that will satisfy readers' desire for "quality," or that can be made to seem such through the reviewer's hyped-up language, are reviewed in the first place. Appropriate commentary then becomes an issue of finding the right kind of perfunctory praise, in some cases an emphasis on the "sensational copy" that occasionally accompanies this or that book.

I partially blame academic criticism for the dismal state of generalist book reviewing. First the wholesale retreat of criticism behind the walls of academe and then the virtual abandonment of text-based literary criticism for the treatment of literary texts as occasions for social, historical, and theoretical analysis left serious readers with few other organs of literary discussion than newspapers and a handful of magazines. These organs have been dominated by literary journalists more attuned to the protocols of journalism than to those of literature, and by writers who proceed according to the precautions outlined by Queenan. The paradoxical result is that now criticism exists neither in the academy nor in mainstream print publications. (Which is one reason that someone like James Wood, all of his shortcomings notwithstanding, has acquired the prominence he has. As someone who both closely reads and does so in accessible language, he's such an anomaly.)

Némirovsky's Suite Française is a book that could have used some actual literary criticism, by critics (maybe even "scholars") rather than "book reviewers." Such critics might have been able to explicate the novel more rigorously and with a more informed perspective on its historical, national-literary, and biographical contexts. Tazdio Koelb maintains that for fiction to be examined adequately on its own merits "we will have to resurrect the critic." I agree, but I don't see how this will be possible from within the existing conventions of either book reviewing or academic analysis.

Comments

[Bookish Reader]

I tend to not review a book if it is no good. That seems to solve any problems with giving a glowing review when it is not needed. But I understand the NYT and other venues as they get a lot of money and advertisements from publishing companies so there is pressure to do a good review.

[Jim H.]

Dan,

You make an important point about the difference between reviews and criticism. A further distinction might prove helpful for the generalist reader (not most of your readers, however, as they, I'm sure, get it): Not all criticism is negative.

Often, people assume a critical response necessarily means a negative response. This is far from accurate. First, let's start with the assumption that no work of fiction is 'perfect' (the meaning of which we could go on and on about ad infinitum). A critical reading of any work, especially one the critic likes, should take it apart, suss out the moving parts, and show what does and does not work. Just because one feature of a work fails, or is weak, doesn't mean that work is somehow 'bad'. Analyzing a novel is not the same as being pejorative.

Further, just because I as a critic dislike a book doesn't make it a bad book. That's a question of taste. There's many a so-called 'masterpiece' that bores the hell out of me. But, as a critic, I should be able to say why so many other have found it important and 'good' and then why it didn't work for me.

A review that gives a brief plot summary and a thumb of the main character and says "I really liked it" or "I didn't like it" isn't very helpful at all, unless the reader is a follower of the reviewer—think Roger Ebert in the movie reviewing dodge.

Hype, neither.

Best,
Jim H.

[bianca steele]

Dan,
You say most readers know that a positive review doesn't necessarily mean the reviewer thinks the book is good, because there is an unwritten rule in professional reviewing that all reviews need to be positive. The "rule" may be so (you probably know better than I do), but I don't think the first part is general knowledge. Most people, I think, (including me) do hope to get information from the book-review page. They want to know which books are worth expending their time and money on. They want to know what's going on in the literary world, which is, after all, an extension of their own world. They want to know what the most educated people think about what books are being published and who's publishing them. Those aren't totally unreasonable wishes. I don't know how the expectations of journalists and general readers could have gotten so out of joint.

[Stephen B]

I write a review of every book I read, and I read 10+ books a month - mostly for my own benefit, but I also upload the better ones to Amazon where it is very competitive in the reviewer rankings. Reviews are scored mostly on how well it helps shoppers in deciding if they want to buy a book, so any serious criticism has to be sneaked in. I also write reviews of books I don't like and score low, those are the most difficult.

I would like to be a more serious reviewer, in the sense you discuss in this wonderful essay (a little review there), but honestly don't know how. What models from the past and present are there to reflect on? As you quote, "we will have to resurrect the critic" - who, exactly, are we resurrecting?

Stephen

[marly]

While a good many books critics (in Memphis, Raleigh, Orlando and many other places) I respected have gotten the axe or been moved to Lifestyles or taken early retirement in the past decade, there are a few solid ones still left. It seems to me that we should try and praise the responsible ones who remain, not just condemn the generality of practice. Perhaps somebody out there ought to make a survey. Editors at the better houses and presses tend to have a solid grasp on who writes with substance, and often it is somebody in an unexpected small city, Baton Rouge or Anniston, say.

[EC]

Nice post, Dan. I'm also reminded of that great exposure of brain-dead, reflexively know-nothing book reviewing, FIRE THE BASTARDS! by Jack Green, his barn-burning defense of Gaddis's RECOGNITIONS. Hmmm, Green . . . any relation?

The whole thing is now online here:

http://www.nyx.net/~awestrop/ftb/ftb.htm

But everyone should be sweet and buy a copy from Dalkey Archive Press (and one for a holiday gift for a friend or a wayward reviewer).

Green - the earlier incarnation - published it in three issues of his own mimeographed self-produced underground newspaper, called "newspaper," in the early sixties. It just occurred to me that if a Jack Green were to do the same thing today it would be as an insurgent blogger.

[Cherie Parker]

As a regular newspaper reviewer, I can't help but be hurt by the continuing criticism by literary academics of the current state of reviewing. Of course many book reviews in newspapers are crap; but compare them to the movie and drama reviews in the same publications and you may find that issues of quality can be traced back to certain arts editors, not necessarily individual reviewers. Anyone who thinks there is any pressure to "be positive" to placate publishing houses has absolutely no clue about the dynamic at work. In truth, the incredibly small amount of space allotted to book reviews (especially fiction) means most books editors are hounded by pleading publicists to please, please, take even a small look at their new releases. The main reason so many reviews are positive is amazingly simple: space for reviews is so limited that it better serves the mainstream reading public to tell them what they SHOULD read, as opposed to what they shouldn't. If I read 10 books a month and get one review in print, doesn't it make sense that I talk about the best of the bunch?

Sadly, with the demise of newspapers much of this is moot. But maybe the move to online reviewing (I blog at thelitlife.com) can help fill in some of the gaps and get more attention--both positive and negative--to a greater number of books.