Friday Column: Trusted Fellow Reader

Via Dan, I find this post by The Written Nerd, in which TWN writes:

The best comment of this whole conversation, summing up the problem and pinpointing the solution, came from an anonymous bookstore owner in New Jersey. This quintessential bookseller (whom I hope one day writes something of his own for us to read) identified the reason all of Kakutani, Peck, and Crispin's best efforts haven't managed to discourage people from the project of reading.

I'd guess that at least three-quarters of my customers couldn't care ratshit about any review written by "professional" reviewers...including the Snarks. Customers seek out - and are swayed by - opinions of Trusted Fellow Readers. Sometimes that Trusted Fellow Reader is me, or one of the great folks that work with me. Sometimes that Trusted Fellow Reader is Oprah. Hell, sometimes it's just their drunken, promiscuous sister-in-law (the one that starts wearing her bikini to the liquor store in April). The point is this - the Snarks' actual influence on the public's book-buying habits is insignificant. They are, truth be told, a bunch of two-bit entertainers, whoring out the conflict and drama needed to hold the audience's interest...and if they could do it even half as well as the authors they disparage, they'd be reviewees instead of reviewers.

Congrats to TWN and her friend for being 100% correct. In making their case, these two get at the reason why I like critic William Gass so much: he doesn't waste space tearing down books, but rather builds momuments to those he loves.

Mindful that our world is one saturated with books, Gass knows that all he need to to ensure that a bad book is quickly forgotten is to simply not speak its name. When he must condemn a book (for instance, if a bad book has attained an unworthy reputation or if a noteworthy author has made a misstep), he does so in such a way that we, and hopefully the author, is better for reading his review.

James Wood does the same thing, which is why I will always read his critisicm, even though I find some of his thoughts about literature shortsighted and wrong-headed. I may not share Wood's entire philosophy about literature, but I know that when I read his criticism I'm going to read the words of a man who respects books enough to never casually dismiss one; rather he wrestles with them, agonizes over them. He's going to engage the book at hand and I'm going to find out what the book is like and probably learn something.

Another trait that Gass and Wood share is the ability to quickly get right to the core of a book, sometimes in only a phrase. They make me intimately aware of the book under consideration, and thus I'm able to quickly decide if it's a book I want to find out more about. As Gass says in A Temple of Texts, it's the most he can do as a reviewer:

What one can to, with description and analysis and expressions of enthusiasm, is entice, lure others to peek between the covers; to remove possible prejudices or expectations that ight interfere with the experience; to provide suggestions of where best to start, what to expect, how to look or read or listen; and to give reasons why the work should be treated with seriousness and respect.

It's important to note that "give reasons why the work should be treated with seriousness and respect" extends to books receiving both favorble and unfavorable reviews. Wood thought Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections was not a good book, but he treated it with enough seriousness and respect to spend several thousand works thinking about what Franzen was trying to do and why it didn't work. The result may have been a negative review, but it was one far more valualable than many positive ones.

Reviewers, like Kakutani, who focus primarily on whether a book is good or bad tend not to give a good feel for the book. Their praise (or scorn) is bland, a "thrill-ride," a "complete bore," "one of the greatest/worst writers of our generation." What do these phrases tell us about a partiuclar book? These reviews read like Op-Eds breaking out all the stops to convince us of a book's worthiness, whereas the reviews of Gass and Wood sound like a learned reader giving us an engaging lecture. They're not trying to get us to agree with them, they just want to talk about books.

That's not to say that Wood and Gass don't have strong opinions--their reviews are full of those--but rather that these opinions are in pursuit of things deeper than the bottom line. They persuade us not with rhetoric, but rather by speaking through the architecture of the book under review. This, in turn, earns trust from me; these men are not out to convince me of anything, they simply want to discuss a particular book and care more that I found their take interesting than whether I agree with it or not.

They are trusted fellow readers, people who truly love books and want to share their enthusiasm as widely as possible. Other reviewers, the snarksters, may love books as well, but reading their reviews I feel it is more about them than the book. And whenever I feel like I'm talking to someone overly concerned with themself, the first thing I do is suspect their judgment.

Comments

[Brendan Wolfe]

I hesitate to enter into the Snark debate, and by and large I agree with you, Scott. But this comment (from the comment to the post you quoted) bugged me:

"I'd guess that at least three-quarters of my customers couldn't care ratshit about any review written by 'professional' reviewers . . ."

What bugged me was 1) the hostility and 2) the feeling that, as a reviewer, I must see my job as promoting or anti-promoting the books I write about.

Regarding the former, it seems ironic for us to suggest that the way to deal with a bad book is to shut up about it, while words by the thousands are written in angry response to bad reviews. A bad book (or review, for that matter) is as interesting and instructive to write about and read about as a good one. A reviewer shouldn't have to apologize for that.

Regarding the latter, I have never once, while writing a review, cared ratshit about whether people threw down the paper and dashed to their nearest bookstore, or agreed with me that buying a certain book, let alone reading it, would be a transgression against good taste.

To me, anyway, that's not the point.

Reviewing is part of the conversation about books (a conversation that, if it's to mean anything, but sometimes be negative). I don't see why this needs to be a class war between smug, judgmental "professional" reviewers and some populist legion of "real" book lovers . . .

[Scott]

Brendan,

Couldn't agree more with "A bad book (or review, for that matter) is as interesting and instructive to write about and read about as a good one." You can learn a lot from a bad review, as with Wood's critique of Franzen's "Corrections." However, I don't think there's much need to write a bad review of an unremarkable book from an obscure author. It just seems like a waste of space to me.

As for "the feeling that, as a reviewer, I must see my job as promoting or anti-promoting the books I write about," I think we're in agreement as well. I try to write my reviews so as to discuss a book in an interesting way, but I'm not writing them to advocate for a book. It's up to you if you then go out and purchase the book. But, I think that if I'm writing a favorable review, then if I've done my job well my excitement for the book will be transmitted to at least some of the people who have read my review. Conversely, if I write a positive review that inspires no one to have the least bit interest in the book, then I think I've written a poor review.

Lastly, I think that for the most part, professional reviewers ARE book lovers--how else would they have persevered reviewing book for so long if they didn't love books? However, there is some value to getting book recs from trusted fellow readers as well (hence, part of the appeal of blogs). My hope is to find professional revieers that I trust (e.g. Gass, Wood).

[Dan Green]

"I try to write my reviews so as to discuss a book in an interesting way, but I'm not writing them to advocate for a book."

Actually, I do think of myself as advocating on behalf of books--or, more often, writers and their whole body of work--that I like. It seems to me that this is what Gass does as well--Wood also, except he's much more likely to go after books he doesn't like rather than maintain that telling silence you mention. Unfortunately, the books he doesn't like includes most of post-modernist (not postmodernist) fiction. I would be happy if readers were to pick up a book because of a postive review or a comment I've made, but I wouldn't really be upset were they were to go ahead and read anyway something I didn't like. Perhaps they'll read it differently because of my critique.

[Scott]

Dan,

I agree that sometimes Gass and Wood will argue for an author (Rilke and Gaddis come to mind immediately). But I think their type of "advocacy" is more akin to someone excitedly talking about an author they like and their excitement being infectous, rather than someone who says "this is a great book, read this book." I think it's an important difference, because the former type of person is trying to identify what's good about a book . . . she's engaging in actual literary criticism, whereas the latter is offering more of an impulsive take that isn't really engaging the book to any meaningful degree.