Why we should open our minds to constructive criticism and not be afraid to share our own expertise.
Before I commence this autumn quarter and get back into the hectic swing between required class readings and the books I will review for this publication, I’d like to discuss the concept of reviewing. Most importantly, how I believe some of the art of constructive criticism has become unpopular in recent years.
This article was mostly inspired by Below the Fray’s video on YouTube, “Book reviews are gaslighting us.” This video provides a lot of strong points on reviews and the state of them now. His stance is, book reviews should be so honest that it should be brutal as if the reviewer were to read their own piece back to the author. While I don’t believe that reviews need to be as harsh as he recommends, I do believe they need to be more daring and constructive than the average. I would recommend this video for a more researched dive into the value of criticism, but with a harsher tone.
Of course, it is important to make the distinction between criticism and being mindlessly negative. When I say “criticism” or a “negative book review,” I don’t mean statements that are malformed and ignorant. I’ve heard many amateur readers call Ulysses by James Joyce (my current read) a boring novel – but as I’ve been equipped with many years of studying classic literature, I can understand and enjoy the allusions that Joyce makes. Saying you hate something because you don’t understand it is an uneducated and indolent statement to make. One should avoid being naive and dismissing an entire work of art simply because it isn’t within their expertise. It’s not for you – drop it and move on.
When I first started writing my reviews for 14East Magazine, I would reference the New York Times. I wanted to see if there was a common format followed by professional book reviewers. What I found was the opposite. The book reviews on the New York Times seemed to be the writer’s peacocking of their own “beautiful” prose in order to emulate the atmosphere of the reviewed book – and many lacked an actual constructive commentary on the literature. Most of the articles I scanned had no criticism and were overly “glazing” (is this term of inappropriate origin?) the work. I couldn’t find one commentary that actually found something distasteful to include.
For many reasons, these overly indulgent reviews are intentional, yet they come off more as strong recommendations instead of thoughtful interactions with the work they speak of. All these “reviews” are spreading publicity for mediocre work that will have self-respecting literature lovers questioning whether they can properly recognize good prose. If a writer on the New York Times enjoyed this horrible excuse for literary fiction, then why can’t we? These are just merely recommendations that are dodging the artillery of internet hate armies (and perhaps legal trouble, too). They are not honest and they are concealing the truth of their own opinions.
These recommendations are problematic and despite how wonderfully cinematic they can be, they’ll make a mockery of the process of writing. Publishing one’s work is having to accept that there will be a myriad of opinions. There will never be a work available to the public that is immune to criticism.
However, societal expectations can be a reason for avoiding tearing down other novelists. As Zoë Heller stated in their 2013 article on book reviewing, “If you’re an author who regularly reviews other authors, the chances of running into a person whose novel you have criticized are fairly high.” As the literary circles can be tight-knit, the eventuality of coming face-to-face with an author whose book you’ve defaced is terribly possible.
My attempt to find a positive review in the New York Times led me to this critic’s article on Emily Wilson’s Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea. This writer has chosen primarily to simply explain the collection of essays with a few glamorizing adjectives sprinkled in. The word “I” only shows up once in the whole review, and it is in another varnishing sense — “I won’t spoil it other than to say that her train of thought is worth following in full.” The “critic” here essentially is just parroting their own interpretations of the message of the essays — there is no original opinion that I could find. She highlights what Wilson does well without reflecting the true spirit of Wilson’s work and what makes her so respectable — Wilson’s ability to comment freely on others in her field, while maintaining her credibility as an expert translator. There is no discourse or actual personal engagement with the work the critic is “reviewing.”
There is value in being able to take accountability when it comes to receiving feedback. I often see in my own life of people not wanting to take accountability. In a more ineffable example, I overheard a conversation between two friends, we’ll call them AB and PR. I witnessed PR being called an obscene word after simply asking AB to remind them if they had interests in a certain field — which AB did — because apparently it was extremely offensive to be asked about their studies. There was no, “Why, yes, my dear friend, I am indeed interested in this field of study. Thank you for remembering that I liked it and I am happy to engage with you in a conversation on this topic that we both hold dearly to our hearts.” (For privacy reasons of course I cannot get too specific, but yes, this reaction was just as absurd as I have written it.) Instead, PR was called an offensive name, solely because AB was embarrassed of their own pursuits.
This can’t be right. If some people are reacting defensively to being asked about their ardent passions, how will they react when it comes time to receive feedback on things they have done that actually require change?
I do also believe that critics should not be hypocrites. As someone who has published book reviews, I am happy to engage in discourse on my own opinions of books. Even the greatest writers have revised what they have said on certain books. For example, Virginia Woolf, whose primary interpretation of James Joyce’s Ulysses was, “An illiterate, underbred book it seems to me: the book of a self-taught working man, & we all know how distressing they are, how egotistic, insistent, raw, striking, & ultimately nauseating.” However, following this statement, she was urged by contemporary T.S. Eliot to reread the novel and give it a second chance. She revised her thoughts and ultimately came to say, “the final beauty of writing is never felt by contemporaries” (ironic, given the state of reviews now). Though she still expressed contempt for Ulysses throughout her life, we could learn from Woolf, as she gave the novel many chances, listened to feedback from her peers, despite still retaining the same opinion. An openness to revisit and revise is an imperative quality to possess.
Now, I’d like to revise some of my own reviews, as opinions are always evolving and changing.
Lost Lambs, Madeline Cash – I feel like I really discounted the genius and the overall “punch” of Madeline Cash’s writing in her novel Lost Lambs that I reviewed earlier this year. While I do not regret my criticism of the Islamophobic messages I interpreted from her book, I think that I failed to express how this novel was a glorious gem in the lumps of s—t (what is this analogy) Cash’s writing rivals Jane Austen in the level of sarcasm and wit it weaves seamlessly into the story. Of course it comes with heavyset nuance, but I still want to convey how rare it is to find a novel so seamlessly written in a world of awkward and shallow fiction. This book has 5-star prose. And while subject matter and the real-world context also weigh heavily in my rating of a book, I have had my perspective changed about writing questionable characters without a clear condemnation, due to this short comment from Frankie’s Shelf (timestamp 10:30-10:50) on YouTube about how writing has changed.
The Ten Year Affair, Erin Sommers – To be completely honest, I barely skimmed this book. I was on a tight deadline to write the review for this one and was swamped with other responsibilities. I want to completely revise my opinion on this book but I’ll try to keep my main points concise – this book is a really precise depiction of a mediocre and depressing millennial couple. I hated it because of its realism and the fear that evoked in me. As for the graphic parts of the novel, I believe they are crucial for the plot, and I now have new perspectives on the raunchiness of books now that I’ve learned about Ulysses’s long battle with censorship. I am very grateful that authors have the freedom to include sexual or scandalous details in their work now. We don’t need to be afraid of laws that restrict our work. At least, not yet. We’ll see how this world progresses.
Header Image by Annie Price
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