Lately there have been a few articles floating around in the news about how to write an unfavorable book review, even whether or not one should write such a review. I haven't read any of these articles. But I did recently write a book review about a book I didn't like all that much, and I can verify how difficult it is to write fairly about a book that just doesn't appeal to the reviewer.
In my case, the book under review had been written by someone who seemed to be a perfectly amiable person, who was writing about an interesting subject, and who was in command of her prose. There was nothing wrong with this book . . . except that the author seemed to have missed the point. By the point, of course, I mean "my own special attraction to the subject"; and therein lies the difficulty. The author had not written the book that I wished she'd written. How, then, was I to frame the review? Should I merely write a good-tempered book report? Or should I note what was missing? Was it even fair to note what was missing? Why should her book have centered on a theme that apparently hadn't interested her?
I think back about the review I did write, and I fear that I wasn't fair. But I don't know what else I could have been. After all, a reader seeks for what speaks to her, and this book didn't speak to me. However, I don't think I was unkind. I hope I wasn't.
2 comments:
It is very difficult indeed to write reviews of ANY creative work by someone else. I recently wrote (on my blog) a review of Donald Hall's latest book, a review that one might call unfavorable. It occurred to me as I was writing that I had SOME NERVE criticizing such a well-heeled poet, one who is revered by many if not most readers of poetry. I hold this awe over his work myself mostly. But I realized as I was writing that I was simply speaking for ME, for how I encountered the book and the poems inside. I was sharing with my blog readers how the poems stacked up against Hall's repute, his previous work, and my own aesthetic. All good ways to measure. I do think (and believe) that every new piece of writing is its own self, up for critique and opinion. We have no real laurels as writers. We are only as good as what we write today. Some days we just stink. Some days we shine. We all want the latter, but are often stuck with the former. It's what keeps us writing, seeking that moment in the sun. So is it okay to want an author to have written the book we wanted her to write? Sure. ANd if we wish on enough stars, one day we might read that book... or write it.
This is a beautiful summing up of the situation, Carol. Thank you.
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