![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
On Reviewing
Mar. 6th, 2025 12:24 pmAs a working academic, reviewing was part of my job. Indeed, a lot of scholarship and debate in history is carried out in reviews. It's not always fun -- it can be stressful -- but it's interesting and important.
It's clear to me that literary criticism can work this way too. I read criticism and occasionally write it, though I have form on going sideways to the mainstream. Perhaps because I spent so long as an academic, I remain suspicious of ideas around canon and importance and how certain peoples and places and modes of action or writing are viewed. As a historian of Wales, I was infamous for questioning the main idee fixe in my field (around the greater legitimacy of one royal dynasty and one particular kingdom to hegemony over the others) because it struck me as informed more by modern conditions than the beliefs of earlier centuries.
When it comes to literature, the opposite sometimes seems to be true -- Canon is White and Male because [list writers here] are Great -- and while many many critics now question this, mainstream reviewing does all too often still conform to this model. Listing off the 'important' writers in any given period tends to lead to a predominance of white men (as do sales figures, because our culture privileges them in terms of publicity etc). We all know this. In sff, in more recent years, the emphasis has shifted somewhat -- though I do wonder how permanent this is, given the tendency in western culture to run the diversity carousel, which swaps marginalised groups in and out according to fashion but somehow the white men carry on. But even so, when shortlists for awards appear, there is always someone -- multiple someones -- questioning why Important White Man is not listed. And sometimes critics reproduce this in who they focus on. (The best example is China Mieville, who is a good writer who has repeatedly talked about the influence on his work of Mary Gentle and Michael Moorcock. Yet Gentle gets left out, often, when Mieville is discussed by others -- because, I suspect, those others haven't read her and don't see why they should, and she's out of print, which Moorcock isn't.)
Which... well, it's annoying and it's unequal and it's typical and people still say 'Yes, but...' about it.
And it's partly why I am so ambivalent about reviewing. I'm trained to write reviews that raise questions. With fiction, this isn't always appropriate -- and fiction writers are mostly not trained to expect questions in the way historians are. I fret about the writer and how they feel. Writing novels is hard and we invest a great deal in them, and it hurts when someone doesn't like them or is dismissive.
I have multiple categories for books in my head, one of which is 'A good book that isn't for me'. Patrick O'Brien is a case in point. I can see he wrote complex, well-researched, effective books. I can see why people love them. But they're not for me. For some reason, I just don't like books set on boats. (I don't get seasick, I just find boats boring.) I've read and reviewed a number of books that fall into this category. Excellent books, sometimes. They're not hard to review, because I can see all the depth and complexity and character. It's remarkably akin to academic reviewing.
But some books are meh. Some books, sadly, are just bad. I hate reviewing those, even though sometimes the problems need addressing. I'm thinking here of things I would address with a writing student, stuff about structure or consistency or unexamined assumptions and prejudices. It's something I would hope an editor would do, though this doesn't always happen. These reviews are hard, not because the book isn't great -- spotting the problems isn't the issue -- but because the book has an author and the author might be hurt.
Some people will say, well, author should have done better. But that's subjective. Most authors are doing their best, or trying to. We all fail. The art is trying again and failing better. We all have unconscious assumptions and biases, which can be hard to see. And, in my opinion, anyway, there's no right to be mean in these circumstances, at least most of the time. Maybe it's because I taught for so long, but it matters to me that to highlight some positives alongside the negatives, even when the negatives predominate.
And that can be hard, and, well... Reviewers need to try again, too, sometimes.
Skirt of the day: Holy Clothing blue
It's clear to me that literary criticism can work this way too. I read criticism and occasionally write it, though I have form on going sideways to the mainstream. Perhaps because I spent so long as an academic, I remain suspicious of ideas around canon and importance and how certain peoples and places and modes of action or writing are viewed. As a historian of Wales, I was infamous for questioning the main idee fixe in my field (around the greater legitimacy of one royal dynasty and one particular kingdom to hegemony over the others) because it struck me as informed more by modern conditions than the beliefs of earlier centuries.
When it comes to literature, the opposite sometimes seems to be true -- Canon is White and Male because [list writers here] are Great -- and while many many critics now question this, mainstream reviewing does all too often still conform to this model. Listing off the 'important' writers in any given period tends to lead to a predominance of white men (as do sales figures, because our culture privileges them in terms of publicity etc). We all know this. In sff, in more recent years, the emphasis has shifted somewhat -- though I do wonder how permanent this is, given the tendency in western culture to run the diversity carousel, which swaps marginalised groups in and out according to fashion but somehow the white men carry on. But even so, when shortlists for awards appear, there is always someone -- multiple someones -- questioning why Important White Man is not listed. And sometimes critics reproduce this in who they focus on. (The best example is China Mieville, who is a good writer who has repeatedly talked about the influence on his work of Mary Gentle and Michael Moorcock. Yet Gentle gets left out, often, when Mieville is discussed by others -- because, I suspect, those others haven't read her and don't see why they should, and she's out of print, which Moorcock isn't.)
Which... well, it's annoying and it's unequal and it's typical and people still say 'Yes, but...' about it.
And it's partly why I am so ambivalent about reviewing. I'm trained to write reviews that raise questions. With fiction, this isn't always appropriate -- and fiction writers are mostly not trained to expect questions in the way historians are. I fret about the writer and how they feel. Writing novels is hard and we invest a great deal in them, and it hurts when someone doesn't like them or is dismissive.
I have multiple categories for books in my head, one of which is 'A good book that isn't for me'. Patrick O'Brien is a case in point. I can see he wrote complex, well-researched, effective books. I can see why people love them. But they're not for me. For some reason, I just don't like books set on boats. (I don't get seasick, I just find boats boring.) I've read and reviewed a number of books that fall into this category. Excellent books, sometimes. They're not hard to review, because I can see all the depth and complexity and character. It's remarkably akin to academic reviewing.
But some books are meh. Some books, sadly, are just bad. I hate reviewing those, even though sometimes the problems need addressing. I'm thinking here of things I would address with a writing student, stuff about structure or consistency or unexamined assumptions and prejudices. It's something I would hope an editor would do, though this doesn't always happen. These reviews are hard, not because the book isn't great -- spotting the problems isn't the issue -- but because the book has an author and the author might be hurt.
Some people will say, well, author should have done better. But that's subjective. Most authors are doing their best, or trying to. We all fail. The art is trying again and failing better. We all have unconscious assumptions and biases, which can be hard to see. And, in my opinion, anyway, there's no right to be mean in these circumstances, at least most of the time. Maybe it's because I taught for so long, but it matters to me that to highlight some positives alongside the negatives, even when the negatives predominate.
And that can be hard, and, well... Reviewers need to try again, too, sometimes.
Skirt of the day: Holy Clothing blue
