For those
that write, a new year can mean a year where you will come under review.
Assuming of course, that your projects are finally finished. Yesterday I was
reading a section of The Writer’s
Quotebook by Jim Fisher, when I flipped to the review section. It so
impressed me, and had such humour contained within it that I had to include a
large portion of it below:
REVIEWS
It’s hard
to imagine how a review—say, in Kirkus Reviews—could, in a substantial way,
affect the commercial success of a book. Other than writers and a handful of
literary types, who reads book reviews? Book reviews, however, are important to
the authors under review and to people in the business of dust-jacket blurbs,
review excerpts that carry no credibility whatsoever. Still, in the life of a
writer, a bad review is a terrible thing; and writers who say they don’t read
the reviews of their books or don’t care if a review is good or bad are
generally not believed.
Authors
are also upset when their books are not reviewed. Isaac Asimov complained that
none of his books were ever reviewed in The
New Yorker, even though, as a well-known writer, he had been mentioned in
the magazine many times. The reason: he was not taken seriously as a novelist
because most of his writing was science fiction. Wallace Stegner, a brilliant
novelist and nonfiction writer who lived in and wrote about the American West,
was never reviewed in the New York Times
even though his novels, Angle of Repose
(1971) and Spectator Bird (1976), won
the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award respectively. Why did the Times ignore Wallace Stegner? Probably
because he was not a part of the Manhattan literary scene.
I have a
friend who says that reviewers are the tickbirds of the literary rhinoceros—but
he is being kind. Tickbirds perform a valuable service to the rhino and the
rhino hardly notices the birds.
John
Irving
I am
never much interested in the effects of what I write.. I seldom read with any
attention the reviews of my... books. Two times out of three I know something
about the reviewer, and in very few cases have I any respect for his judgments.
Thus his praise, if he praises me, leaves me unmoved. I can’t recall any review
that has even influenced me in the slightest. I live in sort of a vacuum, and I
suspect that most other writers do, too. It is hard to imagine one of the great
ones paying any serious attention to contemporary opinion.
H.
L. Mencken
People
who aren’t writers might think that authors would be well advised to study
their negative reviews with care, rather than letting a protective skin form.
After all, isn’t there something to be learned from the thoughtful analysis of
intelligent and knowledgeable critics? Well, maybe, but most of the writers I
know don’t take them seriously, and neither do I. It’s not that I don’t respect
reviewers. It’s that reviewers don’t write their columns for writers. They
write them... with readers in mind, and that’s a different thing.
Aaron
Elkins
I can get
very depressed by a review that is unfair, unreasonable, and totally
destructive.
John
O’Hara
I get
angry at the stupidity of critics who wilfully refuse to see what my books are
really about. I’m aware of malevolence, especially in England. A bad review by
a man I admire hurts terribly.
Anthony
Burgess
A recent
review of one of my books was kind of horrific. It described my work as some
sort of terrorist mission—and yet I like
it, I like to be controversial in that way. It’s proof that I’m alive.
Robert
Coover
I am not
alone in bearing grudges against reviewers who have doomed a book’s chances
because they’ve missed the point, the tone, the everything.
Ann
Beattie
Very
often adverse criticism goes to craft, and that sounds an alarm to which
attention should be paid.
Dorothy
Salisbury Davis
It’s
discouraging to be criticized because you can’t contend with it. It’s like
someone saying, “Sorry Jim, but you just don’t measure up. We’re looking for
someone a bit more handsome than you.”
James
Lee Burke
It isn’t
infrequent that reviewers get the plot wrong. Am I naïve to have expected more
consideration, am I naïve to be disappointed? Even “positive” criticisms so
often seems uninformed, ignorant.
Joyce
Carol Oates
The
critics don’t interest me because they’re concerned with what’s past and done,
while I’m concerned with what comes next.
Aldous
Huxley
You’re
always looking—and it’s very foolish, it really would be better not to read the
reviews—but you’re always looking for some reviewer who will tell you something
about your book that you didn’t know yourself and at the same time that you
think is true. And that very, very rarely happens.
Mary
McCarthy
Rotten
reviews are the lot of the writer, and selling well is the best revenge.
Isaac
Asimov
Never
demean yourself by talking back to a critic, never. Write those letters to the
editor in your head, but don’t put them on paper.
Truman
Capote
My
favourite Kirkus review labelled my
writing as “awkward and repetitious.” I framed that one.
Charles
Knief
I’ve
known writers who are absolutely destroyed by adverse opinion, and I think this
is a lot of shit. You shouldn’t allow that to happen to yourself, and if you
do, then it’s your fault.
James
Dickey
Books are
savaged and careers destroyed by surly snots who write anonymous reviews and
publishers can’t be bothered to protest this institutionalised corruption.
Warren
Murphy
Good
reviews aren’t helpful, and the bad reviews are less... They’re not creatively
critical. I don’t think there’s really any point in reading them. You don’t
learn anything from them.
Thomas
Tyron
If you
ever write something, and it is reviewed, and the reviewer includes a photo of
you, and both the photo and the review are bad, you will find that the photo is
more painful.
Diane
Johnson
The Writer’s Quotebook is an
excellent resource, capable of bringing a definite smile and soothing nerves. I
am young to the game, but already I have faced unkind reviews, with a reviewer
missing the point (Beattie and Carol Oates’ point). With my writings on Islamism
and terrorism, I too was as surprised (and pleased?) as Robert Coover when my
work was described as some sort of terrorist mission and analogous to terrorist
ideology. A harsh review can be entertaining months later, but they hit very
hard when we crave the affirmation and praise for our hard work.
Trev
