final word comes from the floor

”Look straight ahead; never reply with a word in the papers; if in your writings you become polemical, then do not direct your polemic against this or that particular attack; never show that a word of your enemies has had any effect on you; in short, appear as though you did not at all suspect that there was any opposition.”

(Ibsen to George Brandes, quoted here at Ed's blog, within his interview on Alain de Botton's recent adventures in the blogosphere.)

There have been, to put it mildly, words on Twitter and in other places this week, leading to this discussion of reviewing response etiquette in The Telegraph by Philip Hensher, taking a somewhat unfortunate (but by no means unusual) delight in the hurt he has occasioned.

But let's begin at the beginning. So, first author and sometime reviewer Alice Hoffman got excited about the review of her latest book and decided to voice her concerns on Twitter, then deleted her cranky tweets which included the reviewer's email address and phone number.

Then Alain de Botton, no less, went onto a blog to make his disaffection with reviewer Caleb Crain both real and permanent.

His interview with Ed Champion on Ed Champion's Reluctant Habits has now attracted the suggestion that de Botton is somewhat naive.

Not surprising considering his perception of conversation on a webpage prior to this excursion was as follows:

I think that a writer should respond to a critic within a relatively private arena. I don’t believe in writing letters to the newspaper. I do believe in writing, on occasion, to the critics directly. I used to believe that posting a message on a writer’s website counted as part of this kind of semi-private communication. I have learnt it doesn’t, it is akin to starting your own television station in terms of the numbers who might end up attending.

The precursor, of course, is this guy who (surprise surprise) was reviewed by Alice. (One would, of course, rather interview de Botton.)

And we think Oz is a little pond. In these cranky times it's good to revisit this article by Wyatt Mason, (also quoted in Ed's interview)
not just to acquaint yourself with Updike's six reviewing rules, but also to consider that critics ultimately perform a service (and to wonder if any of those books he was picking over at the Manchester shop are still there.) As he says in closing:

To write book reviews well, as Updike’s rarity makes clear, is uncommon. That our book reviews remain, in Wilson’s 1928 evaluation, “so puerile” is because reading a book well, not to say writing about it well, requires time, diligence, intelligence. But it also demands something perhaps rarer still, at which few writers necessarily excel—a quality that, in fundamental ways, seems at odds with the creative endeavor: an abiding humility. As Frank Kermode has said of the critic’s role, “we shouldn’t get above ourselves.” After all, the critic’s job, as Kermode knows, is “to serve literature.” Criticism is a private service made public, and how many people go into writing with the hope of becoming servants of the public good? It is as Updike wrote, in 1962, of James Agee’s 250,000 words of criticism contributed—anonymously—to Time and Fortune: “Surely a culture is enhanced, rather than disgraced, when men of talent and passion undertake anonymous and secondary tasks. Excellence in the great things is built upon excellence in the small.” That is as close as Updike has ever gotten to a manifesto on the state of book reviewing, and that, to my mind, is just close enough.

Do check out Ed's incredible collection of audio interviews with authors, if you haven't already.

The words that make all this a living conversation for me, however, come not from Mason, Updike, Hensher or Ibsen, but from a commenter on de Botton's essay at Ed's blog, King Rat (where the conversation to date has been civilised and thoughtful, and a credit to blogs everywhere):

ADB (Alain de Botton) raises an issue that always irks me. Authors are always going on about “not reviewing the author” (reworded here as avoiding ad hominem attacks) but in the same breath want reviewers to understand what it is they were trying to do with a book. Only in the broad sense of the concept can someone not in the author’s head understand what it is that they were trying to do. Twilight is not existentialist literature (or maybe it is). A longstanding reviewer who has read everything from the author and his sub-genre might have an easier time of it, but the average reader does not have that background. The reviewer’s job might be to give the reader that context, but that seems to me to put the reviewer in the position of being an advocate for the author and the book, rather than the advocate for the reader. The requirement to review the work is in fundamental conflict with the requirement to review what the author intended the work to be, resolvable only with careful balancing acts.

Frankly, I think both the review and ADB’s response to it are just fine. If Crain didn’t understand what ADB was trying to do (as his interview answer seems to indicate), perhaps ADB could have written the book better so that there would be no question what he was trying to do. If Crain had an impression of the book, many others probably would have the same impression. The response is great too. Why should a reviewer have any more immunity for his work than an author has for his? Crain characterized ADB’s thinking in the review, and if ADB wants to say “You effed that up royally and I’m hurt by it” I say “awesome!” Books and book reviews are not widgets that can be measured dispassionately.

Not a barbecue-stopper, I know, but widgets! HEH.