Book Bloggers: Harmful or Helpful?

[J-Sun]

The Booker Prize head judge speaks.
A blogger responds.

(The issue has little to do with bloggers. Without euphemisms, the first is about aristocracy vs. the hoi polloi and the second is about plutocracy vs. democracy.)

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

"readability can be a very interesting thing, great art for the most part resists it to a degree".

Wow. He seems to be saying that great art is usually rather boring. An odd thing for someone in his position to say.

Without euphemisms, the first is about aristocracy vs. the hoi polloi and the second is about plutocracy vs. democracy.

I think you are right. The first article is about how only those who are "qualified" should express their opinions online.

 

[Kissmequick]

Wow. He seems to be saying that great art is usually rather boring. An odd thing for someone in his position to say.

Yes, I thought that.

This boggles my tiny little mind:

If we make the main criteria good page-turning stories – <snip> - then I think literature will be harmed,"

Gods forbid that literature should be enjoyable.
Mind, it might explain why I have trouble even reading some of the Booker winners/nominees. They may be Important and stuff, but by crapola, some of them are so boring.....

Who says great, important works can't be enjoyable as well? The classics are classic because, well, because people enjoyed them mostly.

To be fair, I suppose some people get their enjoyment from the importance of the story....but I think the majority of people fare better with a good read that is also Important. /tact mode And that there is just that little hint of elitism in the first link. /end tact mode

 

[K. Riehl]

Thanks for the links.

In my opinion bloggers and direct reviews by readers have already taken over as the driving force behind much of the book business. I currently read 3 to 4 review blogs and I appreciate the value that it brings me. I haven't read the TLS or NY Review of Books for at least 5 years. I found the round robin, promote my book and I'll promote yours, was too much to take. Or the fact that some reviewer wouldn't give an honest review because of a long standing feud or some other nonsense.

I had to attend functions for publishing companies in my previous working life and invariably received condescending comments on my intelligence when I would mention that I read Science Fiction. I still don't understand the elitism displayed by some critics. It was fun to mention to some critics that if they hated a book I knew it would be a hit.

At the time I left the book business reviews were already getting marginalized as the bookstores were starting to get direct feedback from their customers and adjusting their purchasing accordingly.

Critical review will always have it's place but only for around 0.5% of the reading public. If a book is truly great word of mouth will do far more in disseminating that fact than critical review.

 

[notveryalice]

Don't mob me! Don't...I have a pointy stick...

I am entirely on both sides of this argument at once, via wibbly wobbly timey wimey.

Philosophically speaking this is a question of definition, i.e. linguistic philosophy (*cracks knuckles* exactly my specialty at uni, muahaha), viz., the definition of "good". Is "good" something based on majority opinion, or are skilled opinion givers the only people allowed to cast votes?

Let's do a basic Gedankenexperiment and carry both options to their absurd conclusions:

1) If what is good is decided by majority opinion, then whatever the majority decides is good, is good by definition. (Got that?) Therefore, were the majority to happen to decide that something conventionally considered awful is good, then we'd all have to change our opinions to accomodate that change.

But we don't. I can't read Twilight without laughing. Therefore this is a bad premiss/premise and must be discarded.

2) If only a select group is allowed to say what is good, then that means in order to produce good art, you must meet their standards--appeal to their personal opinion. What's worse: that means their personal opinion cannot vary, given an invariable scale of what is good. (I.e., everything can be placed on a scale from zero to most good, and though you can have multiple members on one point of the scale, there's only ONE scale.)

Which is bunkum. I don't know of a single pair of critics who would agree 100% on any book.

But wait! I think we've struck an idea, just up there. Perhaps there's a different solution: people define "good" as a single, invariable scale from zero to most good--but represent the concept of "good" as something else (which we haven't as yet defined).

Hurrah! Problem solved. Let's go have tea.

post scriptum this author is not suggesting that all philosophers agree on this or on anything and doesn't even have a postgraduate degree so take everything with a pinch of salt

 

[Abernovo]

As you say, J-Sun, it comes across as a fair bit of snobbery on the part of Peter Stothard. However, that isn't the whole story.

Someone has to stand up for the role and the art of the critic, otherwise it will just be drowned – overwhelmed

I get the feeling this is an attempt to ensure that 'the jobs for the boys' stay secure. 'I'm a critic, therefore I'm an artist in my own right'? Yeah, right, pal.

The thing that stood out for me in the response by John Self was that he referenced Sturgeon's Law: 'ninety per cent of everything is cr*p'. I suspect there's a truth to that. Is a lot of blogging worthless drivel? Absolutely. Is some of it well-written, well-argued and good copy? Very much so. The same can be said for art critics' columns in newspapers.

Notveryalice, is the teapot still warm?

 

[billhafan]

(Referring to last year's Man Booker chair Stella Rimington's much-criticised focus on finding "readable" books for the prize's shortlist, Stothard said that while "readability can be a very interesting thing, great art for the most part resists it to a degree".)

Applauded Stella Rimington for her comments at the time, and love this part of the blog - and it explains why I have personally struggled to read and/or enjoy many of the prizewinners over the years. I'll be honest, I thought it was essential to read them as they were being looked upon as being highly-regarded works ... but finally, common sense prevailed, and I would go with a readers review in 8/10 cases. There are some good critics out there, but this is nothing more than job-protection. Hopefully his employers will read this and see that their reviewer praises unreadable books ...

 

[Toby Frost]

I wouldn't argue with Stella Rimington. She knows people.

This throws up some interesting issues. I do agree that a huge amount of people expressing opinions on stuff does run the risk of turning the book-reading world into a free-for-all. But isn't that what's wanted? After all, choice is good, even if many people choose to read 50 Shades of Vampire Wizard. What bothers me in particular though, is the notion that reading good books is and should be difficult, whereas reading unimproving books is easy and does you no good - lentils versus takeaway pizza, effectively.

The comments expressed by Peter Stothard have a worrying feel to me. They seem to imply (and I don't think he directly says this) that reading for enjoyment and reading books of literary merit are two different things. I disagree with this, in that many classic novels are enjoyable (and plenty aren't). More importantly, a novel which seeks to entertain isn't ruling itself out of being "quality". Dickens wrote to entertain, likewise Shakespeare, and if they hadn't entertained nobody would have paid them, and they would have had to stop.

My worry is that if we give the job of deciding what is "literature" to people who seem to equate it with "hard work", we run the risk of missing future classics that are well-written to the point of being easy to read. Brighton Rock, Animal Farm, The Long Goodbye, Of Mice and Men, Lucky Jim and many others use a fairly clear prose style without crude attempts to be literary, and are important modern novels that, genre or not, are literature. Would they have been missed out?

The critic B.R. Myers quotes a story of a celebrity telling an author that she enjoyed her last book, but found it difficult. The author replied that the celebrity could tell that she had just read literature. I disagree. Reading good novels shouldn't be like taking a dose of medicine. Given how few critics there are, and how little space newspapers devote to this - rarely to anything other than self-consciously literary fiction, and certainly not genre novels - we should be glad that there are people out there prepared to do it at all.

 

[Gordian Knot]

Not to make this more complicated .... well, okay this is making it more complicated. Does a popular successful blogger make that person a good critic? Or just a popular one.

The same question, of course, goes for the "professional" critic.

I expect most of us have a lot more experience with movie critics/bloggers. The movie critics are a debatable lot as they seem overly educated for their profession. Many times have I heard the comment, "If that critic hates it, I know I'm going to love it". Mostly the issue seems to be that the movie critic doesn't write reviews with the average movie goer in mind.

Even worse are the professional art critics; a group for which I hold an unusually high level of disdain. It seems to me that this group TELLS everyone what is good in art. And most everyone follows their lead lemming like. To the point that it has become Emperor's New Clothes. One sees in various magazines of the rich and famous the most horrific art on the walls. It is there because some popular art critic has told them it is epic art.

Getting back to the discussion here. Most bloggers will toil away in relative obscurity. They hardly seem to me to be any threat to the status quo. If a blogger is not followed, their input is irrelevant.

How many successful book review bloggers can there be any way? A dozen? Three?? 25??? It seems to me that the number of bloggers with large followings cannot be all that more abundant than critics with large followings.

If I am wrong about this, please correct me, as I am merely surmising.

IF I am more or less correct, seems to me the balance of the two being roughly equal can only do the book industry good as the critics and bloggers offer a different angle on the book world.

 

[Ursa major]

Regarding popularity.

I watched an interview with J K Rowling** on the TV, which mentioned that the Harry Potter books had sold close to half-a-billion copies. Now even if the Potter series had been just the one book, and no person had bought more than one copy, only 7% of the world's population would own a copy of one of the most spectacularly successful works of fiction ever written. This is why even drivel can, if driven by some malign fault in the zeitgeist, sell a lot of copies (one million is one-seven-thousandth of us). Obviously, then, sales are a poor indicator of quality. But then so is the world of the major critics, where logrolling and back-stabbing are so prevalent that those not in the know have no idea whether any given review is in any way valid.

Readability, it seems to me, is something else entirely. And though people will have slightly different ideas of what it means, and whether this work or that is readable (so it's like the scoring in ice skating), it does have a vaguely agreed meaning. Basically, one would say you can read this book, rather than you ought to read this book.)


The best thing is to find reviewers (and those simply recommending books) whose judgement you trust, and make use of that judgement (although one should never completely rely on others to make your judgements for you).




** - I missed the radio one by Mark Lawson, but given the content of the book, and Mr Lawson's unerringly schoolboy-like search for smut in other interviews, I don't really mind.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Having forced myself to read the Man Booker Prize winner and some runners up for a book club many years running - I have to say he's right: the vast majority are so dull and have literally lost the plot (that's if they had one to lose in the first place). There are some brilliant literary fiction writers who do produce page turners but they very rarely win and usually appear only on the shortlist. I think Anita Brookner's Hotel Du Lac was the first one I read and remember my disappointment as I turned page after page waiting for the story to get going. LOL! Look at the snobs that trash Harry Potter whilst JK Rowling may not be the best writer out there she has a talent for creating a page turning story. What good is being a writer if you can't communicate your ideas to anyone but a few academics who want to look intelligent ? Dickens, Shakespeare etc had an ability to tell a great story using great language. It annoys me that literary critics have split it into an either or thing.

I think letting real readers critique books is brilliant and we may just get to the stage where a great story, well told and written is the ideal.

 

[billhafan]

There are some brilliant literary fiction writers who do produce page turners but they very rarely win and usually appear only on the shortlist. I think Anita Brookner's Hotel Du Lac was the first one I read and remember my disappointment as I turned page after page waiting for the story to get going. LOL! Look at the snobs that trash Harry Potter whilst JK Rowling may not be the best writer out there she has a talent for creating a page turning story. What good is being a writer if you can't communicate your ideas to anyone but a few academics who want to look intelligent ? Dickens, Shakespeare etc had an ability to tell a great story using great language. It annoys me that literary critics have split it into an either or thing.

I think letting real readers critique books is brilliant and we may just get to the stage where a great story, well told and written is the ideal.

Well said! The problem then facing writers is actually getting readers to critique books they have read ... and pass on their thoughts. Amazon and the like are good for this, and certainly influential in attracting more readers, but of the hundreds who may read a book, how many bother to pass on a few words for others who may follow? On my own site I have noted that the most important critics to me are the readers, and I do believe that. Some literary critics need to accept that there are others out there with opinions just as valuable as their own, and more so if they can't accept an unreadable book is exactly that - not a sacred cow of Literature.

 

[Nerds_feather]

I think this whole "debate" is kind of dumb. There is absolutely a place for "real" literary criticism of books with artistic merits/pretensions. There is absolutely a place for people reviewing books that aren't high art but people actually want to read. Why is it, it should it be, one or the other?

 

[Nerds_feather]

But a lot of the "oh my god I can't believe he said that" reaction is kind of silly too. OF COURSE a snooty high-brow litfic snob is going to look down on your glowing review of Hunger Games

 

[steve12553]

Let me throw out a couple of thoughts or three based on merely being around longer than a half a century. When I first came into awareness of my surroundings, there were only a few computers in existance and they weren't all tied together. Most people communicated by a system we called "Long Hand" that required loading the paper onto a table and installing a pen or pencil into an appendage called a hand and carefully scrawling our thoughts onto the page. We then placed it into an envelope and put a stamp onto it and mailed it to the newspaper where, if it was of judged to be of worth, it was printed in the "Voice of the People" or some other aptly named column reserved for the the writer who supported him ot herself but other means. As I got older I became aware of the fact that the local radio station had call-in shows that allowed people to express their opinion on current events, sports or even literature. Most of the letters and and phone calls seemed to come from a small group of people who seemed to like to complain about anything and everything. Not all, but most.
In other words, if you wished to express your opinion quickly (on the radio) you were lumped in with the complainers and the crazies. If you took the time to write a letter or (if you had access to a mechanical typewriter) bang out a typewritten letter, your credibility went up a little. The world was not flooded with amateur opinion as it is today.
People who were hired to express opinion had, at least, some qualification.
I have a college degree, (including a few English courses) have read a fair share of books over the years, and have been around a fairly long time, but...
my opinion is just that. I am not qualified to critique books, but I would have no trouble establishing a blog and depending on my ability to persuade, draw an audience. Today's instant communication allows anyone and everyone to express their opinion to a fairly large audience whether it is a qualified opinion or not. I believe in the right of everyone to express their opinion but I also wonder how we can know who to take seriously. If opinion doesn't require a little work to express and publish, does it have as much meaning? How can we know which bloggers are qualified without reading the books they critique and agreeing or disagreeing with their opinion?

 

[Gordian Knot]

Steve wrote "How can we know which bloggers are qualified without reading the books they critique and agreeing or disagreeing with their opinion?"

Isn't that the real rub? In the end a critique from a critic or a blogger is one person's opinion. Is a successful critic, professional or amateur, successful because their opinion is agreed with by the largest number of readers? Or are they the most successful for other reasons as well. Or for other reasons altogether?

Is the Gold Standard of a critic decided by whether one agrees with them or not? Many individuals would say no. All well and good. How about the population at large though.

I remember a long time ago in a college far, far away, I attended my friend's English Lit class. Purely by chance. Under discussion was a review in the school newspaper of one of Shakespeare's works. The reviewer found it lacking.

The professor had a grand time belittling that reviewer because he obviously didn't understand that Shakespeare is great literature. Everyone had a good chuckle over this knucklehead's opinion.

I never found out if anyone bothered to check to see if this review was by a person who had never read or seen Shakespeare in his life, or if the guy did have some knowledge of the subject.

Shakespeare has certainly stood the test of time, at least up till now. Is it possible to write a review finding one of the plays less than marvelous, and to have that review accepted?

 

[Tannara Young]

Another aspect to this conversation is that the theory of critique changes as well as styles in literature. What is popular in the world of literary critics might be based on some new literary theory that the academic world is trying on but will be come a "post" (post-modernist, post-structuralist, etc.) pretty soon.

I agree that the real value in a critique is to test it against your own experiences. There was a movie critic in my local hometown paper whose taste was so perfectly opposed to mine, I would read his column and go to things he panned and avoid the ones he raved about.

 

[Montero]

There was a movie critic in my local hometown paper whose taste was so perfectly opposed to mine, I would read his column and go to things he panned and avoid the ones he raved about.

You're not the only one. . Both movies and books, sometimes I see/buy based on a negative review.

The world of paintings and sculpture has also long since gone down the great art vs what the people enjoy divide. I am most definitely someone who prefers to be able to work out what the picture is "of". That is within quite a broad spectrum - Impressionists through to Renaissance. I am very interested in what the artist sees in a landscape - because things can be focussed on/interpreted - but I like to be able to work out it IS a landscape .
Geometry and weirdly twisted images (Cubism, later Picasso etc) does absolutely nothing to float my boat. However it obviously does "speak" to some people, and they discuss this in various esoteric terms. If it gives them pleasure, fine by me, but I'd rather not then be patronised for preferring "representative" art.

Or in other words, if a book has "Booker Prize nominee" on the cover, I'd probably put it straight back on the shelf.

As a trained scientist I have in social situations encountered a few very high falutin people, who basically assume that a scientist is emotionally incompetent, has no artistry in their soul and may actually be a bit limited in the soul department altogether. (If wizardry really existed, then they'd have a puncture on the way home and the choice between a very long wait for the repair truck vs getting their hands dirty and doing something practical (evil laugh).)
Ah, a bit of a rant there.

My favourite sort of book review is one that:
1. Says whether the author writes well in terms of the flow of the prose, background detail, character development and story development.
2. Gives a small flavour of the story
3. Says whether or not it was to the reviewers taste
and possibly
4. Says that it has a flavour of authors x, y and z. Not "the next Tolkein" but a "if you like them, you'll probably like this".

And finally - a lot of "great literature" was not feted as great literature when it was being written. It is well beyond my knowledge to comment on whether there are contemporary writers of these famous writers who are now obscure, but at least as deserving of fame as the famous ones.
Does make me wonder which books will be taught in schools in 100 years times as "classic" and "great".

 

[rune]

I write reviews for my pleasure and I read reviews for my pleasure and to help me choose something to read.
Because money is tight, I find reviews very helpfull in not picking a book that would otherwise not be to my taste.

Im not sure if folks find my reviews helpfull, Id like to think they do. I would like to think though that folks will realise it is a personal review I write about how I personally felt about a book. I prefer this kind of review, as Im never sure about professional written reviews - perhaps I am just suspicious - LOL

Oh and I forgot to mention - do blogger reviews really help book sales...... hm... not sure folks on that one. I think a lot people still get pulled into the hype of book selling. Which explains the 50 shades of grey situation......

 

[Montero]

The one that got to me (before book blogs existed) was how Steven Hawkings "A brief History of Time" became the must-have coffee table book, bought by an awful lot of people who had no hope of understanding it if they read it.