Reviews

Review This

I don’t write reviews. I don’t write reviews because I don’t like writing reviews. Maybe if I got paid to write reviews I would write them and eventually enjoy myself. But in general I’d rather write fan mail or get drunk with my friends and talk about the books I love or the ones that disappointed me. The process of writing a review feels a little like having sex with someone you barely know under the glare of a bare bulb on a hot afternoon in an apartment with no AC after having scarfed a bunch of Mexican food. You know, gross! Embarrassing.

Maybe it’s because I get too intimate with what I read. The book is a person with whom I am involved. Kissing and telling, etc.

I read reviews only rarely. I don’t typically seek them out, but will idle over one en route to somewhere else, for example. I have read some goddamn beautiful reviews. Paeans, or funny eruptive little things. And of course I’ve read some awful reviews, mean-spirited or pretentious or kiss-assy or underdone or overzealous. It’s hard, I think, to get a review right, and I have a lot of respect for people who can and do. I think that they must be very generous, very self-assured writers, who want to celebrate a work without expecting to be celebrated in return.

Some people say that the best kind of review is the kind that is “a work of art” in and of itself, some juicy and fantastic piece of writing that makes you want to read not only the subject of the review, but a whole book by the reviewer. This makes me uncomfortable. If I temporarily lose my mind and seek out a tour guide when I visit an exhibit, I want the tour guide to be like some wonderful plasma between me and the exhibit, allowing me not only special access to it, but actual entry, as though I could be oozed osmotically through the guide and into the work. If I temporarily lose my mind and enlist the services of a tour guide, I don’t want an ancillary tour of the fucking tour guide.

Another review-ish thing that makes me uncomfortable is the too-frequent use of the word “derivative.” What isn’t derivative? I think the new word should be arrivative.

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26 Comments

  1. Socrates
  2. Sean

      Reviews can be better than the book, not often, but sometimes. Those are good reviews. Isn’t this the very payment you seek? The reviewer is also present and saying hi.

      Also reviews can just be a great way to introduce the world to a book you loved, a pretty harmless idea.

      I don’t see the word “derivative” in many reviews so I’ll pass on that one.

      I agree getting drunk with friends is the best choice here.

  3. Kristen Iskandrian

      yes, good reviews are mighty forces, indeed. i applaud them here, but i leave their writing to others. “better-than-the book” reviews–i don’t know. too flexish. just write something else that’s better.

      maybe i’ve just imagined so many instances of ‘derivative.’ or maybe seeing it once or twice feels like too many times.

      we should imbibe & discuss.

  4. Kristen Iskandrian

      haha

  5. Sean

      indeed

  6. Peter Jurmu

      Yes, but:

      well-written reviews open up at some point and try to steer you elsewhere. Like the few of Bruce Chatwin’s reviews compiled in Anatomy of Restlessness that mention the book he’s ostensibly reviewing maybe once–even then I had to check the notes to find out whether he’d been writing a review.

      A skilled reviewer knows the spread well enough to be able to point at other nearby (maybe better) things, but has the restraint to not be a dick who wants to appear skilled at reviewing books.

      A kind of stupefying article about “book reviewer bias” at MediaMatters

  7. Nathan Goldman

      David Foster Wallace did the kind of review where you love the review as much as or more than the work in question, and I love him for it.

  8. Socrates
  9. Sean

      Reviews can be better than the book, not often, but sometimes. Those are good reviews. Isn’t this the very payment you seek? The reviewer is also present and saying hi.

      Also reviews can just be a great way to introduce the world to a book you loved, a pretty harmless idea.

      I don’t see the word “derivative” in many reviews so I’ll pass on that one.

      I agree getting drunk with friends is the best choice here.

  10. Kristen Iskandrian

      yes, good reviews are mighty forces, indeed. i applaud them here, but i leave their writing to others. “better-than-the book” reviews–i don’t know. too flexish. just write something else that’s better.

      maybe i’ve just imagined so many instances of ‘derivative.’ or maybe seeing it once or twice feels like too many times.

      we should imbibe & discuss.

  11. Kristen Iskandrian

      haha

  12. Sean

      indeed

  13. Peter Jurmu

      Yes, but:

      well-written reviews open up at some point and try to steer you elsewhere. Like the few of Bruce Chatwin’s reviews compiled in Anatomy of Restlessness that mention the book he’s ostensibly reviewing maybe once–even then I had to check the notes to find out whether he’d been writing a review.

      A skilled reviewer knows the spread well enough to be able to point at other nearby (maybe better) things, but has the restraint to not be a dick who wants to appear skilled at reviewing books.

      A kind of stupefying article about “book reviewer bias” at MediaMatters

  14. Brooks Sterritt

      “The process of writing a review feels a little like having sex with someone you barely know under the glare of a bare bulb on a hot afternoon in an apartment with no AC after having scarfed a bunch of Mexican food.”

      Maybe this is why I enjoy writing reviews.

  15. Nathan Goldman

      David Foster Wallace did the kind of review where you love the review as much as or more than the work in question, and I love him for it.

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  17. Brooks Sterritt

      “The process of writing a review feels a little like having sex with someone you barely know under the glare of a bare bulb on a hot afternoon in an apartment with no AC after having scarfed a bunch of Mexican food.”

      Maybe this is why I enjoy writing reviews.

  18. Janey Smith

      Reviews are fun. They’re like commercials.

  19. Reynard Seifert

      nasty

      i love it

      holy shit it’s 5am
      what is wrong with me

  20. Janey Smith

      Reviews are fun. They’re like commercials.

  21. topher

      I give this post three stars, one thumb up and a B+!

  22. Reynard Seifert

      nasty

      i love it

      holy shit it’s 5am
      what is wrong with me

  23. topher

      I give this post three stars, one thumb up and a B+!

  24. Sasha

      I read and write reviews. When I get paid, it’s difficult — a voice in my head keeps telling me I have to be snooty. That whoever would read it isn’t interested that I only put the book down to go to the bathroom, and not even for a bath. When I’m just farting around at my blog, I am prone to simply squealing and typing “OMFG YOU LIKE HAFTA READ THIS!” like a 12-year-old who, uh, reads too much and has no friends to speak of.

      Fuck it.

  25. Sasha

      I read and write reviews. When I get paid, it’s difficult — a voice in my head keeps telling me I have to be snooty. That whoever would read it isn’t interested that I only put the book down to go to the bathroom, and not even for a bath. When I’m just farting around at my blog, I am prone to simply squealing and typing “OMFG YOU LIKE HAFTA READ THIS!” like a 12-year-old who, uh, reads too much and has no friends to speak of.

      Fuck it.

  26. ThmsBaughman

      I’ve never gotten paid for a review. I wish I could because I need a job. But they are a good way to get free books. With so many good books floating around, I can’t afford to buy them all.