Pat Holt on what's wrong with book reviewing today.
To read reviews, you'd never in the history of the world have there been so many literary geniuses. Yeah, right.
In the last 25 years, just about everything about the print experience has changed — except the way critics review books.
Our audience zips around the Internet with tremendous agility and speed, and what do we give them?
Stodgy, dull, laborious and indulgent reviews. The same old 16-300 column inches that digress and meander and oh, so slowly get to the point. And our standards are dropping.
Gifted young writers who are wasting their talent on gimmickry and overblown novels are given rave reviews that mislead readers and contribute nothing to posterity. Book reviewers waste the space they are given by wondering if readers will "like" a title. Audience tastes and publishing fashions are none of our business! Critics who could have nailed the "Harry Potter" series as fun but hardly brilliant, or explored the legacy of J.R.R. Tolkien and Joseph Campbell, instead devoted entire columns pondering whether fans would "like" the last title in the series as much as the first. |
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