What's New at Green Man Review

Lots of goodies again today, including a massive essay, "On Reviewing," by yours truly (with lots of links to reviews). Scoot on over and enjoy.

Skipped a Day

I was busy finishing up some old review business, which means fixing drafts, uploading, finding cover art, etc., etc.

But, there are reviews newly posted at Green Man Review, so hop over and take a look.

On Reviewing

I've been having an e-mail exchange with author Elizabeth Hand (who will be featured in a special edition of Green Man Review on February 21), who sent me a gracious and thoughtful e-mail noting her appreciation of my reviews of several of her books, although my reaction has been mixed.

It got me thinking, once again, about my approach as a reviewer. I resist the classification of "critic," because to me that implies a critical stance or theory, which involves a set of preconceptions about what a work should be. (There's also the fact that most schools of criticism I've encountered are self-limiting -- they're ill-equipped to deal with a work of art as a whole. And a lot of them are largely political in outlook, which on the level of textual analysis I think is usually inappropriate.) I'm much more amenable to Samuel R. Delany's idea of "text-based" analysis, taking the "text" as sort of a Gestalt -- all of the classic elements are there, for example plot, character, milieu, and so forth -- but what becomes the operative factor is their interaction, they ways in which they reinforce each other.

I read a lot of genre fiction, which tends toward formula. As a rule, people think of "formula" in a negative light, but what becomes important to me is not whether a work is formulaic, but what the author (we'll stick to books for the time being) has done with the formula -- has he or she stretched the boundaries, and does that justify itself, or if he/she has worked within the formula, has it reached a peak? There's been, for example, a lot of buzz over the past few years about slipstream and interfictions, efforts in speculative fiction to push the genre boundaries outward until they become so tenuous as to disappear. (And yes, genre fiction is all about formula.) There are very few writers I've encountered who actually do it -- Jonathan Lethem, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Alexander Irvine, Connie Willis come to mind, all of whom tend to ignore genre tropes that get in the way of their stories.

And, since all those elements are interacting, I'm more interested in the final result than any particular aspect of the book, although I will give pride of place to character -- I see that as the necessary driving force for any story. So if milieu is merely sketched in, as long as there are clues to point me in a direction, I don't mind that (in fact, I enjoy it) as long as the characters are fully drawn. If the plot seems rather random, well, the universe throws you curves, and as long as events and characters mesh believably, I can deal with that.

In graphic literature, it becomes more complex: I insist that the drawings and layouts make a contribution to the narrative, that they actually function as part of the text. One of the reasons I'm not so enthusiastic about American comics pre-1985 or so is that they are merely illustrated stories, and the illustrations are, too often, terribly literal -- they don't carry any of the narrative.

There's necessarily a strong element of subjectivity in reviewing -- after all, it's my reaction to the work that I'm writing down -- but I try to hang that reaction on some sort of objective framework, based on my analysis of the text as described above. The ultimate question is, "Does it work?" I'm very well aware that what may not work for me may work very well for others (at this point in my career, I am an experienced, sophisticated and fairly demanding audience). So my main objective is to give as accurate an idea as I can of the experience of the work. Ultimately, I doubt anyone cares about my opinion on "good" or "bad," which are terms I try to avoid anyway. But if I can explain how I arrived at that opinion, that makes it worth something. (I noted to Liz Hand my too many experiences with reviews that told me nothing about the work and more than I wanted to know about the reviewer. Aside from the fact that I'm a fairly private person, it's not about me. My ego's healthy enough that it doesn't have to be.)

I may expand this as I think more about it, or maybe do further installments. And just for fun, why do you read reviews?

On Appreciation

I was not all that long ago raked over the coals, more or less, for publishing a review full of "spoilers," and when I pointed out that the novel didn't depend on plot twists for its quality, was told that "the casual reader" was looking forward to the next wrinkle. (I should point out that I didn't really find anything in the review that I considered a spoiler -- I am aware of those things, and do try to avoid them if I think it's important. But there are other considerations.)

I was forced to conclude that I don't write for the "casual reader," whoever that might be. I write for people who read the way I do: to discover new things in an old favorite, to look again for things I might have missed the first time around, to savor the way the writer has dealt with theme, character, relationships, because there are any number of ways to do that, to understand how a writer -- or any artist -- has brought out new meanings that might echo in my life.

Hence, Rule 1: If you're only looking at the surface, you're missing most of what's going on. I've run into that a lot with manga lately, because it's a tremendously sophisticated medium that brings a lot of subtlety into play. Not always, but the good examples always deserve another look. (It's also most of what I've been reading.)

Just as quick examples, go back and look at my review at GMR of Kimi Shiruya (or the essay I published here) and the Loveless anime. To me, those are tremendously rich works, full of implication and subtle linkages that build amazingly powerful stories. (And I might point out that I am sitting on a 4000+ word essay on Loveless that I really do intend to try to boil down to a review.)

But you don't find that simply by sitting there looking at what's on the page. You have to look beyond that, and that's where it become appreciation. Yes, I suppose it does require a bit of learning, but it's the kind of learning that's easily acquired from experience. I never took a course in how to read a book. I just read them, and thought about them. Being a reviewer helps in that -- I have to think about them if I'm going to write about them intelligently, but by the same token, I would hope that the fruits of that thinking would bring some insights to my readers.

There's an element of connoisseurship here. It sounds very high-brow, but all that connoisseurship is, really, is the result of that experience, that thinking, that searching for meanings under the surface.

There is, of course, the question of how much you bring to the work, as opposed, I guess, to how much the artist put in. It's not an invalid question, but I think too often presented in the wrong framework: once a work is out there, it's no longer the artist's exclusive domain. Yes, there's "being entertained," which is a passive state best indulged in in front of the TV with a reality show or the news, and then there's being engaged: with the latter, it becomes a dialogue between you and the artist, an activity that demands participation, not just acceptance. So you have to bring something, otherwise you're not participating. And at least part of the artist's purpose, I think, is to spark that internal dialogue, to make echoes in your imagination that call up those past experiences and ideas that are going to flesh out that work for you and make it part of your experience.

And that's really what I'm trying to do, it occurs to me: impart something of that experience, without worrying overmuch about my approval or disapproval (that's there, but it's part of the context: did the artist do what they set out to do, and was it worth it to begin with?). It's much more important to me that my readers come away with some sense of what it was like for me to be involved with that work.

(A key point, that: once upon a time, when I was regularly writing art reviews, a friend mentioned that he'd read all my reviews and still didn't know what my opinion was of the art. That wasn't the point: the point was, what was it like to be there looking at it? You can figure out the rest, if you're paying attention.)

So, if I spoiled the plot for you, sorry -- but not very.

Music Break

I spent most of my working period yesterday writing two reviews, one on Benjamin Britten's War Requiem the other on a complete set of Beethoven's symphonies performed in period style. (Those will be part of the big November 30 special issue of Green Man Review devoted to moi.)

Damn! That was a nice break. The Britten is a powerful piece, and I love Beethoven in any way, shape or form.

Here's a video of Mstislav Rostropovich conducting the "Requiem aeternam." I was discussing the rerelease of Britten's 1963 recording, but of course, he wouldn't allow it to be filmed.



There are videos of Rostropovich conducting other sections here.

Break Time

Reviews in Brief will be delayed today. I've got two other reviews to write and right now I have to eat some breakfast (bad habit of mine -- I get involved and forget to eat, then suddenly I'm starving and eat too much).

later

Green Man Review, July 13 Edition

It's up. Go visit (this link is good for two weeks only).

One of my music reviews is one of those still floating in cyberspace, so it will appear in two weeks; however, I just noticed (a little slow on the uptake here) that two of the finalists for the Mythopoeic Awards are novels I reviewed, so those reviews are linked as well.

I'd love to hear some reactions.

Reviewers

Interesting comments on reviewing and what makes a "professional" -- if, indeed, there is such a thing. Serendipity: I was talking yesterday with one of the editorial staff at the Reader about people's perceptions of various media. The print media as a whole are in desperate trouble as costs go up and revenues go down but still have the cachet of some sort of "substance," while online media are still considered in some circles to be not quite "legitimate." In the case of rewiewing (and I resolutely refuse to call myself a "critic" -- I'm not, never have been, and never will be), as it happens, online sources are far outstripping print media in particular in terms of quantity, quality, and relevance. (See this little rant at Chasing Ray for some intelligent commentary on the state of books in this country. She even makes some recommendations, which is not something you're going to find on the book review pages of any paper.)

I happen to be very enthusiastic about new things, as long as I'm convinced they're not completely pernicious. Sort of like a cat with a new toy: it has to be investigated thoroughly -- you know, sniff it for a while, poke it a couple of times to see what it does -- but once I've decided it's OK, I'm in. That explains at least partly why I spend mumbledy-mumble hours a day online: information. There is lots of it there, it's easy to get at, and it's free, mostly. (It does, however, require some analysis -- a lot of that information is more or less bogus.)

As for the online-versus-print review thing, look at it this way, which reflects a comment I made to my colleague yesterday: I've been told my stuff is "too serious" for a local paper which shall remain nameless. And, let it be said, their purview is local; that's all they're interested in. I, however, have an international audience for my reviews (heaviest in English-speaking countries, obviously, since that's the language I write in), and probably have a potential traffic of half a million readers per month from the various sites I write for. (That's sort of a wash -- people aren't going to read a review, no matter the medium, of a book they're not interested in to begin with, but how many papers can boast a circulaton of half a million?) I get responses -- from the U.S., from Canada, from the UK, from Germany, from Australia. Some are filled with praise, some are filled with damnation, but that's the life of a reviewer. I even get e-mails asking if I'm interested in reviewing such-and-such a book. Could I expect this from a local print weekly? I doubt it very much. More important, do I want to place myself in a context where the reviews are seen more and more as frivolous and shallow? No. I do write fairly substantial reviews. I don't see any reason to give my readers less, although I'm actually thinking of experimenting a little bit for venues that are less oriented toward serious commentary and more interested in consumer reaction (Green Man Review versus Epinions, for example). I pride myself on my flexibility as a writer -- about time I demonstrated it. Again.

Bummer

I'm sitting here with a bunch of books that need reviewing and an approaching deadline, and they aren't cooperating.

The one thing I find that I need for a successful review is a hook -- some overarching concept or image that I can build a review from. It may or may not have anything to do with the subject -- in fact, sometimes I need to get outside of the subject to be able to take a good look at it, especially for nonfiction, but sometimes for fiction as well. And every once in a while I find a book or record that doesn't seem to have one.

This time I have three.

Envy me.