Over at Critical Mass (again), Lev Grossman answers six questions culminating with this bit on reviewing:
Q: After a decade or so of covering books, how would like to see book pages change in the coming years?
A: At the risk -- nay, certainty -- of sounding kind of snobbish, I wish book sections in general would leave book-reviewing to the pros. There's a pervasive notion that anybody who can read can write a book review. Not so. Good god, there is nothing so boring, so dank and unappealing on the page, as a bad book review.
Okay Lev, if you were going for snobbish then you knocked this one out of the ballpark. I would love love love for someone to lay out all the rules to be a professional reviewer. Is there a degree involved? Is there an apprenticeship? Is there a certain amount of money you need to make or a certain publication you need to be published in? I am also confused over who Grossman is referring to - most bloggers would say they are not reviewers, they just have sites and they're giving their opinions. And really - who cares? Who is threatened by anyone giving reviews except, apparently, other reviewers? If Lev doesn't like Bookslut ( and really I don't know if he does or doesn't) they he should not read it.
Is that so hard?
I review for Booklist which is about as mainstream as it gets in terms of reviewing. (We're talking the American Library Association here - this the publication of, by and for the people!) Also, yesterday, in my newly arrived review copy of Scarlett Thomas's The End of Mr. Y I found a quote from Bookslut about her first book, PopCo - a quote from a review I wrote. So the publisher, Harcourt, must think Bookslut is serious enough to be worthy of notice, I wonder what Mr. Grossman thinks and what I'm supposed to think (other than being giddy about the world knowing how much I love PopCo!)
I also thought it was odd in the Critcal Mass piece that they had to point out Grossman was a fan of Kelly Link "Some of your own taste in books is a little bit bent from the mainstream -- Kelly Link, however nice a writer, has yet to catch on. Do you have to make an extra case when reviewing writers like her in Time?
The lit blogosphere has been high on Link for ages, so hey - how nice of Grossman to finally catch up with the rest of us! (I will proudly point to my review of Link's Stranger Things Happen LAST YEAR at Eclectica.)
On to other news, some readers might have recognized Lauren Baratz-Logsted's name in my quote the other day about chick lit. She's actually the editor of This is Chick Lit and MJ Rose has a great backstory entry on how that anthology came about from Lauren herself:
Why... be bothered by other people taking shots at Chick-Lit?
The answer is simple: Because it gets old. It gets old hearing people complain about all the pink books out there as if, were those books to suddenly poof out of existence tomorrow, every reading person would suddenly be rushing out to buy Thomas Pynchon. It gets old hearing the books get denigrated and miscast as being about no more than Manolos & Cosmos when in fact, while some of the books are just that, so many of the books are so much more. It gets old, reading reviews where the reviewer feels compelled to say, “This book is very good…for Chick-lit.�
Lauren has a new book out with a great title: How Nancy Drew Saved My Life. Described as "part Charlotte Bronte, part chick-lit, part Nancy Drew," it sounds like a lot of fun and leads me to another recent topic - the endlessly insane popularity of Jane Eyre. (As evidenced by this very book!)
The Guardian has an article about the latest BBC adaption of the book and points out that "Though popular culture has sometimes portrayed Jane as quivering daintily in the arms of the masterful Rochester, Brontë's original character had such force and ego that she has come to be seen as a proto-feminist creation."
And speaking of feminists - I wonder if Samantha Hunt will be happy with Anne Hathaway's portrayal of Jane Austen? Will it be tainted by her chick lit film roots? Will Austen still be "[an] activist on the part of romance"?
Oh, the things we have to worry about this weekend!
September 24
2006
08:32 AM
You and I are developing quite a dialogue here! I'm assuming you know about Lev Grossman using TIME magazine to talk about liblogger Ed Champion's coverage of him, which resulted in Ed posting about it on his "Return of the Reluctant" blog and sending Mr. Grossman a basket of fruit?
In the "Critical Mass" interview you cite, he does come off as snobbish. The weird thing is, I enjoy reading "Critical Mass" and yet the prevalent tone does seem to be earnest/taking-ourselves-too-seriously and Mr. Grossman's remarks fit right in. That said, I rather like, "And at the risk of sounding reverse-snobbish, I'd like to see more serious review attention go to genre fiction. It is, after all, what most people read. The worst of it is very bad, and the best of it is very very good. Why not help potential book-buyers divide the one from 'tother?" Yes, the tone is still, oh, *you know*, but at least he's not saying "all genre fiction should be ignored in serious reviews because it all sucks" - a refreshing change.