July - December 2007

October 17/07: Point Taken

The chairman of this year's Man Booker jury took the occasion of the announcement of the winner (Anne Enright's The Gathering) to make some pointed comments about today's literary culture.

As reported in the Times, Howard Davies registered concern that novelists who reviewed books by established authors often went overboard in their praise. He called for "more diversity in the sort of people who review novels" and less deference to established names. "There appear to be some novels where people leave their critical faculties at home. They decide 'so and so is a great novelist' or 'an up-and-coming novelist', and give them the reverential treatment. . . . I think a little more distance, and critical scepticism, is required by our reviewers, together with greater readiness to notice new names.”

In the midst of our own silly awards season, one that has seen Vassanji's The Assassin's Ghost and Ondaatje's Divisadero shortlisted for both the Giller and the G-G's, I hope somebody in this country is listening. To take just one of Davies's points: Why is it that so many jury panels for these awards are made up of fellow novelists (or poets)? It's hard to think of a segment of the population less interested in the virtues of "critical scepticism." 

September 24/07: Fears for the Future?

As reported in Britain's Telegraph: "Fears for the future of the literary novel have been heightened by the revelation that a book by Katie Price, the surgically enhanced model, has outsold the entire Booker Prize shortlist."

Fears for the future?

The Telegraph story is a follow-up to an earlier report on the low UK sales figures for the six books on this year's shortlist. At the time of the shortlist's announcement the only bestseller in the bunch was Ian McEwan's (dreadful) On Chesil Beach. The others had combined sales of less than 5,000. The new numbers show that, while sales are up, there has been little in the way of a "Booker bounce." Leaving aside On Chesil Beach, the other five books, despite generally excellent reviews and much publicity, have still only sold just over 10,000 copies combined. If nothing else, the shortlist (and its watered-down cousin the long-list) don't seem to have much power as promotional tools any more. As Martin Levin comments in the Globe and Mail: "pardon me if I'm skeptical about long-lists as sales tools, especially in an age where even short-listed candidates don't get much of a bump. Maybe Vince Lombardi was right; winning isn't everything, it's the only thing."

The story here is not that a topless model sells better than a handful of literary names. That, and McEwan's success, is more a testimony to the power of celebrity and the brand. What is remarkable is that, for all intents and purposes, the number of people interested in new literary fiction has now sunk below the level of statistical significance. Not to put too fine a point on it: No one is reading these books. And I don't suppose anything is different in this country with regard to the Giller effect or our reading habits in general. Which has a trickle-down effect when it comes to the quality of critical debate. 

For example, I think M. G. Vassanji is a terrible writer. No, scratch that. I don't think M. G. Vassanji can write at all. And yet this two-time Giller winner is in the running again this year for The Assassin's Song. Which is unreadable. And yes, I tried. But why bother debating the point? Nobody reads Vassanji. I remember when his last book, The In-Between World of Vikram Lall came out. Nobody in the office would touch it. Our editor at the time, considering it to be one of those books that really should be reviewed, tried desperately to find someone who would take it on. All in vain. Then it won the Giller Prize. And still nobody wanted to read it! I've no idea what happened to the copy we had, but it was never reviewed. Or, I am sure, read.

Now I'm not saying more people should be reading M. G. Vassanji. But I am saying that there's a certain level of general awareness necessary for a meaningful public discussion of his writing to take place. And in his case, as in the case of most literary novelists, we are a long, long way from achieving such a critical mass. Which leaves us talking about, and buying books by, celebrities.

Commenting on the initial story on the Booker numbers, Mark Sanderson remarked that "Such totals beg the question why anyone should bother to write literary fiction." Well Mr. Sanderson, go ask the poets. Here is Gore Vidal writing on the future of the literary novel in 1956:

"To strike an optimistic note, if faintly, it may well be that, with unpopularity, the meretricious and the ordinary will desert entirely, leaving only the devoted lashed to the mast. But now the tide is in. The course is set. The charts are explicit, for we are not the first to make the voyage out: the poets long ago preceded us into exile, and one can observe them up ahead, arms outstretched to greet the old enemy, their new companions at the edge of the known world."

That future is now. The novel has arrived. 

August 2/07: Reviewing Online 

In an op-ed column appearing in the Boston Globe, "Lost in the blogosphere," critic Sven Birkerts suggests that the chaotic nature of book coverage on the Internet represents "a fundamental reversal of the norms of print culture." Which is not a good thing. Our critical culture, he concludes, is losing its professional status, its authority and accountability, to hyper-opinionated amateurs.

As most bloggers who picked up on this story, which is to say pretty much all of them, quickly pointed out, this is now an old debate. Old and stale. Which is why I thought I'd take a pass on it. But one aspect of Birkert's piece seems to me to require further comment. In a nutshell, are newspaper print review sections even remotely comparable to litblogs? I don't think so, but here is Birkerts trying to define what's at stake:

"The controversy has to do with the fact that people in various quarters, literary bloggers prominently among them, are proposing that old-style print reviewing - the word-count-driven evaluation of select titles by credentialed reviewers - is outmoded, and that the deficit will be more than made up by the now-flourishing blog commentary. The blogosphere's boosters pitch its virtues of variety, grass-roots initiative, linkage, and freedom from perceived marketing influence (books by major trade publishers, which advertise more, sometimes appear to get premium treatment in the print book review sections)."

So, the two things being compared are "old-style print reviewing" and "blog commentary." With regard to the former we have all of the hand-wringing over disappearing review space in newspapers. After all, book reviewing is what book review sections, the books page, and stand-alone book reviews do. Occasionally they have op-ed columns, author interviews, and other items and sidebars (bestseller lists, community events calendars, etc.), but their primary function is to review books. And so as this review space shrinks, people are beginning to look online.

But the primary function of  most litblogs is not to review books. I recently heard from a pair of acquaintances who run blogs where they talk about literary matters in Canada. They have both started receiving piles of review copies of new books and catalogues from publishing houses alerting them to new releases. But neither blogger has ever posted a book review on their site. Nor do they have any intention of doing so in the future. Of course this doesn't matter to publishers, who are just looking to get their books mentioned (along with an Amazon link). But it should matter to people writing op-ed pieces on the future of book reviewing. "Blog commentary" is not reviewing. Did this not register with Mr. Birkerts when he dutifully went to check out, as research for his column, book blogs such as The Elegant Variation and Return of the Reluctant? I confess to not knowing either of these sites very well, but followed Birkert's lead. The first blog, by a Los Angeles-based writer, seems incredibly active. But most of the posts were the usual news-oriented link-with-a-comment. I didn't see where there was any book reviewing going on, unless you include the brief thumbnail blurbs on the margin. Nor was there much of anything that you could call criticism, though perhaps I dropped in during a slow week. Return of the Reluctant is run by Edward Champion. The blog entries here are colourful blasts of opinion (or "rants") on matters of the day. And there were plenty of reviews. Or at least there were plenty of links to reviews that Mr. Champion has written for papers like the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Yes, that's right. "Old-style print reviewing." Or at least reviewing for the online versions of old-style print sources (it isn't always clear).

Say what you want about the litblogs, but reviewing is still very much grounded in print. There are nearly five hundred reviews, and links to reviews, collected on this site. The vast majority, at least 80%, first appeared in print. Probably the most popular Canadian book blog today is George Murray's Bookninja. I think Bookninja has maybe posted two reviews in the last couple of years. I read Mr. Murray's reviews fairly regularly though . . . when they appear in the Globe and Mail. Zachariah Wells is one of this country's most prolific poetry reviewers, but I don't think I've ever seen a review on his blog. He does, however, provide links to reviews he's written for print sources like Quill & Quire. Steven Beattie (who does post original reviews on his blog) concludes his commentary on Birkert's piece as follows: "I would write more on this subject, but I’ve got a deadline. As it happens, I’ve been contracted to write a print review for a Canadian newspaper. Funny that."

Yes there are exceptions (prominent Canadian review blogs include The Danforth Review and Poetry Reviews), but they only prove the general rule. Which should come as a surprise to no one. Book reviewing takes time and talent. This is why, if you're good at it, you can sometimes get paid. 

Hardly anyone gets paid for writing a blog. You don't think this makes a difference?

Now don't get me wrong. I have nothing against blog commentary. But it isn't book reviewing. Which is why comparing a newspaper's print review section with a litblog, or arguing that blogs are somehow going to make up the deficit left from shrinking print review space, doesn't make any sense. We're not talking about a difference in accountability or authority - some litblogs have plenty of both - we're talking about two entirely different forms of critical discourse. The sort of book coverage you get in a blog has no print analogue. And, though I'm still optimistic this will change, there is no source for reviews exclusive to the Internet that even remotely approaches the best book reviewing appearing in print.

July 19/07: Michiko Klausner

The much-anticipated (by some) final volume of the Harry Potter series is reviewed today in the New York Times by Michiko Kakutani and the Baltimore Sun by Mary Carole McCauley, breaking a "review embargo."

I am as "staggered" as author J. K. Rowling is reported to be. Not because the Times and the Sun broke the embargo - embargoes are silly anyway - but at the speed of the reviews.

I have, at various times over the years, had occasion to complain about the brutal deadlines involved in newspaper reviewing. And I've poked fun at the farce of "speed reviewing" as practiced, for example, by the Globe and Mail's John Allemang (a book a day for a year), and Amazon.com superstar Harriet Klausner (who writes some 20 "reviews" a week). The system is a joke. Usually, however, timely reviews can be honestly written because reviewers are given galleys or advance reading copies that allow them some time to write an opinion.

Not so with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. This book was apparently unavailable in any form to reviewers (as with most of the previous installments). However, the Baltimore Sun, in their own words, "obtained the book from a reader who is a relative of a Sun reporter. The relative pre-ordered the book from an online retailer and received it before the publication date." Ms. Kakutani was able to get her hands on a copy sold (by mistake?) in a New York City store yesterday. 

Yesterday.

And the review was posted last night.

And the book is 759 pages long.

Is this supposed to be a joke? Is it a fraud? Note that the other examples of "instant reviews" mentioned in stories appearing on Slate.com and the Guardian web-site refer to reviews done by teams of reviewers, of non-fiction books. Now I've said before that I don't think Kakutani is much of a reviewer. I don't think she writes reviews so much as book reports. But I thought she, and the New York Times, were a (little) bit above this kind of stunt. Meanwhile, her review doesn't give anything away and is worthless as criticism or consumer report. The absence of any reference to the text makes it clear that Kakutani only skimmed. Why bother with such a superficial "review"?

Because it's news.

Which is fine. But if we're really interested in saving or defending book review sections it might be a good idea for them to demonstrate what it is that sets them apart from the user reviews on Amazon instead of trying to beat the instant-media at their own game. The only race here is a race to the bottom, and that's one nobody wins.

July 4/07: Cultural Authority

A new study compiled by BookNet Canada reports on the effect radio and television shows have on influencing people to buy books. According to a CBC story the "study said Canadian television programs had an impact on book sales that was almost as powerful as an interview with an author on The Oprah Winfrey Show," while books mentioned on CBC Radio One's Sounds Like Canada had an average sales increase of 83 percent in the week following the show. Other Canadian radio and TV shows found to have "a significant impact on book sales" included CityTV's Breakfast Television (sales increases of up to 121 percent), CTV's Canada AM (up to 333 percent), Rogers's Fine Print, and CBC Radio shows The Current, Talking Books and The Arts Tonight,

The effect of print sources on sales were apparently not part of the study. I suspect, however, that the numbers would have been considerably lower. The "bump" provided by a print review is pretty marginal. Just a few months ago I was glad to see a small press Canadian title I thoroughly enjoyed get rave reviews in the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, and the National Post. Seeing such a low-profile book pull off the national critical trifecta was inspiring. But two weeks after the reviews ran, the sales told another story. The book had sold less than 40 copies. Which may have been 40 more than it would have sold without the reviews, but still.

There is a grim message here for those who want to "save our book reviews." In the first place, print reviews are a nearly worthless form of marketing. Indeed I have long thought that the only reason publishers even bother with them is because (a) sending out review copies costs them next to nothing (basically they're only out the postage), and (b) publicists don't have any better ideas when it comes to promotion. But far worse is the loss of cultural authority. Whether we like it or not, there is only one way to measure a critic's cultural authority, or the "power" of their reviews. That is if it influences people to buy books. Cultural authority may have other meanings than mere consumer advocacy, but this is the only form it takes that can be measured. What does it say then when hundreds if not thousands of people are influenced to act on the recommendations of TV show hosts and radio personalities who are only "mentioning" books that in many (if not most) cases they haven't read, while ignoring the supposed experts? No doubt some of the "influence" recorded by BookNet is due to the ability of these programs' producers to market to their audience. But that's only part of it. And meanwhile, where is our great literary debate taking place in print? When was the last time you heard anyone arguing over a book review?

It has been said, I believe by David Kipen most recently, that cutting back on book review sections constitutes an attack on a newspaper's core audience. That is, people who read.

I don't believe it. A newspaper's core audience is people who buy newspapers, and that is not the same demographic as people who read. Much less people who read books. Much less people who read, or pay the slightest attention to book reviews.