Critical Inquiry Archive

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Adam Shaftoe on John Updike on Criticism

By
Adam Shaftoe
– December 5, 2012Posted in: Criticism, The Daily Shaft

In my travels about the internet I happened upon six of John Updike’s rules for literary criticism. Though these rules were originally published in Updike’s 1977 anthology Picked up Pieces, I think they remain relevant for experienced contemporary critics as well as those seeking to dip a toe into critical waters. In fact, I suspect these guidelines could be applied as signposts for any sort of critical analysis, regardless of the medium in question; in the interest of brevity, I’ll save said discussion for another day.

A word of warning before we proceed any further. Criticism, like art itself, can often be a very subjective thing. What one person reasonably and rationally justifies as a sound evaluation can just as easily and efficiently be dismissed by another. Therefore, it’s important to take the following rules, as well as my subsequent editorial, with a grain of salt. When art is defined by what the audience is willing to accept as art, the waters of critical consideration can get a bit muddied.

1- Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

In my estimation this is a crucial first step. Reading a text with enough depth to understand the author’s motivations informs the sorts of conclusions that can be drawn from various metaphors, allusions, and sundry literary devices within the book.

Additionally, there is a difference between blaming an author for missing their goals and holding them to account for the self same shortfall. Assume that a dedicated artist is concerned with honing their craft. Showing how a book misses an understood, or explicit, goal is a very good way to help an author reflect on their growth. Moreover, it establishes a meaningful connection between critic and writer.

2- Give him [or her] enough direct quotation – at least one extended passage – of the book’s prose so the review’s reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

Generally, I don’t think this is a hard and fast necessity. Between Google books and Amazon it’s easy enough to find a chapter of a given book. However, there is something to be said of a critic who can find a passage from a book which embodies the novel’s themes as well as the writer’s narrative voice. Alternatively, there are writers whose wholesale style and subject are so unconventional, James Marshall comes to mind, that any paragraph would be sufficient to show off a text’s essential uniqueness.

3 -Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

Again, not a rule I think people need to follow. Updike was writing for a literary market with less access to books and book marketing than the world in which we find ourselves today. This said, rule three speaks to something essential and often absent within a quick, fast, and dirty review market: supporting evidence. Regardless of word limits and other such barriers, if a critic puts a judgement on the table they owe the reader and subject under evaluation some level of substantiation.

4- Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

Yes. Forever yes. Frankly, it is a poor critic who can’t evaluate a text without giving away the ending. One, if not the ultimate, purpose of a review is to help a reader make an informed choice about if they will read a particular text. Spoiling the ending, or giving away the resolution to a story’s central conflict nullifies the need for a review. However, there is a time and place for full-on analysis. In those missives, which can often masquerade as reviews, surprise endings are not sacrosanct.

5- If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author’s ouevre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it’s his and not yours?

The ability to compare from one text to another is the mark of a great and well experienced critic. Bearing this in mind, any poser can use Wikipedia to pad a piece with a couple hundred words of name dropping. Even if those references are genuine, filling a review with oblique comparisons can be worse than useless to somebody using a review as a roadmap to break into a particular genre or style.

I’d also offer there’s nothing wrong with a critic who is willing to admit that their personal taste renders a certain book unpalatable. Again, so long as the reviewer is clearly justifying their position – so much so that the reader can compare their own tastes to the critic’s – they are doing their job.

Updike also offered a sixth potential rule.

6. To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser. Do not accept for review a book you are predisposed to dislike, or committed by friendship to like. Do not imagine yourself a caretaker of any tradition, an enforcer of any party standards, a warrior in an ideological battle, a corrections officer of any kind. Never, never (John Aldridge, Norman Podhoretz) try to put the author ‘in his place,’ making him a pawn in a contest with other reviewers. Review the book, not the reputation. Submit to whatever spell, weak or strong, is being cast. Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.

Much of this rule exists to protect the critic. Just as authors put a part of themselves on public display through their work, so too do critics. It’s a different sort of vulnerability, but it exists in the moments when readers go out of their way to tell a critic they are wrong/stupid/tasteless.

Also, Updike’s sixth rule speaks to a maxim made famous by Wil Wheaton, “Don’t be a dick.”

Sage advice for all critics.


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5

The Thin Plaid Line of Negative Reviews

By
Adam Shaftoe
– July 25, 2012Posted in: Books, Criticism, Movies, Television, The Daily Shaft, Video Games, Web Media

In recent months, I’ve heard a great many thoughts on negative reviews. I’ll credit one of the best ideas to both Ryan Oakley, author Technicolour Ultra Mall, and Leah Petersen, author of Fighting Gravity. During a panel on criticism at Ad Astra 2012, a panel moderated by yours truly, both Oakley and Petersen suggested that leaving an inferior novel/film/game/whatever to languish in obscurity can sometimes be a better course of action than constructing a negative, albeit fair, review.

At that same convention I had a quick conversation with Sandra Kasturi, co-editor of ChiZine Publications, on the subject of criticism. Therein, she told me a critic should not be afraid to speak their mind as it is their job to assign value to a given work.

When I began writing reviews I found guidance in the writings of W.H. Auden, who framed criticism as something most useful when it calls attention to things worth attending to.

In an alternate timeline where I’m a “professional” critic, in the sense that I work for a publication and use words which elucidate critical thought for a living, I think it would be easy to craft the above mentioned philosophies into a set of grand critical principles. As an “amateur” critic, the issue is slightly more complicated.

Where “professional” critics are always going to receive gratis review materials, not to mention a fortified buffer zone from the subject under review via their publication, the amateur critic’s inclusion in the great game is dependent upon the good will of the publishers. Thus the “amateur” must broach the thin plaid line of negative reviews. In theory, a well crafted review, either positive or negative, speaks to the talent, experience, and ability of the critic in question. In reality, the publisher-critic relationship is about advertising, and no publisher is going to want to work with an “amateur” who makes one of their authors/game studios/clients look like a douche.

So that’s when you default to something that resembles the aforementioned Petersen-Oakley approach of occasionally leaving bad things to rot without comment, right?

Well, maybe. If a critic receives unsolicited review materials, they have every right to say thanks but no thanks. I did that once when a porn studio asked me to review one of their movies.

However, if said critic opts not to put pen to paper, then they probably aren’t going to see anything in the future from that publisher. To my previous example, nobody from the adult entertainment industry has solicited me since I said no to writing a detailed review of their Spartacus porno. (Come on, what would I say in a porn review? Offer commentary on the grunting and thrusting?)

If a critic asks a publisher for a review copy of a book/game/whatever, there’s an implicit, bordering on explicit, expectation that the work in question is going to get reviewed. A failure to complete the transaction on the part of the critic will likely yield the same result as producing a negative review: the end of the association between critic and publisher.

The equation is further complicated when self-published authors and independent productions enter the fray. Suppose a self-published author sends an “amateur” critic their debut novel. The critic then uses their review to demonstrate the inherent flaws of the text, warning potential readers away from investments in time and money. Under the Kasturi model, the critic has done their job. In theory, this is a good thing. In reality, a person who can write has held a person who can’t write to task for their inability to write. Some people (friends, family, fans of the author in question, and bored internet trolls) might be inclined to label that sort of treatment as a very public bullying.

Scenarios such as these contribute to what I see as a troublesome culture of positivity among the ranks of “amateur” critics. Beyond tiring both body and mind with a perpetual good will truffle-shuffle, this positive culture can cripple an “amateur” critic’s transition into the “professional” realm. Ask yourself this, how long would a New York Times book critic last if they loved everything? Would Ebert still be writing film reviews for the Chicago Sun Times if he praised every movie? Such a perpetually positive critic would quickly forfeit their perceived position as arbiter of taste, instead becoming something of a fanboy/girl, or worse, a paid stooge. Why would any editor want to hire such a writer? Furthermore, and even if people don’t want to admit it, readers love a scathing review.

A good negative review, that is to say one that knows how to challenge art without attacking the artist, is a spectacle in and of itself. It’s the reader-writer equivalent of a trip to the Coliseum. The negative review allows opportunities for revelling in collective contempt; those requiring evidence on that point should check the view count on Gilbert Gottfried’s reading from Fifty Shades of Grey. Similarly, the negative review can turn fans of the lampooned work into the most fervent advocates. At that point, a debate about the quality of the work often becomes a secondary concern. The focus shifts to proving the critic wrong and in the process mobilizing/recruiting others to that end. Go ahead and call out Stephenie Meyer and see just how quickly the Twihards assemble and more importantly proselytize. The same could be said for Community fans – myself among them. Say something bad about Dan Harmon within earshot of me and I’ll spend the next twenty minutes explaining why he is a visionary.

 

Thus we return to the Petersen-Oakley model where the bad review still promotes the work in question. Despite that reality, and the truism that any press is good press, there exists a limiting structure that shifts dominion over negative reviews to “professional” critics. The internet may have mobilized an army of well trained and highly skilled “amateurs”, but those critics risk biting the hand that feeds them should they dare to do their jobs and write like “professionals”.


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