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IS AUSTRALIAN REVIEWING TOO BLAND?
Cassandra Pybus: writer and critic
As someone who was on the receiving end of one of the most vitriolic reviews ever seen in an Australian newspaper, I would not say Australian reviewing was necessarily bland, though much of it pallid and self-satisfied. Cosy is the word which more readily comes to mind.
I have observed a good deal of mutual back-slapping between writers and reviewers in the last few years. Manne on Gaita, Gaita on Manne, both on Clendinnen and she on them. And Peter Craven on all of them. I find it a very curious situation, much remarked upon in literary circles, that Craven manages to review every book published by Text, as well as puff them unrestrainedly in his newspaper column. Much more often than not he declares the book to be remarkably good. I was once present when this was pointed out to a literary editor who admitted that it was just laziness on the editor's part. Perhaps it was, but it does seem that something more is at work given the prevalence of this particular practice across at least three major newspapers and a variety of literary editors, including the editor of Australian Book Review.
It could also be just laziness that sees books reviewed by the close friend of the writer, or the publisher, or the subject of the book -- as happened with my last book -- but I do wonder. Is it possible that people request certain books to review? And literary editors comply? Or do friends suggest other friends to their friendly literary editor? Mmmm. Curious indeed.Andrew Riemer, writer and critic
I have been hearing this for more than twenty years: Australian reviewers are too bland, gutless, namby-pamby etc. etc. Look at the French, the Americans, the Germans -- whomever. Who says these things is interesting. It is never the writers whose books you've found less than stupendous, or for that matter their publishers, agents, or publicists. On the contrary, those people usually get the vapours when they come upon a largely favourable review with one or two polite qualifications. No, in my experience, the chief proponents of the view that we are too soft and indulgent are those who want to save culture, civilisation, even the world perhaps from barbarism. And also at times newspaper proprietors and editors because they like to receive outraged letters from disappointed authors -- that at least confers some value on the sheltered workshop (aka book reviewers).
I don't know whether Australian book reviews are less exacting than those written elsewhere. Of course there are some poor reviewers around -- just as there are poor writers, editors, prime ministers and cricketers -- and there will be few opportunities for the situation to improve until reviewers are paid a little more for their labours. Even if we can't expect the kind of sums the happy scribes of pugnacious or feeble-minded columns command. My impression on the whole is that we are a reasonably fair-minded and responsible bunch, And besides, I have come across very few wholly dreadful books in my time. Most, no matter how imperfect, reveal some true gold amidst all the dross. Isn't it our duty, then, to acknowledge that, even at the risk of offending brave champions of cultural standards, who don't as a rule write book reviews?Gerard Windsor, writer and critic
Can we ever get past the 'they are, they aren't, they are...' schoolyard style of debate that sterilises these discussions? Probably not in 250 words. So...my prejudice is for erring on the side of the review as its own art form, as independent entertainment. I note Auden's remark that it's impossible to review a bad book without showing off, and respond that most writing is showing off, and watching it can be great fun. As ever, baddies fire the imagination far more readily than goodies. Yet the classy reviewer will be entertaining (and not just ritually prostrate) in front of the admired book too.
Yes, by these principles, the reviews are too bland. Evidence? ABR's editor remarks that a competition review of John Kinsella's poetry was 'a savaging...so damning it is not possible to publish it'. Hey, why not? Merely because it was damning? She may want to elaborate and say it was defamatory or...? But significantly she has merely said that it was damning. Now I respect John Kinsella's talent but blind Freddy could tell you he's probably the consummate self-promoter on the Oz lit scene at present. The very species of writer who should not be quarantined from a savaging. The higher your profile, the greater your eminence, the more established your claque, the more likely the worldly-wise reviewer is to don the kid gloves for you. Hope lies with the young or the relatively unknown reviewer. Rebekah Scott in the Courier Mail could be merciless (even I blanched) to Catherine Ford's NYC. Just as a few years ago Catherine Ford herself was trenchant, specific, and intelligent in the only doubting review I saw of Robert Drewe's The Drowner.Kerryn Goldsworthy, writer and critic
Too bland for what? And compared to what? I don't fancy beige reviews any more than the next woman, but I think there are worse things that a review can be. If the opposite of 'bland' is 'lively', then the challenge for the reviewer is to exercise 'liveliness' without looking like a hyperactive child. It can be lots of fun to write, and to read, a review full of big bangs and primary colours, but it does absolutely nothing for the book, for the writer of the book, or for the development of literary culture in the community at large. If I have a beef about Australian reviewing in general, it's not that it's too bland, but that it's not subtle or complex or well-informed enough: that is, in a word, too bloody lowbrow.
True, these deficiencies often do manifest as 'bland', if like me you see blandness in a welter of commonplace opinion and a palpable absence of ideas or theories or even just ordinary facts. Too often, it's a case of the reviewer trying much too hard, with or without editorial encouragement, to provide 'good copy' at the expense of anything that might look a bit difficult, or even [gasps and makes the sign of the cross] intellectual. And too often, the result is a sort of commercial-TV-current affairs tone in reviewing: trivial, populist, sensationalist writing that reinforces existing prejudices and limitations, makes everyone feel relaxed and comfortable, and expands no-ones' horizons.Mark Davis, author of Ganglands
Cronyism, puffery, barrow-pushing and a forelock-tugging reverence for overseas publications of limited interest -- the literati seem to be on a mission to bore us all to death. Five words: The Australian's Review of Books. But other publications are by no means immune from the prevailing drawing-room-itis and the allures of mock-Bloomsbury.
Having decided to anoint themselves custodians of the trad-lit virtues, the lit gits appear determined to defend them in as tedious a way as possible. Forget the dark side. They've crossed over to the dim side.
Fuck or fight are the dominant modes of local criticism -- at least on important books. Insiders get a free ride, the left-of-centre get it in the neck. How exciting is a literary-ideas culture likely to be when the reception of books by authors or on issues deemed to be important is micro-managed by the same people year after year.
To open the paper and read yet another puff piece about a book written by a close friend/neighbour/ex-colleague/fellow-traveller of the publisher/author/literary editor, is to know that the interesting talk about books and ideas is elsewhere. On the Net, actually. On sites like AHR, M/C or Salon. Even Amazon Dot Com readers' reports have more insight than the local pap.
But that's the whole thing about insider-trading isn't it? Sooner or later it infects the whole culture. When punters lose faith in the transparency of the process, they jump ship, as if leaving a bad party where the voices of the boors got too loud.Katharine England, critic
To give a very bland answer: I don't know. Bland as in banal and boring to read, or bland as in sidestepping judgement? Either depends on the particular reviewer -- sometimes on the particular day -- though there are some reviewers I will always read and who rarely disappoint, regardless of whether I agree with their opinions or not. A good deal also depends on the book(s) reviewed and relates directly to the last symposium held within these pages. If a novel is mediocre, over-written, under-realised, indistinguishable from half a dozen undistinguished recent others it is hard to raise the passion that might have informed a lively response. The absence of any spark to passion can also leave a hole too easily filled by spleen. The really venomous review -- and there have been a few around lately -- is certainly not bland, but it is rarely illuminating or entertaining, making the reader simply uncomfortable and prone to suspect hidden agendas.
Length also sometimes seems to cause problems. Some of the best reviews I've read recently have actually been the shortest, where the reviewer had to make every word count. While the long review offers the opportunity for exploring context, highlighting structure, making comparisons, indulging in interesting polemic, the invitation is not always taken up, reviewers contenting themselves with an exhaustive reiteration of the plot. The Adelaide Review, for example, has recently distinguished itself -- by becoming possibly the only newspaper in the world to reveal the identity of the well-publicised death in the fourth Harry Potter.
Jason Steger, literary editor of The Age
A short while ago one Australian critic accused me of producing literary pages that lacked colour. The solution, she suggested, was simple: get her on the pages. The conversation ended at that point, before I had much of a chance to disagree with both her contentions.
Is Australian reviewing too bland? The short answer is no. A glance at reviews in British and American newspapers and literary magazines shows that some are better, others worse than our domestic fare. It also shows that there is a greater variety of books published and reviewers available. There are many first-rate reviewers in Australia but finding new ones is not, as any editor will tell you, an easy thing to do. And it's immensely frustrating when the perfect person for a review has already been nabbed.
The aim at The Age is to match a reviewer with a book that will result in a piece that is opinionated, informed and well-written; the equation is made up of author, critic and reader. But ultimately my responsibility is to the reader, who should be able to enjoy a decent piece of writing and learn something about the quality of the book in question, perhaps enough to decide to buy it or indeed not to buy it. Reviews in newspapers -- like anything in newspapers -- will never satisfy everyone; the pressures of space, budget and deadline are considerable. Sometimes they don't turn out as well as one hopes. But rarely are they bland.John Docker, writer and critic
It is told that when Gandhi was asked what he thought of Western civilisation, he replied that it sounds like a good idea. So might it be said of reviewing in Australia. There has hardly been a review that has mattered in Australian cultural history. A rare exception is A.D. Hope's 1956 judgement on Patrick White's writing as 'pretentious and illiterate verbal sludge'. Almost all of the reviewing that appears in newspapers, magazines and journals faithfully serves the great Australian middle-class middle-brow readership, avid for the mirage of Serious Literature for Intelligent People. Australian intellectual and literary life is inspired by ressentiment towards concepts, philosophy, speculation, the adventure of good ideas. Australian writers, because they are almost invariably ignorant of and hostile to contemporary cultural theory, make very poor reviewers. Australian writers in the main assist in the intensifying of a culture of ressentiment: it gives it legitimacy.
What might unbland reviewing? I don't at all think that reviewing should necessarily be highly critical. Reviewers could revive the ancient rhetorical arts and see a review as potentially observing various genres (let's say, praise or dispraise), yet ready to play with that genre, suddenly turn it around. A review can be appreciated as art, as writing in itself, as 'deep play'. Further, reviews could internationalise their material, invoke comparative contexts, recognise that craven puffery is the familiar of provinciality, insularity, spiralling mediocrity.Morag Fraser, editor of Eureka Street
Like broth without salt? But the remedy is not to toss in the pepper pot or one of those chillies with incendiary spikes.
When Australian reviewing is bland the reason is not outrageous charity so much as the reviewer's failure to get right inside the book and rummage around. Trenchant understanding yields so much more for the reader (and the writer) than a parade of superior taste and sharp (or cruel) phrase making. Think of some of Les Murray's fine 1975 Sydney Morning Herald poetry reviews as examples of the former, Christopher Hitchens on just about anything for the latter.
I read back through reviews that I remember and the few I cherish. What distinguished them was not Shavian wit or Churchillian riposte -- though of course that is fun to read. Nor was it spleen or the proselytising critical rectitude that infects some reviewers.
When they were memorable it was because the reviewer moved with ease and nous inside someone else's writing, more committed to exploration that display. The ease was crucial: these were reviews by writers too confident and too skilled themselves to need to score points. Only really meretricious works warrant critical grenades.
The customary brevity of Australian print reviews doesn't leave much room for exploration but it doesn't preclude it. The best are often short, but commanding because they select deftly and know how to argue. Overall, a bit more argument, more demonstraion in place of opinionated assertion might dredge some silt out of Australian critical practice. And braver editing would pare away the proud flesh.Ivor Indyk, critic and editor of HEAT
I can think of at least a dozen critics whose opinions are lively, honest and true, when they get the opportunity to review; and there is at least another dozen that can be relied upon to perform athletically when the opportunity arises -- the problem is that the opportunity doesn't arise very often, even for those in the first rank. The Sydney Morning Herald's Spectrum section looks more and more anorexic every week. It will disappear soon. Has anybody heard from Luke Slattery lately? He's the editor of The Australian's Review of Books. When I read The Australian's Saturday literary pages I wish I had a beach-side weekender or a country property -- they seem designed for that, the gentle rhythm of waves, the distant clink of wine glasses.
Part of the problem is the hubris of journalists. They're trained to write on anything, so why should they think there is anything they wouldn't know about literature? Does someone in the office want to have a go at this? When it comes to literary editors, why have a literary editor? I wish I could answer this question, but I can't even think of a smart answer. It isn't because a senior journalist costs less than someone with training in literature. It's hard to think of any profession or trade that is worth less than literary expertise. Perhaps the journalist, as a writer, is suspicious of those who might know more about writing than they do. Perhaps it's just that an 'outsider' wouldn't be able to intepret the will of his masters in the way a senior journalist has learnt to do. Either way, if they had more editors who knew what they were doing when it came to literature, our review pages would be a whole lot better than they are right now.Guy Rundle, critic and co-editor of Arena Magazine
Forty or so years ago, critics and creative artists in this country came to a tacit agreement. In order to defeat the cultural cringe, certain critics and reviewers would assess nascent Australian work extra generously, go easy on shortcomings in plotting, character -- I'm talking largely about theatre reviewing here -- dialogue and so forth, as a way of encouraging the broader middle-class audience to give local product a go. The strategy was a success and across a generation the idea that Australian drama was equal to the umpteenth rerun of Private Lives was normalised. But that strategy continued way too long, making local playwrights and dierectors complacent and mediocre. The wretched state of much contemporary Australian drama can be largely attributed to that fact.
Or so I used to think. But when I trawled the 1970s newspapers for theatre reviews to check this hypothesis I found that it didn't hold up. Certain critics did mount campaigns to normalise Australian drama, but there was also a great deal of condescending sniffiness towards rough edged local product. In fact a silent policy of handling new product with kid gloves didn't really kick in until the '80s, when the nationalist fervour of the '70s theatre revolution had been largely spent, and mainstream Australian playwrights were beginning to churn out social issues drama of mind numbing tedium. By the '90s the dominant intellectual mood had discredited a 'high' cultural position and some reviewers lost the courage to rip into substandard mainstream works that were commercial hits. Some theatre managements began what can only be described as bullying of arts editors in order to get anodyne reviews. Theatre and reviewing had become a cosy, swampy ecosystem, with lifelong appointee reviewers going easy on written-out playwrights. We'll only start to find a way out of this morass when arts editors have the courage to start running some slash-and-burn reviews, forcing playwrights to internalise higher standards of self-criticism and produce better work.Peter Craven, critic and editor
In some ways I think Australian reviewing is too everything. At its worst it is characterised by a conglomerate of the vices that can afflict the genre, blandness included. On the other hand, the best of our criticism (anything by Gideon Haigh or Owen Richardson or Peter Temple, to take a few names at random) strikes me as being as good as anything published elsewhere. I have always argued that it is quite possible to do a full dress review-of-books style publication in this country and to do it more or less as well as it can be done. It would be somewhat harder to do something equivalent to the Times Literary Supplement because that kind of publication requires the collective collaborative effort of divers expert hands and has to cover vast areas of human endeavour, much of it non-fictional, in relatively short reviews where the risk of blandness (and every other enfeeblement) is magnified. I think it is probably true that Australian Book Review suffers from the diseases that go with this sort of breadth and so do the broadsheet literary pages. I think it's true reading through our literary journalism that one can feel mightily unenthralled. It is a much less consistently entertaining thing to pick up the book pages of a newspaper than it should be and to read such things at length can create a pall. Then again, I don't think this is in any programmatic sense because people pull their punches (though they may from time to time). It's more that people fail to catch fire in the act of reviewing. Things could be worse. I am not an admirer of the kind of relentlessly smart hatchet jobs from young writers on the make that characterise one aspect of English reviewing and I think The New York Times Book Review can tilt to blandness when it's not being brilliant. Besides there are plenty of hopeful signs: Michelle Griffin's reviews in brief in The Sunday Age are splendid snappy things and there are in every week of the literary press (if you look at the range of broadsheets) a number of very good reviews, whether we're talking about David Marr on Michael Davie or Tim Rice on Liberace. If we're asking whether the Australian literary press is a medium for reviewing of some savagery and sparkle, then yes, it is. If we are asking whether it is characterised by these qualities, then the answer is no. But things are hopeful: Luke Slattery has edited The Australian's Review of Books better than any of his predecessors and the new Sydney Morning Herald Spectrum under Amanda Wilson has brought us brilliant ambitious writing like the Guy Rundle piece on S 11.