Andrew Wheeler has been waging a long and lonely campaign against David Itzkoff for many months now. Whether this is the reason that Itzkoff’s column has become so infrequent or not is unclear. However, when Neil Gaiman weighs in I think we can safely say that Mr. Itzkoff’s days are numbered. The offices of the NYT will presumably now be besieged by teenage goth girls demanding Itzkoff’s head. Or at least to be allowed to give him a make-over.
I would, however, like to focus on the last paragraph of that post. Neil is quite right to say that it is stupid of a reviewer to begin a piece by saying that all books of the type he’s reviewing are rubbish except the work in question. However, I think it is perfectly OK to say that you, personally, don’t normally like works of a particular type, but this one was different. No reviewer can be expected to like every type of book, and you don’t always get to review books you like. Besides, if you suddenly find what appears to you to be a real treasure in a genre that doesn’t work for you, you may want to enthuse about it. More to the point, other people who have similar tastes to you may find they like that book too, and they won’t know to try it unless you tell them. And if you review regularly your readers will know your tastes, so they’ll expect an explanation for why you are suddenly enthusiastic about something they expected you to hate.
Neil knows this – that’s why he put in that caveat – but it is a fine distinction and one likely to be lost on people who don’t know much about writing reviews (a group which appears to include Mr. Itzkoff). I’d hate to see reviewers become reluctant to encourage readers to try something new because the great blog-reading public thinks Neil said that you must never admit that certain types of book don’t appeal to you.
ICAM.
Incidentally, Gaiman also says: “One can assume that if a reviewer is reviewing a book then it’s interesting enough to be reviewed.” I can’t agree with that. I assume no more about a book when I see that it has been reviewed than that it has been or is about to be published. It seems to me that his remark comes from the school of thought that only good books deserve reviews and that the contested space available for reviews shouldn’t be squandered on a book the reviewer thinks is bad. There’s some merit in this, certainly, but IMO a bad review is also of service to the reader. Provided the book’s judged on its merits and not condemned just because the reviewer dislikes the entire genre, that is.
But a book doesn’t have to be good to be interesting. An interesting book is one that you have something to say about. Itzkoff’s contention was not that YA is badly written, or that YA writers all send bad messages to kids, but rather that YA is not worthy of consideration at all. He says: “I sometimes wonder how any self-respecting author of speculative fiction can find fulfillment in writing novels for young readers.” That’s just dumb.
You can write a review that says, “this is a really well written book but the author is a misogynist pig”; you can write a review that says, “if you like high fantasy, avoid this one because the author just doesn’t get it”; but you don’t write a review that says, “I have nothing to say about this book.”
At which point doubtless someone will remember one of the hundreds of reviews I wrote for Emerald City and prove that I have done just that, which is entirely possible, especially early on. having your entire back catalog online can be so embarrassing at times.
Oh, yes, I agree about Itzkoff. Not only is his attitude that young readers are on a par with amoeba completely bizarre, it ignores the reams of absolutely stunning YA out there.
But I don’t think a book, or any form of media, necessarily is ipso facto interesting just because something can be said about it. For example, I contribute to Doctor Who reviews for Androzani.com. We review all Doctor Who, not just the good stuff, and often we see episodes we think are deadly dull. We still manage to use 1,000-2,000 words saying exactly why we think that’s so – pretty much the same number of words we use when we think an episode is interesting.
Well, that backs up your point that us poor folks down in the trenches don’t always get any choice about what we review, unlike Mr. Itzkoff whose work load is far less onerous.
It also says a lot about your ability to find something worth saying about even the most dire work.
But I still think that “interesting = good” is not a valid equality. A book can be interesting and still get a bad review.