Amanda's blog
Amazon readers' reviews, and professional critics
Posted on: 08 March 2010
Columbus Breaks an Egg : Amazon reviewers and professional critics.
Like most authors, I'm boundlessly grateful to any reader who bothers to post a review of one of my novels on the http://
www.amazon.co.uk website. Readers are, after all, the people for whom you write – not, as some believe, critics. For your book to have impressed a real reader sufficiently to not only buy your book, and read it, but to
let you know they liked it is ....well, pretty nice. To all those who bother, THANK YOU.
Reviewing is a subject of perennial fascination to me, as those who have read A Vicious Circle (
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vicious-Circle-Amanda-Craig/dp/1857026853/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265135505&sr=1-2) and know about the scandal it created will know. In the UK, it is once again in the news, not in the books world but in the scientific world. Scientists have been complaining that their papers, which are reviewed anonymously (as books used to be) by peers are getting passed over for the publication that leads to funding, due to self-interested reviewers who want to present their discoveries as their own. They want the reviewing process to be published on the internet, and made transparent. The problem then is that if the peer reviews are named, life-time grudges get created, and also a culture of favouritism. Yet how to stop corruption? It is to the advancement of neither art nor science if this is rife – and in the literary world, where most reviewers are also authors, it is very rife indeed. On the other hand, reviewers who are not authors tend to be especially detestable. Few seem to do it out of a burning love of literature; instead, it seems prompted by a loathing of creativity. Often the most savage are (like theatre critics) frustrated or failed writers themselves, convinced they could do better. I’ll never forget Eric Griffiths, a don who once taught me at Trinity College Cambridge, appearing on TV before the Booker Prize judging, saying of AS Byatt’s Possession that it was the kind of novel he could have written himself if he were stupid enough to write novels. My incredulous laughter at the time has been, I feel, entirely justified.
Readers on the other hand have every right to be as critical as they please, especially if they have paid for a book. Yes, one man’s meat is another man’s poison, and some good books just fail to “click” with the most attentive reader. I myself am blind to the charms of a number of writers of both adult and children's fiction. The adult ones include Thomas Hardy, Cormac McCarthy and WG Sebold. I have tried, believe me, and I even love Hardy’s poems. But the novels – I’d rather scoop out my eyes with spoons. It’s worse with children’s authors, because of my job reviewing children’s literature in The Times. I have a rule that I only pick what I really, truly love.
Usually, an amazon review it isn't what you would call a critical review. Unless absolutely maddened by an inflated price (not the author's fault) or hype (not the author's fault) terrible or misleading jacket design (not the author's fault) readers, unlike critics, usually just don't bother. They simply stop reading. Yet occasionally, readers also leave reviews in which they take issue with something – as they are perfectly entitled to do.
When reading reviews in a newspaper, I sometimes feel that there should be a Michelin-style key at the top with symbols for things like Neighbour/ex-lover/rival for job/best friend etc. It would help the public no end. Despite this lack of impartiality, many professional critics are in despair at the way the internet has allowed the public to become critics. They believe, not without some justification, that this has lessened their own status and diminished the value of their specialism. I am not of this belief. I think both can and should co-exist.
Reader’s reviews on amazon are invaluable when they give an author (and publisher) real feedback. Being often anonymous or pseudonymous, they are however fraught with problems. For years, some authors shamelessly posted up reviews by themselves, and, even more shamelessly, admitted to doing this – until amazon stopped it. Other five-star reviews would be posted only by friends. Nothing is worse, or more discouraging, than the silence of one hand clapping. Nothing, that is, save a reader’s review posted ahead of publication by someone who gives it one star....as happened to a friend of mine recently.
This amazon reviewer wasn’t to know, naturally, that this author in question is a single mother living on the breadline. A professional critic has to be indifferent to that, though in practice is not. I once wrote that a children’s book of sickly sentimentality, reprinted from the 1930s “would turn ordinary children into bluebell-stomping psychopaths.” I believed its author to be dead. She wasn’t, and I was horrified when those words turned up in her obituary. I would also never, ever have mentioned that I loathed Siobhan Dowd’s very depressing first novel, A Swift Pure Cry, had I known that, beneath the hype and the prizes, she was mortally sick and had only a year left to live. (I liked her subsequent novels very much indeed, which made it worse.)
Yet a true critic has to be prepared to be disliked, even hated, for telling the truth – as they see it. Does it always matter, given that most books get swallowed by a sea of indifference anyway? Yes, especially if the author is very well-known, and has received an enormous advance or a prize. The latest Martin Amis, The Pregnant Widow, has received so much advance publicity that readers really do need to know whether it’s any good. Whether they can trust the judgement of the critics is another matter; I don’t find it a coincidence that Amis, who was a star critic and journalist on the Observer, should have had raves there, but thumbs-down from The Sunday Times, its rival.
A reader comes to a book, after all, without any of this inside knoweldge, so why be merciful? Why indeed. The one-star that my friend received isn’t written by somebody stupid, or illiterate, but it is obviously by somebody who holds a big grudge and works in publishing or journalism - how else would he/she have got hold of an early copy? Did it damage the author? Yes. Because it is a children’s book, and a particularly interesting one, I’d talked to a fellow journalist on another newspaper about the book in question. As soon as she saw this bad review, she lost interest. Instantly, the book loses at least 2000 sales. I wouldn’t care if it was a bad book, but it isn’t.
Reviews, wherever they appear, cause authors real joy – and real pain. The internet has handed a lot of power back to people, and power always needs to be used wisely. Children, at least, are indifferent to what adults like myself think about their books. They tell each other what's good or bad, stubbornly refusing to part with their Harry Potters and Jacqueline Wilsons. They render all critics, amateur or professional, redundant; and I find that curiously comforting.
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Comments
At 01:08:41 on 03 February 2010, Nick Green wrote:
The big problem with Amazon reviewers is that too many of them think in terms of extremes. Eight times out of ten, 'I liked it' translates into FIVE STARS!! and 'I didn't like it' translates into ONE STAR (pls die). There seems almost no room to manoeuvre between these two stances. Very few books deserve one star, and similarly, very few deserve five stars. The only way really to test the credibility of an Amazon review is to click through and see what else the reviewer likes, and try to ascertain just how much of a fruitcake they might or might not be.
At 09:21:49 on 02 February 2010, Jane thynne wrote:
we're kindred spirits, amanda - Hardy sebold and Mccarthy - who I;m trying to read at the moment are exactly one's I;d single out. Actually, I think it;s more that books have a read-by date and some supposedly adult novels simply have to be read before the age of 20. Lawrence I;d put in that category too, let along Tolkein, Mervyn peake etc
At 14:28:08 on 15 March 2010, Amanda wrote:
Lovely, Sheenagh! Says it all in that grim Viking way.
At 14:09:48 on 15 March 2010, Bee wrote:
I feel so sorry for your friend; how gutting. Horrible to think of a book as a stillborn baby. But as a counter-balance I would add that you (as a professional writer, journalist and reviewer) are probably so much more sensitive to and aware of this issue than the average reader -- who is more or less oblivious. Most of the people I know read a book because a friend recommends it. I'm sure that reviews can have great power, but surely word-of-mouth will ultimately sell more books?
At 02:03:57 on 05 February 2010, katherine langrish wrote:
How interesting! And yes, how discouraging. Will go and look for the book in your Times column. Even if I really hated a book, I wouldn't post a review that said so - certainly not if I were the first person to comment. Regarding Tolkien and Peake, I'm with you - though I did read the first two Gormenghast books and loved bits of them: there's a description of a lost staircase somewhere in the vast labytinth of the castle, with colured paint fading on the bannisters and dusty sunlight slanting through, which has always stayed with me. But I'm not a great fan of Gothic. Like what you like, I say, and don't be ashamed of it!
At 07:27:36 on 11 March 2010, Sheenagh Pugh wrote:
Anon, the author of Hrolf Gautreksson's Saga, sends a message to his potential literary critics: "It seems to me that they are best fitted to criticise this story who are capable of improving on it. But be it true or not, may those enjoy it who can, and may the others find something more enjoyable to do. And so I end my story."
At 14:36:44 on 17 March 2010, Amanda wrote:
Bee, you are quite right. Nothing beats word-of-mouth from someone you trust. I''m thoroughly enjoying the new Maritn Amis, for instance, which the reviews would not have made me read.
At 09:18:27 on 05 February 2010, Amanda wrote:
Good point Nick. It reminds me of what Robertson Davies said about critics: "critics are like stuck clocks, always striking either twelve or one." The trouble is, a judicious three or four star now looks like lukewarm approval.
At 06:01:08 on 02 February 2010, Lee Lowe wrote:
I'd like to suggest you reveal the title of the book which only received one star, unless the author prefers that you don't. Disclosure may help to encourage others to give the novel a better chance, not least because of your own reputation as critic.
At 18:30:18 on 02 February 2010, amanda wrote:
Thanks Jane! I actually adore Tolkien, which I know is something that as a proper grown-up I should be ashamed of, but Peake....yes, though love his drawings.
As for the one-star, I''ve reviewed it in this week''s Times, and you can also read what I''ve said on my Journalism section. As I said, I do review friends if their books are good enough - though not if not. However much I may love someone, I will always love books (and children) more.
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