Some Problems I See With Reviews

The recent entry regarding Fan Love has generated plenty of discussion, with some of us raising the issue of how one goes about evaluating an author's work. I thought I'd take a few minutes and expound upon the position I took in that discussion.

Book reviews are by their very nature a difficult beast to tame, much less master. In addition to the almost countless personal differences between authors, there are just as many idiosyncracies that reviewers reveal in their commentaries on the books they have read. Some might employ a direct comparison model, examining one book based on another author's work. That approach can work for those familiar with both, but the possibility of reader confusion is greater, especially if that reader is not very well-read on the other author being compared in the review.

Other reviewers tend to focus on the book itself, but without providing much in terms of a frame of reference. One review that bothered me recently was Michael Dirda's review of China Miéville's Iron Council. In his review, I found a few flaws that rendered this review very unhelpful for me. Now I had already read the book by this time, but what I observed not only failed to persuade me to consider the book from his vantage point, but it also made me wonder if he detected any weaknesses at all in the story.

First, I noticed that he uses almost hyberbolic language to describe the author. Adjectives such as "dazzling," coupled with non-contextual comparisons to Nabokov and Alexander Theroux made this occasional critic wonder if Dirda was writing a press release or a balanced review of the book. Sometimes, a little more pedestrian language can go a long way with certain readers trying to decide whether or not a book is right for them.

Secondly, Dirda jumps back and forth from discussing the book and the author, giving the review an uneven feel to it. Is his purpose to discuss the merits of the book or to convince others that Miéville is a cool author? One or the other would be very valid approaches to take, but I was left feeling that his combination of the two weakened his case.

Another thing that bothered me about his review and this is a common complaint I have (and one that I myself have been guilty of in the past) is that of too much plot exposition. While Dirda is not nearly as bad as other reviewers in repeating a book blurb (Harriet Klausner being infamous for doing this), there are still too many comments that resemble a plot synopsis rather than a critique of a book's merits and weaknesses.

But the thing that bothered me most was that Dirda did not seem to address any possible weaknesses in the work. A reader who had read only Dirda's review might be misled into believing that Miéville was a practically flawless writer who wrote universally praised stories. Now I'm not implying that I think Miéville is a bad writer (I happen to enjoy his scenes more than I am frustrated by his buildup to them), but sometimes a brief examination of the problems that many have had with his earlier works would have made a positive review of Iron Council all that much more compelling in comparison.

To be fair to Dirda, however, it is very difficult to write a review that is going to meet most reader expectations. It might be that he expected those reading his review to be unfamilar with China Miéville and that he believed that he needed to introduce the author. However, one could then argue that most neophytes would be better served reading his earlier Bas-Lag novels (Perdido Street Station, The Scar) first, but that is beside the point. Sometimes readers want to be sold on the author before committing to buying the book.

Another problem reviewers face is that of reader expectations. Do they expect to be wowed by the review, or do they want just to know the gist of the plot? Or would they rather know more about how the author constructs his/her sentences and characters and not to have the main focus of the review be on plot exposition? Very difficult set of questions to answer indeed.

So what do reviewers do about it? The answers are as numerous as the number of those reviewing. Some might be unapologetic for coming across as cheerleaders (or for being catty), while others might strive painstakingly for a pros/cons approach to a book. There is no "correct" answer, although it can be argued that for those such as myself, reviewers in general should try to focus more on balancing book description with an analysis of what works and what does not work.