How do you know when you're wrong?

That is a question that's been bugging me for a while. Yesterday, after I finished reading a post over at David Anthony Durham's site, I couldn't help but ask myself that same question. In an insular world in which opinions are a dime a dozen and the people expressing them show a kinship with the street corner preachers declaring the only true path, I wonder just how often we really permit ourselves to think of that one simple question: "What if I am wrong?"

I receive dozens of books each year for review purposes. While inevitably there are some books that get lost in the shuffle and will end up waiting months for me to read them, I do try my best to at least comment on the books that I have received. I don't always review them (for example, I need to take the time sometime soon to talk about D.M. Cornish's debut novel, Foundling, which I found to be a mostly charming read, although it was published in 2006), but I do try to comment on them.

But when I do force myself to get in the "proper mindset" for reviewing, there is always that nagging voice, questioning whether or not I grasped all the facets and nuances within the work. Do I just write a treacly bit praising a book to the high heavens and compare it to other great works, since that's what many readers want, these comparisons to the "flavors of the month"? Do I just utterly trash a novel for not meeting my expectations? After all, I must have a valid opinion, no?

Usually, in the end, I find myself trapped between Scylla and Charybdis. When I'm writing a review (or even a commentary such as this), it usually is after I have had some time to reflect not just on the novel's merits and defects, but also on my own state of mind and how I received it. Sometimes, I get excited when reading a story, thinking "this is it!," but after reflection and sometimes discussion with others who have read the work at hand, there are those little niggling faults that creep up, ultimately lowering my esteem for the story. Am I "wrong" in my thoughts? Should praise be something tempered with caution?

Very recently, I have read a few comments from other online reviewers that are almost literally gushing about this relatively new fantasy author's concluding volume to his first trilogy. Phrases such as "best trilogy conclusion since LotR!" or "leaves others in his dust" have cropped up in a few places here and there in anticipation of a book that won't be on sale for at least another month in one country and over half a year in another. My first reaction (mind you, I have only read the first book of this author and while it is one of those that I need to review at length soon, for now it will suffice to say that I found it to be solid, but nothing else) was "Oh, really? What makes you so sure of that?" After all, there have been "hot releases" that have suffered from the almost inevitable backlash that occurs when other readers read the work at hand and expect the Red Sea to part, only to discover that neither they nor the book can walk on water.

I am not guiltless of this hyperbole, but I also don't trash a book just because it's what "all the cool kids are doing" (for the record, my opinions regarding one ponytailed/bearded fantasy novelist have been known in some circles for many years before the numerous parody threads devoted to mocking him appeared on a few forums). After all, I could do a re-read and discover things that I missed the first time (Moby Dick and my readings of it at 16 and 23 being a prime example), things that might cause me to change my mind completely about the book at hand.

When I was a history grad student a little over ten years ago, we were instructed in our short (3-5 page double-spaced) reviews to not just summarize what the article/book was about, not only what the author did right/wrong, but also to concentrate on how we came to that decision and to be prepared to defend our conclusion. That is something that I wonder if people need to do more of when they are reading or discussing a book or author. "Is my point defensible? What are the weaknesses that could be pointed out by another?"

Readers are not infallible perceivers of a text; neither are the authors or the reviewers. All I can say in my defense when I review a book is that if I don't discuss something at length, it is either because I didn't "get" it, I didn't place much import on it, or I purposely left it out so as to not color another's impressions of the work. Sure, I want readers of my reviews to sample the books that I enjoyed. But I don't want them to feel as though they must see the text through my eyes or to have the same opinions as myself. I would rather have some pointed questions directed at what I didn't cover/failed to address adequately than to just receive a curt "good review!" After all, unqualified praise helps as little as does non-constructive criticism. I want to continue to improve as a reader and as a critic and I believe for that to occur, I have to accept...no, embrace the possibility that I missed things and that another point of view might have been more constructive.