by Laura Leone
Years ago, historian Barbara Tuchman took PW to task when one of their anonymous reviewers claimed that Tuchman's latest book contained historical inaccuracies. By the time Tuchman was done with PW, it was clear that the reviewer had merely used the shield of anonymity to make unfounded accusations which he couldn't prove or defend. Ever since then, I've wondered why anyone thinks there's anything of value in anonymous reviews in any forum.
Frankly, I despise anyone who exercises the privilege of publicly criticizing a writer's work but who is unwilling to identify himself in his public comments. I consider such behavior beneath contempt.
I also think that anonymous reviews are pointless, in that they inherently suggest that all people are alike and will all respond the same way to a book. How absurd! After all, one editor considers a given novel unpublishable while another loves it and snaps it up. I have friends whose reading recommendations I take, and friends whose tastes I've learned are so different from mine that I deliberately avoid their recommendations. So if I don't know the identity of the reviewer and can't learn his tastes, of what possible use is a review to me as a reader or a movie-goer? Publishing anonymous reviews, in addition to being morally contemptible, suggests that I'm such a dolt that I'm willing to be guided by anyone's opinion, without having the slightest idea upon what tastes it's based.
And speaking of anonymous reviews...
One of the biggest changes we've seen in the world of book reviewing in recent years is the Internet making available an ever-expanding number of opportunities for readers to review books in public forums. The Internet has reader e-lists, reader bulletin boards, reader blogs, reader online fanzines, small start-up online magazines that publish reviews provided by readers, and online bookstores that encourage readers to post reviews of the books they read.
While this has been great for readers in numerous ways, it can be a mixed blessing for novelists. I myself very rarely read my reviews on Amazon.com, the online bookseller best known for its reader reviews. New York Times bestseller Teresa Medeiros perfectly sums up my feelings about it: "I'm embarrassed to admit that I'm a complete wimp when it comes to Amazon reader reviews. They cut me to the heart. They leave a lingering ache in my stomach. They suck the creative soul right out of me… I enjoy the good reviews, but sometimes even those are disconcerting, like having somebody watch you go to the bathroom. And it doesn't matter if a book has fifty positive reviews, it's that one negative one that will haunt me for days." Exactly!
Indeed, many writers struggle with the phenomenon of Amazon.com's reader reviews. What bothers writers about reader reviews are the same things that cause them to complain about professional reviews; writers wince when a review is deliberately vicious, but it makes them nuts when a reader, as Jean Ross Ewing a.k.a. Julia Ross puts it, makes accusations or statements that simply aren't true. As an example, Ewing cites an Amazon.com reader review of her award-winning novel Flowers Under the Ice, which this particular reader review describes as "creepy." The reviewer claims the book's love story is "sadistic," and she clearly implies the hero is sexually abusive, even a rapist. Ewing says, "I believe it unfairly misrepresents the book, as well as making horrendous implications about my sexual philosophy." (Having read the book myself, by the way, I find the reader's comments perplexing.)
Moving from the surreal to the absurd... A bad Amazon.com reader review for Patricia Bray's The Irish Earl complains the book was a disappointment because (wait for it!), "One literally had to read the entire book until the conflict was resolved." (Damn! All these years in the business, and I never knew I was supposed to wrap up the conflict halfway through the book!) An Amazon.com reader review slammed Mr. Perfect because, the book's bestselling author Linda Howard says, "I didn't write at least one paragraph about the heroine emptying the cat's litter box. Obviously litter plays a big part in this woman's life, and she was outraged that I didn't acknowledge it." Novelist Ann Chamberlin received a furious review from a reader who apparently doesn't know what a fantasy novel is, and who doesn't necessarily seem to know what fiction is. Speaking of fantasy, an Amazon reader says that I seem "to falter in the historical department somewhat;" the work in question is a fantasy novel, set in a make-believe world that I invented, so I have no idea what "historical" flaws the reader could be talking about.
Accusing the author of bad research or historical inaccuracy is, by the way, a common habit of professional and amateur reviewers which many writers find particularly aggravating; especially since such critics very rarely present credentials for their "superior" knowledge of the author's subject matter, let alone make specific citations of the inaccuracies they claim to have found. A bookseller who writes reviews for the Denver Post reveals a strange reason for reading historical mysteries when he writes of three books he's reviewing (two of which are by acquaintances of mine): "All three provide just enough historical inaccuracies to make knowledgeable readers feel sufficiently superior to the authors..." Clearly self-deluding reviewers will also feel superior.
Another common habit of critics which makes writers grind their teeth is that of claiming the author is unsuccessfully attempting to copy a given novel or novelist. One newspaper reviewer, for example, accused Linda Howard of stealing the plot of Oscar Wilde's Portrait of Dorian Gray, a novel she had never read and which she later learned, in fact, bore no resemblance whatsoever to her own. (Having read both books, I can testify that the reviewer's accusation is indeed inexplicable.)
Overall, the conclusion I've come to over the years is that nasty and sloppy book reviewers would probably go about their work very differently if they were victims of the sort of careless, ignorant, and scathing public commentary that we must regularly endure as novelists. Since that's not likely to happen soon, however, I continue to follow advice that an acting teacher of mine, years ago, attributed to Sir Lawrence Olivier: "If the reviews are bad, you can't believe them. If the reviews are good, you can't believe them. Your job is just to go out there and do your very best work every show, eight shows per week."
Sure, it's hard to face the blank page after reading a bad review; but at least it's not as hard as facing a live audience right after I read a comment like, "Resnick's attempt to make you like the characters failed miserably. Altogether a boring and unenjoyable book."
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