Home » Discussion Forums » Blog Post Discussion » It was going to be about a garden
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| Re: It was going to be about a garden [message #38174 is a reply to message #38170 ] |
Mon, 10 January 2011 01:57   |
EMoon
Messages: 669
Registered: March 2009 |
Senior Member |
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Reviews...I have spent 20+ years not growing the thick skin it's said you must grow. I don't read them, or hardly ever. Editor sent me one last week which she said was "mostly favorable" but which to me was one slice after another. (The favorable bits go right past me; the negative bits, however small, are shrapnel in the heart.) This one wasn't bad, really, she says, trying to pretend she's not barefoot on broken glass. I've had much worse. And it's not bleeding that much.
I am very much the same way about the story...it exists already and I'm just writing it. Sometimes it hides under the couch, or wants to play silly games with me, but if I can hold the focus (in spite of everything else going on and my own undisciplined mind) it's there, as it is, and no amount of "Why don't you just...?" or "Shouldn't you do this other...?" or "Change this!" works. That's *their* story, not *my* story...the story that came to me and tickled the inside of my head, and then poked me in the ribs and finally grabbed something painful and twisted and said "Write me. Write me NOW."
God knows I would like to be a better writer. More like A in handling this, more like B in handling that, and OMG how does C do that thing C does, that rips my heart out even on a fifth reading? I read better writers than I am, I read them silently and aloud, hoping the magic will rub off, but my stories are stuck with me, the imperfect. Like the kid in the corner of the studio with Michelangelo, struggling to outline just one acanthus leaf on a scrap of stone, and watching with wondering eyes the David emerge from marble...I will never be there...but at least I'm trying to serve my story, as it came to me and wanted to be told.
Which sounds all gooey or something but it's how it seems...the stories wait for me, a row of them, ever more shadowy and vague the longer it will be before I get to them, but they exist on their own...alone until I can write them and let them find their readers.
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| Re: It was going to be about a garden [message #38178 is a reply to message #38170 ] |
Mon, 10 January 2011 13:43 |
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But . . . I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Reviewers need to learn the difference between this book did not work for me and this book eats discarded zombie parts. It is your right not to like something. It is flaming insufferable arrogance to assume that because you didn’t like it it’s not a good book.
Yes! Yes! Yes! This is a phenomenon not at all limited to fiction reviews. The inability or unwillingness to tell the difference between personal preference and objective assessment is a becoming a cultural crisis. It's something that I struggle against with my students, many of whom are learning to distinguish criticism (Herodotus is unreliable because he fabricates evidence...) from unsupported personal opinion (I feel like Herodotus is a big stinking jerk and a liar...) for the first time as college freshmen. The vast majority of my students are really terrific young people, who try very hard, but it's a difficult habit to break, made harder by the fact that the public role of private opinion has exploded in the last twenty years.
There's nothing inherently wrong with TV pundits or Twitter feeds, but I can't help but feel that objective analysis and discourse, as a skill, is getting buried under an avalanche of snarky, inflammatory rhetoric wherein 'my side is right and your side is stupid'. Snarky, inflammatory rhetoric is nothing new, of course, it just seems to be much more broadly in the public domain than it used to be. It's also taking place less in face-to-face settings and more in anonymous electronic exchanges where it's easy to fall into a pattern of hurtful and combative one-upsmanship. Considering how much emphasis is placed on making private opinion accessible in public, troublingly few freshmen come into my class able to formulate and defend a logical argument. However, they all seem to have learned how to wield a cutting hyperbole or a nasty adjective to bolster their viewpoint. This despite the fact that they are, almost without exception, kind, friendly, and respectful people.
The flip side is a problem, too. There is a difference between being served a nourishing meal that one doesn't care for and being served a plate of rancid meat and rotten vegetables. If reviews of anything are going to carry any weight at all, people need the skills to distinguish between the personally objectionable and the objectively offensive. Letting people know that something is rotten, if it is, is a public service, but just saying that something sucks dead bears without explanation or evidence doesn't help anyone, because it doesn't actually tell you anything, it just throws useless negative energy out into the world. Whew! Sorry. Rant over.
[Updated on: Mon, 10 January 2011 13:50] by Moderator
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| Re: It was going to be about a garden [message #38195 is a reply to message #38178 ] |
Tue, 11 January 2011 01:15 |
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| stormgoddess wrote on Mon, 10 January 2011 13:43 |
[color=deeppink]...I can't help but feel that objective analysis and discourse, as a skill, is getting buried under an avalanche of snarky, inflammatory rhetoric wherein 'my side is right and your side is stupid'.
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I think that this aspect is the one that stops me from talking more publicly about the books I enjoy reading. Someone always seems to find it necessary to not just let me know that they didn't care for the book, but that they found the author to be the worst writer ever -- complete with the hyperbole of how their eyes will never recover. Now, I've read The Eye of Argon, so I know the author isn't the worst ever, but the effect is that I am somehow deficient for having enjoyed the book in the first place. This never has the effect of changing my mind about the book; I know perfectly well that I can enjoy a book by a decent storyteller who could use some improvement as a writer. I just end up enjoying the books on my own, but no longer telling the world at large about them. Of course, I do tell my friends about the ones I like, but I don't put it 'out there' as I did before.
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