The critic, the artist and the ego

I love the Guardian extract, concerning critics and prizes, from Stephen Sondheim's forthcoming book, Look I Made a Hat. He's pretty much on about the artists's ego, which might seem self-centred,  but it's a serious point that artists and writers need buoyant egos to go on working. Here are the bits I really like:

On critics:

A good critic is someone who recognises and acknowledges the artist's intentions and the work's aspirations, and judges the work by them, not by what his own objectives would have been.

On prizes:

What sours my grapes is the principle of reducing artists to contestants. Competitive awards boost the egos of the winners (until they lose) and damage the egos of the losers (until they win), while feeding the egos of the voters (all the time). Just as there are people who claim to be immune to public criticism, so there are those who claim to be unaffected by being passed over for an award from their supposed peers. But, as in the case of the critic-immune, I've not met any who have convinced me. It isn't so much that you want to be deemed the best; it's more that you don't want to be deemed second best. No matter who the voters are, and whether you accept them as worthy of judging you, winning means they like you more than your competitors.

In conclusion:

...the only meaningful recognition is recognition by your peers or, more accurately, people you consider your peers, and peer recognition is a very personal matter. An artist's peers are other artists, not necessarily in the same field – ie, musicians for musicians, painters for painters – but people who understand what you're trying to do simply because they're trying to do a similar thing.

On the first point, I'd add that a favourable review that nevertheless entirely misses the point of your work can be almost as bad as an unfavourable review - or, well, pretty dismaying. On the second, I'd add that the pernicious thing about prizes is that the also-rans become second-best in the eyes of the public as well as the judges.
On the last, I'd heartily agree, as far as an artist's ego goes, but then we have the matter, don't we, of sales...?

The dangers of taffeta

On the matter of gender bias in reviews I was interested to note that, beginning his Observer review of Monica Ali's The Untold Story (her novel that imagines the fate of Princess Diana had she not died), Tibor Fischer says: 'I'm not sure I'm really qualified to review Monica Ali's new novel because I don't know what a French tip manicure is and I'm rather hazy on taffeta.'

I'm kind of charmed by this: Tibor Fischer is a refreshing reviewer whose reviews always shine with this kind of honesty, although since he concludes by pronouncing the book 'classy commercial fiction', I wonder if by saying this he's doing more than simply being honest, but also distancing himself from it.

At any rate, it set me thinking. Would a female reviewer be likely to state so readily that she doesn't feel qualified to review a book due to a haziness about football or motorbike engines? Would she be too afraid of endorsing a general perception that already makes her less likely to be asked to review books by men?

I have to say that I don't know what a French tip manicure is, either, but I must confess that having been brought up by a needleworking mother, and having actually studied textiles at one point, I'm not at all hazy about taffeta, and I say this publicly not without a certain qualm...

An Apology

This post is an unreserved apology to William Skidelsky, literary editor of the Observer. In an overview post on the reactions to Vida's research on gender bias in reviewing, I attributed to him the view 'that while women read more than men, they mainly read the kinds of books that are not worthy of review'. He has pointed out to me that this is not a comment he made, nor a view he holds, and a look back at the Guardian article on which I was commenting shows that the comment was in fact that of TLS editor Peter Stothard, and related specifically to his own publication, thus: 'And while women are heavy readers, we know they are heavy readers of the kind of fiction that is not likely to be reviewed in the pages of the TLS... The TLS is only interested in getting the best reviews of the most important books.' It was a serious error on my part because people picked up on it in the comments section and ran with it.

This is the moment that the lone blogger - unsupported by editors or subeditors - dreads. For the past five years that I have been writing this blog I have lived in horror of making this kind of misrepresentation (and in the process providing fuel for the detractors of blogging), and I can tell you that when I received William Skidelsky's friendly but questioning message I went hot and cold all over. It's why blogging is so particularly time-consuming - the need to check back and double-check, which I signally failed to do on this occasion - and why it is not always compatible with the immersive, distracting and time-consuming project of writing a novel (which is why I think I failed on this occasion).

Once again, my sincere apologies to William Skidelsky, and my thanks to him for pointing out my error and enabling me to put it right.

Do the men have it all?

* EDITED IN: This post originally attributed a comment to Observer literary editor William Skidelsky which was in fact made by TLS Peter Stothart (as reported in the linked Guardian article). The post has been altered accordingly, and my sincere apologies to William Skidelsky.

People are much exercised by the shocking statistics in a survey conducted by the American women's literary network Vida, showing male bias in numbers of literary reviewers and of the authors of books reviewed. The Guardian defends itself as being better than most and books editor Claire Armitstead points out that fewer women than men offer themselves as reviewers. Ruth Franklin, books editor of The New Republic confesses to being shocked at her own statistics and sets out to conduct her own survey proving that lit editors are only reflecting the situation created by publishers: publishers publish more books by male authors than by women. Bookslut's Jessica Crispin, who is equally shocked, along with her co-editor Michael Schaub, at their own record, will have no truck with such blame-shifting and the two co-editors are conducting a conversation about the implications for their own biases in choices of books for review and reviewers. Some comments on these posts are enlightening, many pleading that they read more books by men than by women because they simply like them better, discounting the question raised by Ruth Franklin of societally-induced unconscious bias - a concept which it looks as though thinkers of the 80s may as well not have bothered to flog to death. And notwithstanding our healthy and mainly female literary reading-group culture, TLS editor Peter Stothard raises hackles by opining that while women read more than men, they mainly read the kinds of books that are not worthy of review in his publication.

Is There a Literary Boys' Club?

An amusing and/or depressing spat last week between Robert McCrum and novelist Amanda Craig. The trigger was a piece by Craig on the website of the excellent Fiction Uncovered (which I really should have blogged about and would have done so had I not been so tied up with promoting my latest publication, and you probably already know about it but if not then I shall trust you to jump on the link and speed on over there and find out about a Really Good Thing.)

Anyway, one wonders what McCrum thinks about Fiction Uncovered - an Arts-Council aided idea to seek out and promote good writers who haven't so far received the attention they deserve - since his objection to Craig's article seems out of all proportion, and indeed he seems wilfully to misinterpret her. Craig's argument is that none of her own generation has received the kind of acclaim that some in the generations either side of it have done. Here's the central paragraph in which she makes it:

Those younger than us, such as Sarah Waters, Maggie O’Farrell, Zadie Smith, Philip Hensher and Monica Ali, rose to prominence earlier and faster, fanned by national prosperity; my generation has had a long struggle to be seen at all. We have worked in the shadow of the Amis-McEwan-Barnes-Rushdie generation, and the recession of the 1980s, and by the time we published, usually in our mid-thirties, a second wave of younger talent had risen up and overtaken us.

Craig's chief point here is that the generations of writers either side of her avoided the recession which hit the generation to which she belongs, and there is an implied premise that national prosperity is good for writers' reputations and recession isn't. It's true that she also refers to the 'shadow' of the 'Amis-McEwan-Barnes-Rushdie generation' as an impediment, and it's this which McCrum jumps on, and here's how he interprets it:

Craig's complaint ... is that Amis et al have somehow prevented a generation of writers from getting their due recognition... If this boys' club had not sucked all the oxygen out of the literary ecosphere, says Craig – with no real evidence for her assertion – we would now speak of Chambers, Jensen etc in the same breath as ...

Whoa...! That's a whole load of extrapolation from one brief phrase. Maybe, since Craig goes on to point out that it is above all the women of her generation who have been most overlooked, she is implying the existence of a 'boys' club', but she accuses Amis, McEwan, Barnes and Rushdie themselves of nothing (where's the evidence for that?). Now McCrum, one of those with the power to overlook or champion talents and provide or deny the oxygen of newspaper publicity, is of course the great champion of this quartet, and his reaction seems knee-jerk enough to imply a sorely hit nerve.

He even gets insulting:

Really good writers are not troubled by brilliant contemporaries [See, Craig, he seems to be saying, if you were any good you wouldn't be moaning]... Strong talents are galvanised by rival artists not crushed by them. Or they go their own way, making their own good fortune. They are not cowed by top dogs.

Ah, those 'top dogs'! So there are top dogs - those who have somehow managed to 'suck all the oxygen out of the literary ecosphere' in spite of there being other strong talents! In resorting to the language of elitism, McCrum only brings down on himself the very suspicions he's so anxious to avoid. He goes on to object 'that there are also (among reviewers) many experts in tall-poppy syndrome, knives poised'. Tall poppies too, eh - those who have gained all the nutrients/cash and consequent attention? (Though the only example of tall-poppy-slashing he comes up with is Tibor Fischer's hatchet job on Amis's Yellow Dog.)

'If Craig and her disappointed contemporaries have had such a hard time,' he asks with a tone that smacks shockingly of playground in-crowds, 'why has it been (apparently) so easy for Zadie Smith, Sarah Waters, Monica Ali and Philip Hensher? Could it be that these literary arrivistes are, er, actually better?' but concludes in the very language of the pompous gentleman's club he'd like to disprove: 'Maybe posterity will be kinder to Ms Craig and her contemporaries. For the moment, the jury is still out. Harsh, but true.'

Sheesh.

It's Marvellous, Darling!

A nice post from Ms Baroque on the fraught question of reviewing for writers.

Book Reviews

Interesting post by Dan Green at The Reading Experience on the 'crisis in book reviewing'.