A while back Nick Mamatas talked about the superior sort of reader and the inferior sort of reader, which got me to thinking a bit (and no, not just because he sorted me into the “superior” category, but thanks, mister).
At Astrogator’s Logs Athena Andreadis writes about The Dark Knight Rises and The Bourne Legacy: Fresh Breezes From Unexpected Quarters.
I detest Christopher Nolan’s ponderous dourness. The only film of his I found remotely intriguing was The Prestige. Auteur pretensions aside, the closest relatives of Nolan’s Batman opus are the abysmal Star Wars prequels. The two trilogies share pretty much everything: the wooden dialogue, the cardboard characters, the manipulative sentimentality, the leaden exposition, the cultural parochialism, the nonsensical plot, the worshipping of messiahs and unaccountable privileged elites, the contempt for “mundanes” and democratic structures, the dislike of women and non-hierarchical relationships. To be sure, Nolan’s second Batman film boasted the unforgettable performance of Heath Ledger’s Joker. But TDKR should have been called Bat Guano or Darth Vader Meets the Transformers.
Abigail Nussbaum also has a thing or two to say about The Dark Knight Rises:
The Dark Knight Rises extends Batman’s authority past crime, into technological progress, and even into social welfare–when Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Officer Blake, a Batman believer who is one of the first to uncover signs of the film’s villain, starts his investigation by following up the murder of a homeless teen, he learns that the boy was kicked out of his group home because the cash-strapped Wayne Foundation has stopped funding it. In other words, it’s not just the police that needs to be augmented by a caped crusader, but every level of government that must be replaced by private enterprise and private philanthropy. And when that private benefactor is mocked, derided, hobbled in his efforts to keep his community safe and even hunted down for those efforts–why, then he will retreat from his obligations, and the result will be disaster.
Fine pieces of criticism. Now I would like to take a look at some reviews for a bunch of assorted things.
Jayne S, of Dear Author, on some novel:
Then comes the suitors the Eeeeeeevil stepmother tries to foist Mariata off on and it dawns on me that Mariata is a Mary Sue. All men either love her or want to screw her – depending on their own evilness or lack thereof. And for a woman who’s lived out in the wild and traveled across deserts and been around camels all her life, Mariata is certainly ignorant of how to prepare for a journey and whiny once it starts. Only when she doesn’t have anyone to bitch to does she suck it up and get on with survival.
Somedude on some shitty D&D tie-in:
I love Marsheila’s writing style. It is descriptive, painting a vivid picture for the reader, and the prose is tight, with no wasted words. Each and every word carries the plot forward with maximum efficiency. No fluff or filler found here folks. Here is an example of probably the most beautiful battle sequence I have ever read.
“Greddark’s blade flamed, casting hellish shadows as the cavern walls echoed with the music of battle; the high, ringing tones of steel on steel melding with the lower, more brutal notes of steel on flesh.”
It is not a long sequence in terms of word count but the visual it gives the reader will stay long after the book is finished. I not only saw the battle but I felt it.
If you’re over the age of eight, you might like me be forced to come to the conclusion that both Andreadis and Nussbaum are considerably superior readers (or, well, critics–though both review books too) than Jayne S and Somedude. This isn’t simply because Nussbaum and Andreadis are writing negative reviews; so’s Jayne S. But there’s an immense difference in the way they review, and that’s not even about the style or tone but the substance. Somedude believes “Greddark’s blade flamed…” et al to be beautiful prose that makes him “feel” the battle for one, though that’s far from the only disparity. How about Brandon Sanderson (the homophobe, if you recall) on The Wise Man’s Fear?
I often suggest it to people; it’s become–alongside Tigana, Eye of the World, and Dragonsbane–one of my top recommendations for fantasy readers. Often, however, people ask why they should read the book. Why do I recommend it?
Because it’s awesome.
Why is it awesome?
This often stops me. Why IS Pat’s writing awesome?
Well, the books have an absolutely wonderful magic system. One part science, one part historical pseudoscience, one part magical wonder. It’s the type of magic system that I’m always delighted to read, and ranks among my favorites in fantasy literature. But that alone doesn’t describe why the books are awesome.
It’s awesome. What makes it awesome? Because it’s awesome, that’s why. Go buy it now. That Sanderson is subliterate is already evident in his insistence that Tigana and Eye of the World are books everyone ought to read–but the rest is sheer embarrassing fanboy jizz you just shouldn’t let people see you spurt in public. He calls the writing beautiful, and fails entirely to quote a single memorable passage; he dwells on stupid shit only nerds could love (the magic system, say); he is unable or unwilling to consider the dreadful gender politics, and in short there’s nothing in his “review” that approaches insight or or a suggestion that he’s an intelligent or even literate human being. If the two aren’t already fast friends (shitstains of a color!) then this seems like a blatant call for attention and a circlejerk to further his career, which only exists because fellow Mormon bigot Orson Scott Card gave him a helping hand (were you ever in doubt that being a bigot did not reward well in this genre? Other bigots stand at the ready to give you a boost!).
Consider this review from Jennie of Dear Author:
Even though I was intrigued by the set-up, after reading a bit I’m not sure why someone would be that interested in staying at a place like this. The charms of 19th century England don’t really make up for the drawbacks, in my opinion, which include uncomfortable clothing and primitive plumbing. Though some concessions are made to the comfort of 21st century guests, I think if it were me I’d rather go all in or just forget the whole thing (and if it were me, I’d honestly choose the latter). Of course, there are plenty of people who go in for reenactment societies and the like, and I suppose this isn’t so different.
A reaction that amounts to “well, if I were in the character’s shoes I wouldn’t do these very specific things due to my personal preferences” is entirely irrelevant, useless, and not especially intelligent. You’d expect this on Goodreads or Amazon, but not so much on a site that makes money and which presumably pays its reviewers.
Paul Weimer, on a hilariously appropriative YA novel:
This exploration of themes and the costs of a society dominated by Steampunk are some of the best things I found in the novel. Stormdancer itself is the story of Yukiko, daughter of a hunter under the auspices of the Shogun. She winds up accompanying her father on a quest to find an arashitora, a griffin, long believed extinct. The Shogun has had a vision of leading the final victory against the gaijin on the back of one, and despite the fact that wild animals of any kind are scarce, the penalty for failing is extremely high. So Yukiko travels into the wild in search of the impossible, and finds it, but that is just the beginning of the problems for herself and those she loves.
Again, we get a plot summary that can just as well be gleaned by reading the title’s product description on Amazon, and not much else. Just “this is what happens in this book, and this, and that” plus a few stated reactions too vague to constitute anything approaching sentience. Compare with this review of the same book which, whatever you might think of the style or tone, points out glaring cultural errors in detail.
This review. To let such deathless prose–
And his body. Even in his current lean-and-mean state he was still built on heroic lines. She’d have to be blind not to notice so much male beauty.
But he’d always been tall and dark and handsome and he’d always had the body of a god and it had never bothered her for a second before.
–go unremarked would suggest you are linguistically tone-deaf to start with, but to call it “deft writing” is something else again: not just tone-deaf, but outright praising Justin Bieber as the zenith of musical accomplishment unequaled by any before or since.
These reviews share a common thoughtlessness, an inattention to prose, a focus on trivia and irrelevant personal reactions. These then are the inferior readers. The ones who genuinely can’t (or don’t want to, or don’t think they should try to) approach texts as anything more than stories, the ones who wouldn’t be able to perform close reading if threatened at gunpoint. It’s not even about their tastes or what they choose to review–it’s the way they engage with, or rather fail entirely to engage with, anything beyond “oh, that’s nice” or “oh, that’s bad.” These are cardboard cut-out opinions when they aren’t blatant favor-currying/unpaid marketing efforts like the embarrassment that is Sanderson’s ode to Rothfuss.
There’s an attitude prevalent in the western culture and specifically American culture–or, to be even more exact still, in the SFF genre: that any and all opinions are equal, and no one is more informed than the next person, and we should take a five-year-old’s opinion on a book as seriously as anyone’s, thus Tolkien deserved a Nobel. It probably has a good deal to do with the anti-intellectualism of fandom, what with the instinctual recoiling from the idea that some individuals are better informed or more experienced than others, and therefore may produce criticisms proportionally more worthwhile. This also solidifies the attitude that there is no good or bad writing and that everything is subjective, and “I like this” becomes confused with “this is good.” A conviction that you too can be right, absolutely right, just like those snobbish ivory-tower types. Any suggestion that you might be genre-locked and therefore badly read, or that if your standards for “good writing” is tie-in fiction you might want to reevaluate, elicits instant resentment and is seen as a personal affront to your dignity. How very fucking dare! Robert Jordan’s prose isn’t bad, it’s just flowery. Everything is subjective! Having standards? That’s elitist bullshit, you jerk.
This is perpetuated by the practice of inferior reading. Now inferior reading, maybe, has its place on Amazon and Goodreads, where nobody expects lengthy critiques or political analyses–”Will I like this book?” is the criterion there, to be concluded at first glance from star ratings and a few lines of reader feedback. But I get the impression that in the blogosphere you’re supposed to be just a bit meatier–not necessarily of Andreadis’ or Nussbaum’s caliber (since frankly most people are not that literate or that smart) but hopefully something a bit more than Sanderson or Somedude up there. I’d even go as far as saying that, taken to extremes, inferior reading produces things like this endorsement of Save the Whites, a logical step when you look at how oblivious most inferior readers are to blatant, galloping bigotry.
Or perhaps inferior reading is just what people want? The inferior reader is often vacuously and comfortably apolitical, prone to falling back on “it’s just a book/movie/game!”, a battle cry no superior reader–and by superior I mean nothing loftier than “reasonably intelligent”–should ever take up, but which many genre fans would chant and march to in a heartbeat. The inferior reader does not care for strength of prose, insisting that it’s the “story and characters” that count–any suggestion otherwise is decried as pretentious, because when you evaluate a textual medium the arrangement and rhythm of words are surely trivial. This too is another favorite genre argument, helped along by the fact that if you only ever read genre chances are good you’ll never have seen good prose and therefore mistake insufferably pedestrian for “minimalist” and horrifically overwrought for “poetic.”
It’s all prime condition for mediocrity to flourish. For proof of that–well, does anyone really need proof that SFF is where the mediocre, the subpar, the outright bad are celebrated? George RR Martin just got a “lifetime achievement” award after all. What achievement that might be is anyone’s guess, since as far as I know he hasn’t done anything that might constitute a contribution to humanity–or even anything that might be considered innovative within genre itself. All he does is shit out soap opera. Entertaining, sure, but ultimately worthless. Which sums up most of the genre very well, and provides ready answer as to why genre will never be taken seriously outside its fandom (no, not even Nebula and Hugo winners–maybe especially not those winners).
Recommended reading: Everything That Is Wrong With Commercial Fantasy In A Single Quote and The Literature of Delusions.
Nonny Morgan
/ September 2, 2012(Forgive awkward phrasing, fibro flares suck and brain is on half thrusters. ;) )
I think both types of reader and review have their place.
I don’t really follow Dear Author (to pick an example) for intellectual critiques, per se; I follow them for industry news (first and foremost), book release news, and some idea of what individual books are like (because for some genres — I’m looking at you, urban fantasy and paranormal romance — the blurbs pretty much follow a standard formula and are really pretty useless). Generally their reviews are more regarding how entertaining a book is, and I think that’s okay.
I’d be fucking annoyed if they claimed to be an in-depth intellectual critique review blog and then posted “I like because” reviews, but they don’t (also knowing a reviewer for them, I don’t believe they pay reviewers). I do wish there were more blogs that discussed books in more depth than just “is this entertaining” — off hand there’s your blog and Fangs For The Fantasy, and I can’t think of much more that’s actually dedicated to books. Sometimes books come up on the various feminist / feminist geek blogs I follow but books aren’t their main focus.
But I tend to think that various books serve different purposes and shouldn’t necessarily be judged on the same field. I’m not going to judge a book that’s obvious escapist mind candy the way I’m going to judge something that’s deep and multiply layered. (Which is not to say that mind candy is an excuse for crappy prose (although I personally judge a book more on its plot, story, and characters; not to say that prose isn’t a factor at all but there have been some books that have been incredibly meaningful to me that honestly did not have the greatest prose), but I’m going to look at it from a different angle. If the prose is weaker but the story is fun and keeps me entertained, great. And speaking as somebody with a chronic pain disorder, escapist mind candy can be really fucking valuable for me, on multiple levels. I’ll be honest: sometimes I need something to keep me entertained that doesn’t require deep thinking. I value books that do but I don’t always have the spoons to puzzle them out.)
Some of the wording you use comes across a little dismissive and belittling of mind candy fiction, but reading between the lines, it sounds like your main issue is that mind candy gets treated and approached on the same level — or more so, at least in terms of popularity — than more serious, deep fiction? As in, they get nominated for various awards and such, or are treated by various readers as almost more worthy or important? If I’m way off here, I apologize :)
I definitely agree that there’s an issue of mediocrity. I have pretty much stopped reading urban fantasy except from trusted authors, or when I get recommendations from people I trust, because of the paint by numbers plots and problematic issues towards women. I’ve been enamoured of steampunk and YA (although NOT the “let’s focus on romantic interests” type) because I’ve found they have more breadth of story types as a general whole; I’ve also found more inclusive books in those subgenres, whereas urban fantasy is incredibly heteronormative and promoting of strict gender roles (which you’d think wouldn’t be the case with so many heroines, but the “OMG A MAN” dependence and lack of female relationships and slut-shaming is just ugh).
So I agree that the promotion of mediocrity and ignorance of more literary work is a problem, but I also don’t think that mind candy has no place. It is, however, fucking annoying when they are treated by people on the same level. If that makes sense. :)
Nonny Morgan
/ September 2, 2012(In addition, I’m not entirely comfortable with superior/inferior reader as a moniker. I would prefer a designation that expresses focus, because I think that reflects more accurately. Some people have a preference for entertainment, others have a preference for literary work that has a deeper message. I think that’s also less likely to be confusing to people who aren’t familiar with the terminology.)
acrackedmoon
/ September 2, 2012My trouble with the majority of mind candy is that it’s not entertaining at all. It’s usually–because it’s the kind of thing that’s meant to appeal to the majority–racist/sexist/etc in five hundred ways, and the prose is unbearably bad. It’s not entertaining. It’s not even readable. I’m not calling for Great Deep Thought; I’m looking for basic competence, and that’s not something writers like Jim Butcher, Robert Jordan or the average YA vending machine have.
Regardless, The Dark Knight Rises is thoughtless entertainment with lowest common denominator appeal (and huge neckbeard appeal for that matter). But look at the way Andreadis and Nussbaum reviewed it. In contrast, reviews like these are sheer mindless rot. There’s a way to read (or watch), and then there is a way to consume. I’d suggest that people like Nussbaum and Andreadis read, producing things that are in turn smart and readable; people like Jayne S and Somedude consume and produce… nothing. They use their mouths to fart, I guess.
Most of the things I review here are of the mindless rot variety. I’m talking more about the way people approach criticism and reading, not about the reading material itself. (And I’m of the opinion that if you approach reading the way Jayne S or Paul Weimer does, then the value of your reading begins and ends with your personal enjoyment, which should put to rest the idea that reading is an activity inherently nobler or worthier than farming gold in an MMO.)
Nonny Morgan
/ September 2, 2012“Entertaining” is by nature subjective though. I have similar issues with frustration about there being very little out there about people “like me”. While I’m starting to see more books with queer characters (despite that it had other issues, I really liked J.A. Pitts’ work because UF books about lesbian protags that are basically about them having adventures is so difficult to find), I can only think of one book that I have seen that has had a representation of a character with a chronic pain disorder, and that was an early book of Lackey’s. (I will freely admit I am more likely to ignore competency issues if a book has characters that are like me, esp when they are so rare. The obvious solution being that there should be more people writing about these things but that’s a whole ‘nother discussion.)
I think we probably have different litmus tests for “basic competence.” I can for the most part ignore the prose, to a point (Twilight, 50 Shades), but the social issues stick out to me. Which, I actually wanted to thank you for the posts you’ve done on Jim Butcher’s work because I had been trying to pin for ages why I was skeeved by the book I read and couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
I probably fall more on the side, regarding mindcandy, of personal enjoyment — that said, I consider reading for entertainment to be on the same level of playing video games. Both are activities chosen for fun, not necessarily for greater value. I do agree that approaching mindcandy as something higher and more worthy is, well, BS.
acrackedmoon
/ September 3, 2012Even if the writing weren’t dreadful I wouldn’t have been able to overlook the jingoism and racist descriptions, so yeah.
Jayaprakash (@jayaprakash_s)
/ September 2, 2012Steel on flesh makes a note?
braak
/ September 2, 2012B-Flat below middle C, usually, but it can vary by a half-step depending on the quality of the metal and how sweaty the flesh is.
Luis F. Morales Knight
/ September 2, 2012Waitwaitwait. I have to seriously question something you said here. Fandom ain’t anti-intellectual. It’s solipsistic. I feel like the undercurrent isn’t “No one knows better,” but “No one knows better THAN I DO.” And I know I’m right. Because I said it.
Brandon Sanderson is always an interesting topic for me, and thanks for bringing him up. He’s the only prominent SFF writer I’ve ever had a conversation with, just after he became prominent. I found him to be a friendly, humble, and rather delightful young man, and I’ve had to reconcile that quite positive impression with things like his very clunky writing and his ridiculous politics. (BTW, he added a foreword to that Dumbledore essay that shows he’s matured a bit, which is nice, though I wish him lots of luck reconciling his faith with his evolving views.) So thanks for giving me another chance to wrestle with that stuff.
acrackedmoon
/ September 2, 2012Most dude writers with shitty politics are said to be “very nice” in person, probably because they realize that if they were to spew half the shit they do online in person they would be treated to a fist and brass knuckles. See also Jay Lake being horrified about attending WisCon because he was afraid women and POC might assault him for being a racist, sexist fuckturd.
Emil Söderman
/ September 2, 2012I think it at least partially depends on what you think a review (or a critique, or whatever you call it) is supposed to do. And I there’s a bit of a disconnect between these different styles of writing. I’ve done at least some studying at uni concerning literature, and what we did was generally critique or analysis rather than review: Structure, themes, historical context, modes of analysis, etc. was what was studied, but that tends to be (in the way that academia tends to be) relatively free of value-judgement: Academic writing tends to be focused on what a literary work does, it’s impact, it’s structure… But not about whether or not it is any good or not. (and I’m mainly a historian, to me lit. is almost ridiciliously judgey and subjective, and I’m sure natural scientists feel the same way about history) In my lit. courses I don’t think the question of “Is the book any good?” was ever asked: It’s just not what critique/analysis is about.
Now, most SFF reviewers obviously aren’t working on that level: Nor are most reviewers period: To a reviewer, a value-judgement is the entire point: “This is what I think of the book, and here’s why.” The quality of the review largely dpeneds on the second part of that sentence: How well you are at articulating why you think a book is good or not. Reviews are essentially customer-guidance: They can use some of the same tools as more serious critique or analysis, but they’re not really the same thing.
Basically, I think the difference is in reproducibility (which is the social sciences and humanities vaguely positivistic attemt at mimicking the hard sciences) in a critical essay you’re supposed to, by retracing the steps of the critic, by following the notes, by going back to whatever source material he or she used to construct the critique, be able to at least theoretically come to the same conclusions: It’s the same way historical essays work, the idea is, if you retrace the steps, look at the same material, then you’ll end up with the same (or at least similar) conclusions as the author of the essay. Now, obviously this is a gross simplification: It’s usually not that easy, but that’s the idea.
A review, on the other hand, doesen’t work that way, it by definition privileges the subjective, the *aestethic*. (which doesen’t mean there aren’t superior and inferior reviews, far from it) The point isn’t to explain or dissect the work of art in order to see what makes it tick: It’s to recommend (or recommend against) reading the work. It’s in a sense propagandistic.
I do think trying to prove that some things are inherently of a higher aestethic quality than other things is problematic at best: First of all, it is of course strongly died to fashion, to time and place. There are definitely “objective” (or at least intersubjective) ways of judging a work: Impact, cultural significance, etc. And I think those are significant: Saying “You should read Steinbeck or Nabokov instead of David Eddings” is not wrong: There are all sorts of reasons to prefer Steinbeck or Nabokov. But any attempt to boil it down to aestethic (as opposed to political, or historical, or some kind of structural significance) boils down to “You should read it because I say so.” Which is fine, but you can’t really put argumentative weight behind it: There’s no accessible platonic ideal of beauty that people can agree on, and what you end up doing is simply expressing the individual tastes (or rather, the group-tastes of a particular group or community or social class).
Taking your refuge in aestethics is, I think, in some ways a bald assertion of power: Because beyond a certain point it’s not transferable (I can try to explain why I think The Grapes of Wrath has beautiful prose, but I can’t in the end make you or force you to experience what I felt when reading that book, the way I could explain why it’s a significant book in the history of literature).
Basically, I think there are all sorts of avenues of critique (and yes, I think SFF by and large is lacking in introspection and critique, although that is slowly changing) but I don’t think aesthetics is particularly useful as a tool of critique (as opposed to review)
I also think there are some pretty severe issues of class (at least in a sense) baked into this discussion, that needs to be addressed.
acrackedmoon
/ September 2, 2012Who’s talking about aesthetics, though.
Seth Ellis
/ September 2, 2012Or perhaps inferior reading is just what people want?
Absolutely. There was a brief thread about Neuromancer and whether it holds up on tor.com the other day, and the comments started out depressing; several people said they couldn’t get into it because it was too haard. I read it when I was a teenager, and I didn’t notice it being noticeably difficult. In fact I remember the usual criticism at the time as being that it was slick and empty. luckily some normal commenters showed up later.
I like the Literature of Delusions piece, and his point that infinite variety should in fact be available within any limited set of genre terms, if you’re at all interested in finding it. This made me think of Dashiell Hammett’s Flitcraft parable (the last four full paragraphs are the money part); genre readers pride themselves on having “escaped” the realism trap, and then settle down into an identical trap of their own. One of the comforting things about a Literature of Comfort is the ability to pretend it’s a Literature of Ideas.
acoldhothouseflower
/ September 2, 2012I am not surprised about Brandon Sanderson’s obliviousness at all. I met him at a convention once and we had a nice enough chat. It turned out we’d both worked a night shift at a hotel. He started off with a bad customer story, and I shared my experience that I was consistently asked by male customers to have sex with them for money. I (humourously, I thought) shared some of the ways I handled that. Mr. Sanderson just stopped talking and walked away. The conversation completely ended without even a word of acknowledgment.
Because of this (admittedly personal and anecdotal experience) I find it entirely too believable that he would have no concept of women as fictional characters or the gender politics involved.
saajanpatel
/ September 2, 2012I’m not wedded to this idea, but right now I think the important thing is not necessarily any technical craft – because to me that just conjures images of people demanding others acknowledge the quality of programming in video games – but the need to make people get that depiction should be more important than other elements when depiction shapes real life.
As in, a badly written book that realistically and holistically depicts, say, the life of a transperson should be given more credit than a well written book filled with walking stereotypes.
acrackedmoon
/ September 3, 2012False dichotomy.
saajanpatel
/ September 3, 2012I’m trying to divorce technical craft from depiction, admittedly one can argue that it takes a certain amount of craft to holistically depict anything.
Like I said, I’m not wedding to the position but I’m also not seeing the false dichotomy in my thinking.
acrackedmoon
/ September 3, 2012Well, mainly that there are books that depict trans issues well (for example) and are also written well. Similarly, there are books which are badly written and incredibly racist/sexist/etc, to whit: most of my reviews! It’s very rarely an either-or choice. I can count on one hand books I’ve read which are badly written but happen to do so-and-so representations well. Consider Black Blade Blues, which indulges in amazingly shit descriptions of a WOC and willful jingoism.
Seth Ellis
/ September 2, 2012Forgive me for going on a bit. Thinking about this a little more, here’s possibly another way to say the same thing. This is something I’ve been thinking about as I prepare to talk to first-year university students next week.
Very broadly speaking, here are three things it’s possible to say:
- I don’t like this kind of thing.
- This is a bad example of this kind of thing.
- This kind of thing is bad.
Simplistically, I’m going to call the first of these taste, the second judgment, and the third opinion.
By judgment I mean determining the terms on which an artwork is operating, and judging the artwork’s performance on those terms; by opinion I mean drawing larger conclusions about the cultural context of artworks. Of course none of these three things tend to happen in a vacuum; a single response to a single work will usually involve all of them. And you could say that there’s overlap between judgment and opinion, or rather that there are multiple levels of judgment. You can critique how well an artwork operates on its own terms, but you can also critique the formulation of those terms themselves. Thus you can say things like “This is a fun escapist space opera, but space operas are done to death, or are by nature more fun for people whose cultures were on the winning side of colonialist interactions,” or what have you.
In your and Nick’s formulation, “superior” readers understand the difference between these things; “inferior” readers tend to elide them. But good critics and reviewers, and good readers of reviews, are able to make distinctions between different kinds of reaction. In fact good readers can tell the difference between review and critique. Review tends to deal with taste and shallow judgment (the work on its own terms), and exist mainly to inform potential consumers whether they’ll like an artwork or not; Critique with deals judgment and opinion, contextualizing the work within culture(s). Of course sometimes it’s convenient not to make a distinction between these types of reaction: “you can’t argue with taste” or “it’s all subjective” are usually used to mean “I don’t want to have this conversation any more.” And it’s true, you can’t argue with taste, but that’s the only one of those three things you can’t argue with. In fact judgment and opinion consist of arguments; they demand engaged response, which people sometimes don’t want to do or are incapable of. But then you shouldn’t set yourself up as a bookblogger or whatever.
acrackedmoon
/ September 2, 2012In my experience inferior readers will say “Tolkien transports me to his world which has heaping mountains of useless made-up trivia therefore he is good and his prose is the best thing ever because I love it”; a superior one will be able to say “I enjoyed this because it’s fun, but I recognize it’s also pretty crap and mindless.” Or “I fucking hated this book but I can recognize the writer has skill,” while the inferior reader will say “I don’t understand this book it’s stupid and pretentious don’t read it.”
Emil Söderman
/ September 2, 2012“Who’s talking about aesthetics, though.”
acrackedmoon, for one: “Somedude believes “Greddark’s blade flamed…” et al to be beautiful prose that makes him “feel” the battle for one” (implicit here is of course, that the poster does not believe “Greddark’s blade flamed” is a good piece of prose, something I’d agree with, still, an aestethic judgement)
Here again: “–go unremarked would suggest you are linguistically tone-deaf to start with, but to call it “deft writing” is something else again: not just tone-deaf, but outright praising Justin Bieber as the zenith of musical accomplishment unequaled by any before or since.”
Or: “The inferior reader does not care for strength of prose, insisting that it’s the “story and characters” that count–any suggestion otherwise is decried as pretentious, because when you evaluate a textual medium the arrangement and rhythm of words are surely trivial.”
All aestethics.
” But I get the impression that in the blogosphere you’re supposed to be just a bit meatier–not necessarily of Andreadis’ or Nussbaum’s caliber (since frankly most people are not that literate or that smart)”
Honestly, while I like both of those pieces, they’re not exactly in-depth. They wouldn’t meet the standards for any kind of academic writing (nor are they meant to of course)
And what’s with this elevation of the blogosphere? Isn’t that mainly for people posting stories about their cats?
acrackedmoon
/ September 2, 2012Being linguistically tone-deaf isn’t really the only thing that makes these reviews poor.
Perhaps I’m just not reading the right blogs.
Emil Söderman
/ September 2, 2012“Being linguistically tone-deaf isn’t really the only thing that makes these reviews poor.”
And yet that was what you focused on.
I think we can probaly agree that the difference is in how far you’re willing to engage the text: How long you are going to keep asking questions. (this, incidentally, is what i see as the essence of intellectual inquiry: Asking questions, the moment you say “Well, it just is.” is the point where you abondon intellectual inquiry)
acrackedmoon
/ September 2, 2012As a group (across all the reviews used as examples) and as the argument of the whole post, not really. It’s almost as if you focused on this thing about aesthetics because it’s your pet peeve, something you’ve harped on about on several occasions.
gefnsdottir
/ September 2, 2012It sounds to me like you’re talking about a critical reader (as in “one who thinks about what they are reading”) vs. one who thinks of reading as entertainment. To me, this makes more sense than a phrase like “inferior reader” which comes across as hierarchical “my-way-of-seeing-this-is-better than yours” when readers will read different things for different reasons. Oftentimes I won’t have my critical thinking hat on at first unless there’s a GLARINGLY OBVIOUS ISSUE or I know to watch out for something (for instance, right now I’m reading Storm Constantine’s Wraeththu Chronicles knowing to expect misogyny) but then I’ll go back and read it again, and then suddenly I’ll say “WTF? How did I miss that?” Although, I’m assuming you probably don’t have as much time to read books over as I do.
Regarding prose, my standard for “good writing” is if the prose makes me feel something (besides anger). I read Ginn Hale’s “Wicked Gentlemen” (which you would probably hate because it’s one of those “m/m relationships as written by women) and I could clearly see the breeze nudging a curtain and the fireflies from the opening scene, and, you know, it probably isn’t the greatest prose in the world, but that’s how it made me feel, not like, say, “1984″ which I just wanted to be OVER already. I will say, in retrospect, that the prose in that book reminds me of the setting, it was just painful for me to read.
acrackedmoon
/ September 3, 2012I don’t hate M/M as written by women categorically per se, but it’s from the same roots as yaoi fanfic and the romance genre, both of which have such low standards that they make YA look competent and mature. Oh, that and many people who read and write the stuff seem to believe that being part of the M/M fandom automagically makes them awesome gay allies.
I ask only for prose that doesn’t go clunk-clunk-clunk. This is a bar most writers, SFF or YA or the rest, can’t vault.
braak
/ September 2, 2012Man, Brandon Sanderson is kind of preoccupied with “magic systems”, huh? I feel like he’s done at least two or three essays on how to make good magic systems, or what magic systems are or should be like. I feel like it’s pretty weird, both because what a peculiar thing to be preoccupied with in a fantasy system, and because I think there’s something about talking about it in this systematic way that completely defeats the appeal of magic for me. He makes it sound like he’s actually prepping the role-playing-game core rulebook while he’s writing.
acrackedmoon
/ September 3, 2012Useless made-up trivia that only nerds care about.
ronanwills
/ September 2, 2012Is it just me or does a “superior” reading often flow more easily from a negative opinion than a positive one? I know from my own experience that I can analyse the hell out of something I hated but I often draw a blank when talking about something I liked.
Maybe it’s just that “I liked this becausw it’s good” is seen as an acceptable opinion but saying you dislike something carries an expectation that you’ll be able to explain why and therefore invites more critical thought.
Darius Wilkins
/ September 3, 2012As someone who’s suffering through “The Straits of Galahesh” by Bradley P. Beaulieu, where the editors loved all the “flowery language” instead of making that manuscript drip red and halve the size of the book, I feel you. I had something of the same reaction as Nonny Morgan reading this post, but really? I am having to work hard reading Beaulieu’s…storytelling, and there isn’t much payoff for me to do so. C. Valente might piss me off just a touch, but generally, it’s worth it. Hal Duncan might have dragged me off to Finnigan’s Wake or something, but I actually remember the story in a somewhat detailed way (and I’ll certainly never get around to reading Ink) such that I think of it when other authors use similar themes, techniques, whathaveyou. I hated G. Marquez’s 100 Years of Solitude, but I think I got something out of that novel (*after* I finished reading).
This is the thing, though…The worst books are always the ones that make you work hard for little. Mebbe Beaulieu redshirts every arab-looking woman and you go “awww, not again”. Mebbe the way Phaedra Weldon’s prose just gets your mind screeching in stop-and-go traffic. Or how about when you’re faced with the sheer tediousness of Daniel Abraham’s created “culture”.
Mebbe it’s just acrackedmoon co-signing Isaac Asimov when he sez “Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’”
I think, that in this thread up to date, that it needs to be reemphasized that, mind candy or not, we don’t really *have* to have crappy writing. We can get sexy scenes, funny stories, be transported, do any of that stuff, without having to take quite the metric shitload of crap. Laura Resnick doesn’t trip my “bad writing” triggers. Except the Seinfeldian lack of minority characters, speaking as a non-Lithuanian, of course. One has to pick and choose what poison (stuff that’s good in all areas? woah). Good reviews helps us figure out what makes something worth reading, and more importantly, enrichen your re-reading experience. That’s why they are a good thing, as opposed to all the Amazon reviewers that give Bradley P Beaulieu’s book 4 and 5 stars.
I’m surprised at the inclusion of Kay’s Tigana. It isn’t remotely like Eye of the World, and it’s vastly better written than contemporary doorstoppers like Wingrove’s Chung Kuo novels, or any of the contemporary second world political thrillers.
saajanpatel
/ September 3, 2012“And what’s with this elevation of the blogosphere? Isn’t that mainly for people posting stories about their cats?”
This is something that gives me a chuckle. I like Mamatas, and the other critical bloggers. When they turn their laser eyes on things like geek pride, I sort of just shrug as it seems like nothing more than infighting given that I doubt non-geeks are reading their sites.
I can also see that people liking mediocre-to-group-X work perpetuates mediocre-to-group-X work, I’m just not sure why I should care. This to me is different than work that perpetuates stereotypes, which has a direct real world effect.
It’s like demanding better AI in video games as part of a moral argument, chiding those blasphemers who buy games for the graphics. I accept I might be missing something of import but I’ve been trying to wrap my head around this for awhile.
Avery Shy
/ September 3, 2012I don’t see a problem with inferior readers and writers.
Books don’t have to be good to serve a purpose. They’re a form of entertainment. They can be terrible and still be entertaining.
Natasha Declaire (@Natasha_Andre)
/ September 3, 2012Speaking of Hugo awards, are you going to review Jo Walton’s ‘Among Others’? It recently won both Nebula and Hugo, and does seem a bit of a different fare than the usual.
acrackedmoon
/ September 3, 2012From what I’ve heard of it, it doesn’t seem the sort of thing that’d interest me.
Richard Morgan (@quellist1)
/ September 3, 2012It’s interesting to see your intellect sometimes get a half nelson on your rage and bring it crashing to the ground (good luck with that, by the way, it suits you far better – then again, lowest common denominators and all, it may not bring you nearly as much traffic or blogosphere fame)
But – you are now faced with the issue of turning that same critique upon yourself. Because the bulk of your rants very definitely follow the “inferior reader” route. You have different contingent triggers than the flaming sword of Greddark crowd, but the principle is the same. This has positive models of gays and/or POCs in – I LIKE it! This has a rape in it – shit-stain fucking misogynist asshole white male neckbeard bullshit scum-sucking nyaaaaaAAAAAGH. Let’s throw acid in his face!!!”
How is this different from the “inferior reader” approach you’re decrying? By dint of a certain amount of intelligent self-knowledge, you’ll maybe want to argue? I know, I know – you’re just having fun. But many of the willfully laddish consumers of genre are smart as well, and operate a similar fun-loving knowingness about their “awesome” superheroes and chain-mail bikini heroines. To that extent, you are a mirror for them, not a critique.
So, to borrow a suitably political phrase, are you part of the solution or part of the problem?
Just asking.
PS – since you insist on constantly referencing something I said last year (three times in less than a month at the last count – are you *looking* at me, RH?), maybe we could have a go at parsing the semantic difference between the phrases “[this] puts us a short hop, skip and jump away from Satanic Verses fatwa territory. “ and “this is a fatwa, you know, like with the Satanic Verses”
acrackedmoon
/ September 3, 2012Ah, inferior reading. I would naturally be quite happy to oblige with acid in your face though, if that’s the sort of thing you are into.
At no point have I declared myself a superior reader, by the way. Heh.
Inverarity
/ September 3, 2012The difference between a “superior” and “inferior” reader, as I understand it, is very much about the intelligent self-knowledge and the willingness to engage critically with things you enjoy, and to separate yourself from those things rather than identifying with them.
For example, I am one of those people who likes the occasional “awesome” superhero movie, or reading James Bond novels. I also like Patrick Rothfuss’s books and Harry Potter, frequent targets of ACM’s vitriol. I’ve even enjoyed a few of Brandon Sanderson’s novels. But when I read them, I can also see the holes, the flaws, the things that might make them less than awesome to people who aren’t willing to overlook stuff like that. As opposed to fans who just say “I love it, therefore it’s awesome, therefore if you say it isn’t you’re a rage-spewing jerk!” I don’t think anyone has said it’s bad to enjoy flaming swords of Greddark, just that if you read that and think it’s well-written then you probably have very poor taste and insight.
ACM is biased towards praising books for positive portrayals of gays and POC, but I’ve seen her tear up books that were pretty gay and/or POC-friendly for failing in other respects. She does not, as you imply, just reflexively approve of anything that has good gay characters or happens to be about non-white people. Which would distinguish her from, say, the “inferior readers” who automatically gush over Cindy Pon or N.K. Jemisin because “OMG POC fantasy YAY!”
saajanpatel
/ September 4, 2012“The difference between a “superior” and “inferior” reader, as I understand it, is very much about the intelligent self-knowledge and the willingness to engage critically with things you enjoy, and to separate yourself from those things rather than identifying with them.”
I like this definition. It is interesting to me that as I read through Nussbaum’s critique of DKR I was at first very annoyed that she was killing my high and my mind tried to give me reasons to dismiss her review out of hand.
Thankfully I set aside the were-geek within and found the review to be very on point + insightful.
saajanpatel
/ September 4, 2012As has been pointed out, the reviews here (I think I’ve read 90+% by now) run the gamut in praising and condemning authors who include or even are PoCs or LGBT persons.
Beyond that, it isn’t a bit odd to compare inclusion of certain demographics with a “knowingness” about stereotyped depictions of gender (I’m referring to the “chain mail bikinis” as signifier to overall poor quality of depiction found in much of SFF)?
The former (inclusion) clearly has a positive real life value, whereas the latter (women as sex dolls, etc) a questionable if not demonstrably negative real life result?
I’m also not sure I see the distinction in your language regarding fatwas. I will note that Mieville also finds the attitude you seem to espouse on what approaches “fatwa” territory to be rather questionable:
http://chinamieville.net/post/18314521552/stand-down-literature-has-defeated-the-thought
“It is depressing to have to point out, yet again, that there is a distinction between having the legal right to say something & having the moral right not to be held accountable for what you say.”
Arthur B (@awakeasaurusrex)
/ September 3, 2012Thanks for the shout-out in the recommended reading section.
I am interested in the number of people sprouting up here who are saying “there’s nothing wrong with mindless entertainment”, when surely the point is that it’s perfectly possible to have mindless entertainment which isn’t incompetently written and doesn’t pander to toxic paradigms, but sadly we have precious little, and we’re not likely to get more unless people actually pay attention to what they’re being spoonfed and object when it’s poisonous.
I think I am somewhat more tolerant of Not So Great prose than you – if I weren’t I wouldn’t have tackled so many Warhams novels – but even so think there’s a difference between plain but functional prose that gets the job done and keeps you turning the pages and garbage prose that makes reading a story a chore – and once reading a book becomes a slog it kind of fails at being “mindless entertainment”, doesn’t it? Likewise, I’d have thought people with a functional conscience would find overt bigotry or casual, unconscious treading on people to be jarring enough to wreck their mindless enjoyment of lightweight fluff it appears in, even if they don’t necessarily fall into the demographic that’s being shat on in the part in question. I mean, surely when something outrages your sense of basic empathy for other human beings it stops being fun, right?
acrackedmoon
/ September 3, 2012It was a good article!
Yeah, “terrible writing but awesome representation versus good writing but walking stereotypes everywhere” is a dichotomy I’m completely not a fan of.
This is why I’ve only read two Warhams. ;) And yes, that’s it–I don’t find a lot of fluff entertaining exactly because crap prose keeps jarring me out of the reading (when the offensive crap doesn’t, because just as often shit writing goes hand in hand with shit everything else), not because it’s not a Great Deep Literary Novel of Great Deep Thoughts. People think I set my bars impossibly high, when nah, not really.
If that were the case, Moff’s Law wouldn’t be a thing.
braak
/ September 3, 2012Yeah, you know, I’ve always been skeptical that there’s anything meritorious about mindless entertainment — that there’s anything good about being entertained mindlessly as opposed to mindfully — but I used did generally think it was pretty harmless.
I’ve been re-evaluating my opinion in the last few months, almost exclusively thanks to ACM. It’s starting to seem to me that the toxic bigotry in mindless entertainment is actually far worse that the bullshit that you get in the smarter books — both because it’s likely to be more toxic, and because the book is designed to work on you without triggering your critical faculties.
Mindless entertainment encourages mindless reading, I guess, and mindless bigotry just makes more mindless bigots.
acrackedmoon
/ September 3, 2012Oh, “litfic” has its share of bigots, undoubtedly–but I’ve always found the representation to be somewhat more decent than in SFF or the rest. In the litfic genre, you will actually find stories about Middle Eastern women written by… actual Middle Eastern women! Some of this even win awards and come to prominence.
In SFF, you’ve got Bacigalupi.
Arthur B (@awakeasaurusrex)
/ September 3, 2012@braak: Well, my day job requires me spending an awful lot of time reading extremely dense technical and legal documents and trying to make sense of them, so when it comes to reading for pleasure in my spare time I often like to just kick back with something which is just plain fun and doesn’t make too many demands of me.
But I think there’s a difference between taking light entertainment as light entertainment and turning off your critical faculties altogether. I wouldn’t approach my beloved Warhams tie-in fiction the way I’d approach serious literature (or even the smarter sort of SF), in the sense that I would expect more wish-fulfilment and action sequences and dakka and less thoughtful ponderings about themes, but I certainly wouldn’t forgive it for contributing to the ambient nastiness of this naughty earth.
braak
/ September 4, 2012Well, what I mean is, there’s something a little more insidious when it’s the light reading that’s being bigoted, because at least the fancy, hoity-toity sorts of writing that they give us in schools, we come to that with the expectation that we’re going to be thinking about it (even if maybe we don’t always, or we think about it poorly or whatever).
Also, whatever you know, I hate human joy in most of its forms, so I am leaning towards destroying all the things.
shardbaenre
/ September 3, 2012I think this conversation is going down the rabbit hole. I think that the entire point, as I read it, is this: If reading is fundamental and reading broadens minds (both young and old), then it must be subject to stringent critique like anything else. So what we have here is some weird thing where we are separating reviews and critiques. For instance, some people here are talking about entertainment and how a review is just speaking to that in terms of entertainment. Why are setting up a bizarre problem that isn’t a problem? Yes, it can be entertainment. In any given work, there will be problems. So yes, it can “transport you to another world.” But surely you had to have noticed harmful tropes that means that some faction for readers will find it untenable? You pointing this out and speaking to it in no way, shape or form means that it wasn’t overall enjoyable to you. It also doesn’t mean that you *have* to say something nice about a work. Or say something negative about a work. It means you evaluate the work.
Give any and everything a pass, but if you are trying to convey the general gist and meaning and why or why not someone should read it or why you like it, then you should be able to speak the language of critique, the language of review. I think that’s it.
ACM has, many times, been utterly brutal and the tone of her reviews have been insanely negative, but there is *always* a measure of information in that she will tell you the rapes, the whiff of cultural appropriation that she can’t quite speak to; but that those issues did NOT overwhelm her enjoyment or that she’s giving the situation a pass. That is fair. It is imminently fair because there was due diligence there. My mileage will vary but maybe I decided that I can’t deal with the rape and, for the moment, I’m not going to pick up that book. See? I learned something about the book and was able to make a judgment on if I would pick up the book because she gave the information. She could’ve said “The magical prose transported me into another world. The story was such and such and I looked upon it and it was full of magic and thusly good.” To my knowledge, she has never given such a review.
I liked the Dark Knight Rises and I think it entertained me well but that in no way stops me from mentioning to my friends or prospective movie goers that the last half of that movie completely negates the motivation of the first half. And that there are two training montages that serve as the climax, but that there really isn’t a climax and this isn’t really a story, but it is definitely fanservice. That is a breezy review and not particularly in depth but I think it tells action fans what they need to know, Batman fans what they need to know, and comic virgins what they need to know. And then we can have a discussion because now those different groups of people know what questions to ask of me or the movie. I think that is the bare minimum of what a review requires. And sometimes the review requires hate. ;)
For further reading I suggest this: http://filmcrithulk.wordpress.com/2011/06/07/hulk-essay-your-ass-tangible-details-and-the-nature-of-criticism/
I like Film Crit Hulk even when I disagree with him because I know why I disagree with him because both of us are trying to use the language of criticism. But from Brian Sanderson’s review we don’t have the same baseline because I have absolutely no idea what I need to be asking him or of the work. If you can get over Hulk speak, Film Crit Hulk is very insightful.
saajanpatel
/ September 4, 2012It’s a credit to how much I respect you Shard, that I’m going through a document written in Hulk-speak. :-)
shardbaenre
/ September 4, 2012Haha! Saajan, when I first ran across Film Crit Hulk, I kinda just wanted to cry and rock back and forth as I read, but then, somehow, my eyes and brain got used to it and then I enjoyed his posts! :)
shardbaenre
/ September 4, 2012But also, I hope it’s worth it! :)
saajanpatel
/ September 4, 2012Definitely worth it, as I had faith it would be. :-)
I really like how “he” (is this a guy in RL?) puts for the idea that the role of the critique is to make things tangible for those with less experience.
The part about editing was especially good IMO.
Pear
/ September 3, 2012Odd that a lot of people don’t seem to be moved to a similar degree by, say, ‘Wind-up Girl’s absolute wrongness, for example, but do seem to be moved by the fact that the idea that someone may object to the fact that they ignore the racism and sexism and shit writing in favour of untrammeled enjoyment…
When I read the unbowdlerised ‘Dr. Doolittle’ when I was quite small, I was not exercising a high level of critical evaluation when I decided that, although the words had a nice rhythm to it and some bits were funny, I did not like the book because a good chunk of it was digustingly racist. This meant a lot of things, but in short, the book treated Black African people appallingly. I put it down and I didn’t read it anymore. It was very simple. But it remained in my head for years; it was only later did I understand the exact ways in which the racism and racial dynamics of the book was objectionable according to specific ideas about imperialism, power, desire, and beauty standards.
I was not an especially intelligent 9 year old, and I am still a very dim-witted 22 year old. Possibly all this shows is that I’m stuck in primary-school thinking. But noticing and actively rejecting racism and other bigotries in any medium has never, ever been a choice for me: I have to do it. It is not extraneous matter, it is an integral part of how I experience life.
You get reviews which say, ‘People say this book is racist with shit prose, but I’m not a politician or a writer so I can’t comment on those things, generally I thought it was rahly thrilling,’ which is puzzling to say the least. As if the ability to recognise racism and clumsy language is something stuck on top of ~*pure enjoyable art*~, joyless dry criticism vs. uncorrupted gushing pleasure. There is surely a middle ground. I enjoy lots of shitty problematic things, I don’t kid myself for a moment that they’re not shitty and problematic. It is not hard.
Art is not a hermetic substance; it is a product. It has a reflexive relationship with the real world. If, in its apparent universality, art is pure, then what has it been distilled from? Am I to believe that the overwhelmingly amount of white western straight clumsily-formed bullshit out there is pure, moving art? Hey, where’s subjectivity for me? Can I be the subject? Why is it, yet again, still all about enabling neckbeards and dudebros, making their life experiences and privileges the benchmark? The neckbeards don’t see the problem in meatspace, so they don’t see the problem in its fictional analogues.
If people say they enjoyed ‘Windup Girl’ or the original ‘Dr Doolittle’ with absolutely no reference to the disastrous race or gender issues within either, I’ve every right to be a little wary of them. I can’t enjoy something which takes a particularly large, steaming shit on me; if you can’t recognise that shit, if you cannot read the racism printed right there on the page there for all the world to see, how will you perceive it in flash-by moments of real life? The existence of the racism is not subjective; what is subjective is how individuals weigh it up. If you only tell me you rahly enjoyed the novel and don’t even take stock of the -isms or its trying prose, how am I supposed to take it into account? I suppose shit like that is just not real for some people as it is for me.
Also when will people decide between ‘REQUIRES HATE TARGETS WOC WITH SUCH VITRIOL SHE IS EVIL’ and ‘REQUIRES HATE UNCRITICALLY LOVES WOC AND MAULS WHITE MALES ONLY SHE IS EVIL’? For serious. You’re turning about like weather-vanes here, make up your minds.
Anninyn (@gingerkytten)
/ September 4, 2012I’ll admit, I mainly review based on whether I liked it, whether I found the book enjoyable rather than in a deeper sense. I do, however, know the difference between a good book and one I enjoy. I also think some books can be both.
I think of it as this – mindless pulp, like junkfood, is tasty and addictive. But if your whole diet is full of junkfood, you are unhealthy and you slowly lose the ability to taste the complexity in good food. Same with books, only it happens to your mind.
I do read books pretty deepy (except the brain candy) but I feel like I lack the ability to analyse them effectively for anything other than enjoyment level. That’s changing now I’m back to studying properly, I’m learning to take my instinctive reactions to a work and how it makes me feel and analyse it properly.
But still. I think when I review books – it’s not our main focus, you know? Our main focus is being kind of nerdy and taking a different view on post-apocalyptic media and culture. When we review books it’s because they’re post-apocalyptic and what’s important is whether our audience would enjoy reading them.
Gah, rambling again. I think I know what I’m getting at.
shardbaenre
/ September 4, 2012@Anninyn
“Gah, rambling again. I think I know what I’m getting at.”
Here’s what I think you may have said in your post (and if it’s wrong or incomplete, please let me know): I don’t think that I have the experience or the ability to look at books in-depth such that I can convey it to someone else or even to myself. But what I do know is narrow in it’s focus.
If that is what you meant, then it just seems like a problem of the language of critique and, I cannot stress this enough, I don’t believe there is anything wrong with that. What *is* wrong is that when someone who knows their shizzle and can explain their reasoning (think a geometrical proof-style situation) such that you can follow it and then *formulate questions or dissent*, you disregard it in a fit fan rage. Discounting it based on “but I love this book/movie/whatever” and not because you can rebut what they said is not a good way to view anything.
I think that’s why I like this blog so much. I’m challenged to discuss why I disagree and sometimes I’m challenged to just observe and see why something is happening. That’s something I think is helpful.
shardbaenre
/ September 4, 2012@Saajan:
“Definitely worth it, as I had faith it would be. :-)
I really like how “he” (is this a guy in RL?) puts for the idea that the role of the critique is to make things tangible for those with less experience.
The part about editing was especially good IMO.”
(As far as I can tell, Film Crit Hulk is a guy. He’s written a few things that lead me to believe he’s male…but I could be horribly wrong.)
I really liked this concept of making the less tangible accessible for people because it is very much true. And I think the issue becomes even more pronounced when you are discussing cultural appropriation or any -ism. Those things simply aren’t tangible to people with privilege. I would even go so far as to say that people who are without privilege sometimes get lost in the intricacies of culture, which can look like anything, e.g. any -ism because once you are defined as “other”, you are given characteristics that may or may not be true or, ya know, just not being from a particular region of a particular country that speaks a particular dialect or some such.
The editing part (can also be applied to sfx) is great, imo. True editing or sfx is something you just don’t notice. It’s the quality of “being transported to another world” of movies, which, of course, means that the analog in book (for me anyway) is grammatical structure. Someone here mentioned aesthetics and I think that’s fair. Aesthetics gives weight to substance and also works int he reverse. Stylistic choices by authors is very important. For instance, maybe the dialogue is staccato or perhaps stilted but the action of the scene in the book has some quality that lends itself to that style, to emphasize some point…or maybe it’s because it’s purely written. Flowery language, re: “her voice was like steel-wrapped velvet and her eyes glistened like polished moonstones and her breath was like a field of heather, blowing gently in the wind”, that is objectively terrible. That is a kind of aesthetic, but it more or less tells you everything you need to know about that book probably. I think it’s also the gap between when ACM or a critic says “workman-like” and the reader not understanding what that means in context and getting butt hurt.
The grammatical structure can make or break even the best of books, especially when it serves no purpose to the story and relies on the aesthetics of it and is not used to service the substance of it. I think you can probably get away with the substance of it being workman-like or not as aesthetically pleasing because the book is still saying something. As a consequence, I don’t think there should be such a large separation of aesthetics and substance, but maybe we can discuss those two things better.
I think, by and large, the problems come when people want to be taken seriously and then you are but that means some scathing critiques. At which point, the situation becomes “but it’s entertainment! And also, it’s just *your* opinion.” Which, yes, those are true things but you can either let me dismiss you or you can let me take you at your word of being serious. You cannot have both. So I think this is a both situation. It is not just entertainment. It is actively informing your opinion whether you realize it or not. In this way, no one is a special snowflake and everyone is susceptible to the subtle social cues that crop up in all media. It is the job of the critic to show these things. It is the job of the critic to let their experience and their voice shine through to inform people about this thing they experienced. Being pissed at that is bizarre, especially when someone specifically seeks out a critic for a review. Or when someone rebuts an assertion. I can take Brian Sanderson seriously or I can not.