the art of the elegant review

For all that we ("we") decry the lack of quality criticism in Canada, there have been and continue to be people who have written some really stunning reviews.  

In a Facebook exchange with an old friend, I mentioned that an old acquaintance of ours had always reminded me of Zenia in The Robber Bride, or rather, that when I read the novel, Zenia reminded me of her.  Something about chaos, I wrote, or falseness.  

But then I wondered how accurately I was remembering the book (the acquaintance, well, I'm not sure it matters how well I remember her), so I looked it up and found a review by Joan Thomas, who is a lovely person as well as an amazing writer.  She was a books reviewer and columnist for the Globe and Mail and the Winnipeg Free Press for many years, so the quality of the review was no surprise --- and yet it was.  It's so good.

Her piece in Books in Canada is not some kind of boldly negative exposé (that's at least what some people (not me) mean when they wish we had more "real" reviewing), but an insightful and elegant take on the novel in light of Atwood's oeuvre.   Plus it has lines like this: 

Every sober-sided history is at least half sleight-of-hand: the right hand waving its poor snippets of fact, out in the open for all to verify, while the left hand busies itself with its own devious agendas, deep in its hidden pockets.

And this is just slipped in there...mere throwaway lines in the middle! 

Granted, most newspapers can't spare the column inches for lines like these if they want to cover even a fraction of the worthy books to write about, and Books in Canada no longer exists.  There are not many forums remaining for mid-length and long reviews in Canada.  (Though I happily await correction or elaboration on this point.)  I suppose it could be what the internet is for now, though as a forum I think it lends itself a little better (for the most part) to brief reviews, star ratings, Likes and +1s.  (My love of the internet in helping to point the way to wonderful new books probably requires its own post.)

I'm happy that Joan is busy writing novels instead of reviews, but I know that books sections everywhere are poorer for it.  For that matter, I'm happy and grateful for all writers and readers who take reviewing seriously.  

It's time-consuming, it's almost thankless, it's difficult, and there are always going to be people who disagree.   We're so lucky that fearless books columnists are doing this day after day, week after week!   

Hug a critic, if you see one. 

Do you write in your books? Or, Against Underlining.

Reading this Guardian blog post on marginalia, I was wondering how many people out there write in their books. I don't, as a rule. I'm careful about my books: no dog-earing, no reading in the bath unless the book is secondhand and already decrepit or very occasionally (shhhh) a library book. (Librarians, this is not as callous as it seems. I have not dropped a book into the bath since I was nine years old. And yes, I am still haunted by it. It was a Scholastic book club order, forever after marred by its wrinkly pages.)

I do see the utility of marking a book for study, and I've used Post-Its for this purpose. But in a novel? I have never once encountered anything interesting written inside a novel apart from an inscription. More often than not, the things I've found underlined have seemed completely random. I find it baffling at best and vandalism at worst. Then again, perhaps I simply haven't been fortunate enough to inherit a marked-up novel from a top scholar.

I have been known to underline poetry, mostly Blake, and only in a rather unspecial Wordsworth classics edition. And only then with an unsharpened pencil, the barest of fair lines. And for an upcoming short-story collection I'm reviewing, I haven't at all minded writing notes in the bound galleys. Especially since I know there's a lovely fresh hardcover on its way. Mmmm.

The fact is that I like to come to a page unmolested, without something giving an undue weight to a particular phrase. Though it might be interesting to re-read something and try and discover if you still value whatever it was you thought important enough to highlight the first time around...

What do you think?