Why Reviews Matter

Every few months I have to make the same point. When I criticize reviews such as Priya Elan’s, ad hominem attack on me his Guardian review of my radio programme on the ‘Special Relationship’, my automatic critics immediately accuse me of bristling oversensitivity, having a ‘thin skin’, not being able to take criticism, etc.

 

The best answer to this is that anyone who does what I do knowingly volunteers for public criticism. And anyone who continues, long after he has begun to receive that criticism, has accepted it as a price that must be paid, as I do.  There’s a famous misquotation from the Bible (Job,31:35 ‘O that mine adversary had written a book’) , which now is taken to mean something quite different from what was intended in that great parable. It is usually rendered as  ‘Oh, that mine enemy would write a book!’. To write a book (or to make a programme) is to give your enemies a great opportunity.  If anyone exposes his flank by giving so much of himself to public view, he can rely on his foes to give that book a public pasting, which will generally involve a fair amount of personal reflection on the author himself, not all of it kindly.

 

So if I really didn’t like it or was intimidated by it in my soul , I wouldn’t take the risk of exposing myself.

 

But that doesn't mean I am debarred from myself criticising reviews which Ielieve to be unjust. 

 

No, what I object to in reviews such as Mr Elan’s and two of the reviews of my last ink-and-paper three dimensional book , ‘The War we Never Fought’, is when the reviewer doesn’t even try to be fair, or to pay proper attention to the work. Mr Elan’s attack on the programme is actually an attack on me. He can’t find any errors of judgement, serious omission or wrong emphasis, or any technical or journalistic faults. He doesn't even disagree with my argument. So he assails me in person, in a way which I doubt he would do to my face. And I have cast doubt on *his* judgement by pointing out that other reviewers, more dispassionate and perhaps more experienced than he, had not agreed. This is one of the great things about the internet. The reviewed can respond to their reviewers.

 

Does it matter? Yes, it does. Reviews, or the lack of them, influence publishers and those who commission programmes. 'Olav from Oslo' is one of several readers who have asked if ‘Short Breaks in Mordor’ will be available in paper format because they don't like, or perhaps can't get hold of) e-books. The answer is, almost certainly never. And one of the reasons for that is the critical reception (or lack of it) given to ‘The War We Never Fought’, a book of which I am still rather proud, and which all those who have ignored it would benefit from reading. Such treatment makes any publisher less keen to take on new works by authors who get this treatment. Reviewers, and those who commission them,  must surely know this. So theirs is a responsible job, and I think they should be open to criticism themselves.

 

I am, by the way,  continuing to try to see how to get my audio-books more readily available on this side of of the Atlantic. I am baffled by the problem.