The Last Review

In the past two weeks I've been following with interest the online controversy over The New York Times recent list of the 30 Greatest Living American Songwriters.  

I'm a sucker for 'Best Of' lists, and especially when it comes to music. The NYT list is justifiably being eviscerated for both inclusions and omissions. Particularly by some very knowledgeable and influential music YouTubers. 

There are many reasons these lists fascinate us in this cultural moment. It's partly because of the overwhelming amount of unfiltered creative content now available — far too much for anyone to properly evaluate. And it's partly because of the abundance of public opinion, informed and uninformed alike, which further erodes trust in expertise.

The controversy made me think about my own brief career as a literary critic.

Well, not really a critic. A reviewer. I reviewed fiction, non-fiction, and poetry back when newspapers still had Saturday book sections. Mostly for the Montreal Gazette, and occasionally for trade publications like Books in Canada.

I got the gig almost by accident. For a time I was program director at the Jewish Public Library in Montreal and was often invited to speak at afternoon book clubs and “study groups,” usually made up of women gathering over tea and cookies to discuss a book every month or two. They would hire reviewers to present the book and lead discussion, and I became a regular on that circuit.

Around the same time I began attending synagogue regularly, where, purely by chance, I met the editor of the Gazette’s books section who was also a regular attendee. One day she asked me if I’d be interested in reviewing books with Jewish content, especially Israeli literature. I always found this amusing because I had no special qualifications beyond general interest and being reasonably well-read.

A Gazette review paid between $150 and $250, depending on length. That sounds decent for 800 to 1500 words until you consider the work involved. I’m a slow, careful reader. A 300-page book could take me a week. I took notes, filled gaps in my knowledge with research — this was still the era of dial-up internet — and then spent hours writing and rewriting the review.

As an added bonus, we got to keep the book.

At first I loved seeing my opinions in print. The newspaper had granted me authority, and I quickly began to believe I deserved it. If the Gazette thought I knew what I was talking about, maybe I did.

I reviewed a few dozen books, mostly but not exclusively with Jewish themes.

Then two things happened. The Saturday review section steadily shrank, and with it the number of assignments. Six pages became four, then one. Monthly reviews became occasional ones.

At the same time, I began to feel like a phony — and worse, a potentially harmful one.

I generally tried to stay positive, even about books I felt lukewarm toward. When I disliked a book, I aimed for neutrality. I was always conscious of the years of labor, hope, and emotional investment behind what I was reviewing. Especially the small press books written by local authors.

But another part of me felt I owed readers honesty.

The problem was that I increasingly doubted what my judgments were actually based on. I had no academic training in literature. I was simply a reasonably intelligent, fairly well-read person capable of expressing opinions clearly.

And I began to realize that my reactions to books were often deeply idiosyncratic — shaped as much by mood, temperament, and whatever psychological knots I happened to be wrestling with as by the quality of the writing itself.

Eventually the conflict came to a head. I was assigned a debut novel by an Israeli-Canadian writer whose earlier short story collections I had loved and enthusiastically praised in print. I expected the review to be easy. Positive reviews usually are.

Instead, I hated the novel. Not mildly disliked it. Hated it.

So I wrote an excoriating review. I convinced myself I had a duty to be unsparingly honest.

The moment I submitted it, I regretted it. I immediately asked the editor to kill the piece. There was no reason to publicly skewer the book. I didn’t need to prove I had taste, authority, or intelligence by dismantling someone else’s work.

I could make a persuasive case that the novel was bad. And I could make it sound authoritative.

But maybe I reacted so viscerally because I had loved the writer’s earlier work so much. Or maybe the review had less to do with the book than with whatever personal tensions I happened to be working out at the time.

That was the moment I realized I was never going to write another newspaper review. I decided it was more important to be honest with myself than with the readers of my reviews.