James Ley is Critic of the Month

When did you first write for ABR? It was 2003, a review of Vernon God Little by D.B.C. Pierre. What prompted you to take up book reviewing? An interest in literature and a break that gave me a chance to write professionally. The idea of being paid to read and think and write about books was very enticing, and still is. Which critics most impress you? Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt, Virginia Woolf, Erich Auerbach, Edmund Wilson, Northrop Frye, Lester Bangs, Jon Savage, Greil Marcus, Frank Kermode, Elizabeth Hardwick, Roland Barthes, Harry Levin, Richard Ellmann, Lionel Trilling, Mikhail Bakhtin, Susan Sontag, Alex Ross, Geoffrey Hartman, Marshall Boswell, Louis Menand, Lorna Sage, William Deresiewicz, Daniel Mendelsohn, Adam Kirsch, James Wood, Ruth Franklin, and Walter Benjamin, among others. What makes a really fine critic? There are a few things that are obvious enough to sound platitudinous: intelligence, knowledge, attentiveness, insight, and so forth. But I think a certain forthrightness and clarity of expression goes a long way. A sense of humour doesn’t hurt, either. Do you accept most books on offer, or are you selective? My deeply ingrained and probably not all that sensible instinct, born of a long period as a freelancer, is to say yes to everything unless there is some overwhelming reason to knock it back – for example, if the book requires expertise in a subject I know nothing about, like quantum physics or goat husbandry. Even then, I would seriously think about accepting and then scuttling off to the library. Do reviewers receive enough feedback from editors and/or readers? On balance, probably not, although it depends on the nature of the publication. The literary editors of newspapers don’t want to have to hold your hand, and shouldn’t have to. The situation is a bit different with magazines and journals, which have a longer lead-in time and a more involved editorial process. Readers have occasionally written to complain about things I have written, but most feedback from readers these days is indirect, when a review or an essay generates a bit of online discussion. What do you think of negative reviews? It depends what is meant by ‘negative’. I think a lot of the hand-wringing about negativity in reviewing is wrong-headed and a bit ridiculous, partly because so much alleged ‘reviewing’ is transparently chicken-hearted and insipid, but also because it is based on a misperception (which it also perpetuates) that the salient aspect of a review is the critic’s final verdict. Criticism doesn’t fail because it has been too negative, or not negative enough; it fails when it has not been intelligent enough. The quality of analysis is always more important than one’s personal impressions. Criticism falls flat when it has misconstrued the work, or not made its case well enough, or has not made any kind of case at all. The primary concern of criticism is the meaning of the work, so whatever evaluations might follow are secondary concerns. The question tends to generate a lot of pious talk about being even-handed and respectful, which is all well and good, but a critic needs to have some kind of traction, some point of view. A perfectly even-handed critic would resemble the proverbial liberal who refuses to take his own side in an argument. So I do think that ‘negative’ reviews are valid and essential, so long as (and this is the hard bit) they explain, lucidly and convincingly, the basis of their negative judgement. How do you feel about reviewing people you know? There is something faintly pernicious about this question, because it implies that this is a pressing issue. It is not something that happens very often, as far as I am aware. Professional reviewing is actually one area where log-rolling and back-scratching is not pervasive. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it never happens, but editors tend to seek out reviewers who do not have any close connection with the author. I do think there may be some circumstances in which writing about the work of someone you know is excusable, if the connection is acknowledged, but it is not as if it is a difficult thing to avoid. Just get rid of all your writer friends. Criticising their books should do the trick. What is a critic’s primary responsibility? To try and understand the work and to write something worth reading.

From the New Issue

Pursuit of the New: Louise Hanson-Dyer, publisher and collector edited by Kerry Murphy and Jennifer Hill

Thunderhead by Miranda Darling

‘Portrait of a friendship: In memoriam Katerina Clark (20 June 1941–1 February 2024)’ by Sheila Fitzpatrick

The Trojan Horse and Other Stories: Ten ancient creatures that make us human by Julia Kindt

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