The review model is a dead end
Reader comment on: The Scorn of the Literary Blog

Submitted by Anirudh Karnick, Jun 27, 2007 08:00

Over the last two years, I have read and enjoyed many blogs but all of them on and off, the only two exceptions being the literary blogs of Chandrahas Choudhury (http://middlestage.blogspot.com) and Jai Arjun Singh (http://jaiarjun.blogspot.com), which I read regularly. This might be because in India, where I reside, the book review pages of the major newspapers are pathetic -- they offer the reviewer very little space and all of them review more or less the same books. But then, there are other interesting general magazines like Tehelka and Himal which carry good reviews and certain monthly literary magazines like Biblio which I could read (and often do) apart from the many other publications (Indian and foreign) that are available online. Besides, I am a literature student and have access to many of these and more.

In spite of all this, I prefer reading these blogs to reviews (though I do like many reviews) and think they are worth having because: first, they allow the reader of the blog to have a conversation -- often entertaining and enlightening -- with the writer and other readers of the blog. I see so many comments here but not a single reply from you. On the other hand, almost every time my comment raises certain points worth discussing, the bloggers reply. Second, they give the writer much more space -- practically unlimited, in fact -- to argue his case (the bite-sized argument is rather foolish; it is the other way round). Third, it allows the blogger to write about any book that he wants, not just ones that have been recently published or those that are considered 'worthy'. Fourth, the blogger can approach it from any perspective that he likes, not necessarily a 'literary' one that an editor would approve of. If the book has reminded him of something in his own life and he wants to meander as Jai sometimes does in his posts, it is okay and often enjoyable. Fifth, there are more books out there than even ten times the current number of book reviewers could handle and bloggers, with their varied interests can play a valuable role here.And last, a blog generally has only one writer, whom one starts to trust and respect while newspapers, at least in India, often have different people reviewing books for them every week, some of them terrible.

But all these aside, I think what irritated me the most was the schooled mentality of the writer -- that only a certain body of people should be allowed to have a say on the book. If, as Mr. Kirsch claims,"there is no such thing as an objective judgment of a work of literature", it is all the more reason for allowing various people to offer their different reactions to a book. More and more people reading books, writing about them, and then grappling with them in their conversations with their blog readers, is what will lead to the flowering of any culture -- literary, scientific, political -- not a closed model where a small bunch of newspaper reviewers assumes it knows better and dictates its judgments to a passive audience. That, Mr. Kirsch, is a dead end.

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