Books
A few years ago, an adolescent boy with whom I liked to discuss books told me about a novel he had read called, The Traveler by John Twelve Hawks. The book, I found, was absorbing, a real page-turner.j It was about a group of Travelers, endowed with the ability to move among a set of…
Read MoreThe Hub Review features a perceptively waspish consideration of Pauline Kael’s unhealthy influence on film reviewers, taking scathing aim at a couple of her jittery heirs, A.O. Scott of the NYTimes and Ty Burr of the Boston Globe. I particularly like Tom Garvey’s concluding paragraph: But if the Paulettes have all repudiated their maker, where’s her baleful…
Read MoreHot on the heels of critic Sven Birkerts’s lament last week in the Boston Globe’s Ideas section that the blogosphere threatens shared literary culture comes Globe book critic Gail Caldwell’s moan that “the scribes and priests no longer hold the keys to the holy word; the word itself has splintered into an infinite series of…
Read MoreThe genuine divide is between those critics who see reviewing as an end in itself and those who see it as a means towards marketing or career boosting.
Read MoreMore evidence bean counters will be picking the classics of the future: two novels by Ayn Rand – the unhinged saint of unbridled capitalism – have been reissued as Penguin Modern Classics.
Read MoreBloggers are concerned about the fate of book reviews, so raising questions about the quality of book commentary online, especially asking how it can become better, is worth the effort. But any discussion about the future of reviews must be based in reality rather in wishful thinking or defensive delusion. By Bill Marx In an…
Read MoreBy Bill Marx Book reviewing is at a crossroads. Major newspapers and magazines are cutting column inches devoted to the evaluation of books, while blogs and book review sites online raise issues of ethical standards and quality control. Where should those who believe in the survival of book criticism expend their time and energy? Can…
Read MoreBy Bill Marx Criticism of the fine arts is dying in regional newspapers, but don’t waste too much time mourning the loss. Arts blogger and Wall Street Journal theater critic Terry Teachout’s recent article on how arts criticism is vanishing in regional newspapers hits the nail on the head, though he is either too considerate…
Read MoreBy Bill Marx A major Italian novelist with a worldwide reputation, Alberto Moravia, would have been 100 this year, but even in his homeland the parties are halfhearted. We should be breaking out the champagne and discovering this still subversive realist. The excellent Literary Saloon recently sent me to an article in Il velino that…
Read More
Arts Criticism Commentary: In Defense of Negative Book Reviews
“Criticism will always have the force of the child in the story about the emperor’s new clothes, because there will always be naked emperors who everybody says are wearing today’s Crown Jewels.” — Eric Bentley
Read More