I really enjoyed reading this - and I'm very stoked for Part Two, a creative relationship that has been rattling around in my own mind for quite some time, along with the poet-turned-novelist theme. I'm new to substack and appreciated the pointers to further great pieces!
I agree! Maybe this is what Manov is saying about negative reviews — a minor key negative review won't pay off, so you might as well amp it up to 11. Tbh, when publishing books I'm terrified of a takedown, but of not scared of a negatively slanted review that really tries to figure out what I'm doing. As a critic I'm aware that I've pissed people off by spending weeks hardcore re-reading their books and finding both things to admire and faults, a reaction I've never understood bc to me it is a sign of RESPECT!
Another thing is that reviews for small press titles are uniformly positive because it’s seen as destructive and mean to criticize (in the negative sense) a book that isn’t going to sell well anyway. I think the general idea is that if you want to review small press titles (which you might want to do if you’re building your career as a critic) you’re encouraged Only to uplift books worth bringing more attention to, not to call unnecessary attention to flaws in works that no one was going to buy anyway. I’m not sure how I feel about this but it’s definitely a thing.
I agree, and I think about it a lot when choosing books to review. If you're providing visibility or maybe even the only criticism for a book, there's way more of a burden on you to document it positively. I don't know how to account for that either! But it is related to everyone's precarity and the lack of places that pay for criticism.
I would say that critic are incentivized to write takedowns, but they're not incentivized to write just a regular negative review, where they say the book isn't really good. So if you're going to critique a book, there is an incentive to make it really vicious so it can get attention. If it's not attention gettingly vicious then often you've just made the author and their friends mad at you, in ways that tend to come out years down the line.
Also, if you file a review that's merely negative, there is a chance it won't run, because editors will wonder why they are wasting time on a book that's bad.
Not sure I'd agree that takedowns, as you describe, are in good faith. The first reason goes to your point on incentives: there are multiple reasons to do this which could have a lot to do with reputation and the critic's own need to get published. Attention is a currency.
The second is because this culture, and critical/academic culture has built itself on psychology, and psychology as a field is weak, influenced by culture as it tries to influence it, and is filled with people that have their own motivations for creating and refining its ideas. It's almost a cheat code for making a takedown sound intellectually valid, because pop psychology is omnipresent.
That said, I do think there is such a thing as a good faith negative review, and many people confuse it with a takedown or a bad faith review because then they can dismiss it. I just don't think that throwing Psych 101 into a takedown validates it. I'm not going to point out examples, but you're very likely to find a bad faith review within a takedown.
I do think there are bad faith takedowns, and I think you can usually spot them. They aren't convincing. The brilliant ones transcend their circumstances, even though the motives of publishing one can be dubious.
At some point I think I should pull examples of different reviews and take a close look at them, to see which ideas hold up on a case-by-case basis... on the other hand, reviewing reviews feels like a terrible use of time lol
I really enjoyed reading this - and I'm very stoked for Part Two, a creative relationship that has been rattling around in my own mind for quite some time, along with the poet-turned-novelist theme. I'm new to substack and appreciated the pointers to further great pieces!
This was excellent- thank you.
I agree! Maybe this is what Manov is saying about negative reviews — a minor key negative review won't pay off, so you might as well amp it up to 11. Tbh, when publishing books I'm terrified of a takedown, but of not scared of a negatively slanted review that really tries to figure out what I'm doing. As a critic I'm aware that I've pissed people off by spending weeks hardcore re-reading their books and finding both things to admire and faults, a reaction I've never understood bc to me it is a sign of RESPECT!
Another thing is that reviews for small press titles are uniformly positive because it’s seen as destructive and mean to criticize (in the negative sense) a book that isn’t going to sell well anyway. I think the general idea is that if you want to review small press titles (which you might want to do if you’re building your career as a critic) you’re encouraged Only to uplift books worth bringing more attention to, not to call unnecessary attention to flaws in works that no one was going to buy anyway. I’m not sure how I feel about this but it’s definitely a thing.
I agree, and I think about it a lot when choosing books to review. If you're providing visibility or maybe even the only criticism for a book, there's way more of a burden on you to document it positively. I don't know how to account for that either! But it is related to everyone's precarity and the lack of places that pay for criticism.
I would say that critic are incentivized to write takedowns, but they're not incentivized to write just a regular negative review, where they say the book isn't really good. So if you're going to critique a book, there is an incentive to make it really vicious so it can get attention. If it's not attention gettingly vicious then often you've just made the author and their friends mad at you, in ways that tend to come out years down the line.
Also, if you file a review that's merely negative, there is a chance it won't run, because editors will wonder why they are wasting time on a book that's bad.
Not sure I'd agree that takedowns, as you describe, are in good faith. The first reason goes to your point on incentives: there are multiple reasons to do this which could have a lot to do with reputation and the critic's own need to get published. Attention is a currency.
The second is because this culture, and critical/academic culture has built itself on psychology, and psychology as a field is weak, influenced by culture as it tries to influence it, and is filled with people that have their own motivations for creating and refining its ideas. It's almost a cheat code for making a takedown sound intellectually valid, because pop psychology is omnipresent.
That said, I do think there is such a thing as a good faith negative review, and many people confuse it with a takedown or a bad faith review because then they can dismiss it. I just don't think that throwing Psych 101 into a takedown validates it. I'm not going to point out examples, but you're very likely to find a bad faith review within a takedown.
I do think there are bad faith takedowns, and I think you can usually spot them. They aren't convincing. The brilliant ones transcend their circumstances, even though the motives of publishing one can be dubious.
At some point I think I should pull examples of different reviews and take a close look at them, to see which ideas hold up on a case-by-case basis... on the other hand, reviewing reviews feels like a terrible use of time lol