If you don’t have anything nice to say…
[M. Bartley Seigel / February 20th, 2011 / Young Bright Things ]
1. Back in August Anis Shivani published a half-baked and perfectly dissmissible essay on the Huffington Post called The 15 Most Overrated Contemporary American Writers. There were responses to this, of course, there was handwringing, all of it equally half-baked and forgettable and happily, for my part, forgotten. Until, much more recently, like yesterday, Jason Jordan self-confessed to his nursing a bit of an obsession over Shivani’s article over the last six months and blogged his own much abbreviated version of the overrated, whittled down to 5. In a matter of hours, John Madera blogs a take down of Jordan’s take down over at Big Other. Facebook and twitter madness ensues. At the same moment, my wife posted as her status update “the children are bickering.” The children she referred to are 7- and 3-years-old. Ahem.
2. People like what they like, or they don’t. Some people have big platforms, some little. Some opinions are grounded in reasoned argument, some in jealousy, some in rage, and some are just off the cuff expressions of a mind with a little too much time and technology on its hands at any given moment. Some opinions come with experience or erudition or some other form of pedigree or power to back them. Some don’t. Some opinions are important. Some aren’t. Some are gratifying, others hurtful. We know this, right? And we know it’s our job to sift through all it like it’s somehow all equal because we also know there no longer exists any authority in whom we all look to, all share, all trust to help us in the task. We like what we like and we believe what we believe, damn the evidence, and it’s our right to broadcast ourselves regardless of how little we have to add to the conversation. Fine. Here we are. Huzzah for us.
3. But when it comes to cultural consumption, particularly with books and authors, why do we waste our words writing about what we don’t like when there’s so much that we do like that needs our attention? Why do we insist on rabidly spotlighting the already overrated and overhyped? Isn’t that bizarre? Do I really need to learn about a bad book that I shouldn’t read? Do I really need my attention drawn to a poorly written blog post that I shouldn’t link to? Have you ever arrived to a party to have someone run up to you all excited and say, “Hey, man, come over hear and listen to this asshole tell a totally boring story!” No, or at least I would hope not. Can we, instead, allow the bad to slink away to die its quiet death in oblivion (we do this with most books and authors already, don’t we? so we’re already good at it). I’m not saying we should all just be a bunch of Pollyannas and cheerleaders. Madera points out that he’s hungry for insight, criticism, and rigor and I am, too. But being hungry for something is a lot different than serving something up and I, for one, am growing tired of the former and wishing for a little more of the latter. Tell me what needs to be seen, read, heard, if you’re so damn smart. Tell me what you’ve found that’s awesome because I probably haven’t found it yet myself. Tell me something I don’t know, something I need to know, because I’m sure I don’t know much. I need you. I love you. Stop leading me astray.
This is what I love about being involved with Vouched. The concept to share what we love is so positive, and really, so EASY. Writing about what takes you out at the knees, fights your brain, and leaves your heart for dead is so much more fulfilling than writing about something that is just “eh”.
It’s like that thing that person said that one time about being a light instead of just cursing the dark or something.
I like Vouched. A lot.
AMEN! Thanks for posting this.
Like.
Hi, M. Bartley Seigel.
Thanks for your response.
It’s ironic to find a post negatively critiquing the negative critiquing of a negative critique. Perhaps someone will write a post about your post, that pattern repeating itself into perpetuity until we no longer know what caused it all.
Just as an exercise, let’s turn your questions and comments around to you: Why are you “wasting your words writing about what you don’t like,” that is, a post taking down a take down, when there’s so much that “you do like that needs our attention? Tell me what needs to be seen, read, heard, if you’re so damn smart. Tell me what you’ve found that’s awesome because I probably haven’t found it yet myself. Tell me something I don’t know, something I need to know, because I’m sure I don’t know much. I need you. I love you. Stop leading me astray.”
Rather than talk about the inherent contradictions and double standards of your post, let me say that I think you have every right to raise your concerns about critiques and their concomitant conversations and the ways in which they’re conducted. You obviously have a right to write about what you don’t like, and you’ve demonstrated this by posting this post. I don’t think you’ve wasted your words at all, though I think you might have given them more consideration.
Also, take a look at what I’ve been up to and you might find that I spend most of my critical attention reviewing books and discussing things that are largely off the mainstream’s radar. My critique of Jordan’s slop was a minor detour. A pity it gets more attention than far more substantive things.
John, when you thank people for their responses, you are not really thanking them. You are being passive aggressive or at least that is how it comes off. You read selectively, pulling from whatever you’re reading what best suits what you want to say. Yes, Matt is, in a way, discussing something he doesn’t like but you know full well that’s not really what he’s doing and to characterize this post in that manner is so incredibly reductive.
I like that you have my back, Roxane.
Ride or die for lyf.
Thanks for your lecture and psychological reading, Dr. Gay.
That’s why I have a Ph.D., John.
I know it, hence, my referring you with the proper honorific.
zing
thats what he does…
I like your book reviews, John.
Thanks, M.
OMG
I like you, xTx.
And, oh how I like you, Matt
ha
And the painted ponies go up and down.
Solid post, Matt. I liked this part:
“Can we, instead, allow the bad to slink away to die its quiet death in oblivion (we do this with most books and authors already, don’t we? so we’re already good at it).”
The NBA all-star game is on tonight.
I know you wish the Lakers were beating Boston tonight. Soon, though, you can witness green going down again. Until then, console yourselves with memories of last year’s championship game.
There will come a day when your shoulders are draped in green, Roxane, with the name “Pierce” stitched across the back.
Thanks for posting this, Matt.
Every time I come across a post chock-full of someone slagging the work other folks have done, I kind of want to curl up next to the person doing the slagging and whisper “who hurt you, baby?” in their ear.
Stop wasting energy tearing shit down. Get back to work.
And when can you and I schedule this curling business, Sean?
Sometimes I think it’s nice to hear about something someone doesn’t like, if only as evidence that they’re capable of disliking something, which gives more weight to what they do praise because they’ve shown they don’t enjoy everything. Sometimes I think people who are all positive all the time can be annoying sometimes. But maybe I’m having these thoughts because I haven’t fully processed 9/11.
I think negativity (or, really, negation) can be productive, but there are three very different kinds of negativity in play here. It’s certainly true (per Roxane) that to equate the post here and John Madera’s is reductive; one has an element of moving forward and the other, to me at least, seemed not to. Jason’s post, meanwhile, was not only productive but, I thought, funny. To miss the sense of humor is a bit retrograde, especially on this Internet.
I may never have gone to a party and have someone say, “Hey, man, come over hear and listen to this asshole tell a totally boring story,†but I have had people come up and say, “Stay away from that asshole so you don’t get dragged into a boring story.”
That’s part of the purpose of a negative review: telling people who are curious but unsuspecting that it’s best to keep away. If you didn’t have an interest in the book in the first place, you’re going to either ignore the review or stop reading after a few paragraphs.
Another purpose of the negative is telling the authors what’s not working so they can improve. I’ve had authors respond to their harsh critiques on the HBC with “That was painful, but everything was true.” I rarely get hotheaded responses like Katherine Rosman’s, who ranted on Gawker about her harsh critiques in the LA Times and NY Times.
I’ll agree, though, that when all the talking heads converge on a subject as boring and forgettable as the Shivani article and turn it into a big deal, it’s irritating. Sometimes, it really is best to dismiss an article with a shrug and introduce a new topic for discourse.
There are plenty of stances to take here, but I’m happy to see someone making a case for positivity and support within the community. Negativity has a place when constructive, but these poisonous soapboxes get tiring, especially when they’re making generalizations about art based on their own “critique for the sake of critique” attitudes.
Thanks, Matt.
Does anyone else notice how John Madera always has to have the last word, no matter what? Like with this little comment here; it’s meaningless but because I mention John I’m sure he will reply to it with some strange analysis of what he thinks I really mean and then I’ll make a reply telling him that it was just a meaningless comment meant to see whether he would reply with some strange analysis of what he thinks I really mean and then we’ll go back and forth like that because John always has to have the last word. Or, who knows, he’ll trick me up and not reply to this comment at all. And if he does, I’m not going to bother continuing the cycle, so, in a way, he does have the last word.
Thunder and lightning. I’m heading to the front porch. I like the sound of rain on a tin roof.
I’m feeling wishy washy about this whole thing.
I guess trashing people is better than the constant suck off contest that is ‘networking.’
Networking is only a suck off contest if you allow it to be. In a lot of what you’ve said here and there online, I sense a real concern with sucking off etc. but it’s only a problem if you allow it to be a problem, you know? Like who cares what other people do. It’s really about what you do at the end of the day.
I hype things I’m excited about and write fan mail when I read something that really gets me, but when I read something that I’m not into, I just stay quiet. I have no real interest in commenting on something when I don’t have compliments for it. I don’t think I’m off base when I say that a lot of people hype stuff they don’t care about just because they feel they should, or that it can get them “in.”
My initial thoughts on this whole thing were along the lines of “Why spend your energy trashing something?” but the more energy that other people spent trashing the initial post, and then even more on subsequent posts, I just kept wondering where all this comes from. It was almost funny until I read all of Madera’s posts.
But that brings me back to my original comment. At least people are making snarky remarks at each other rather than saying GREAT JOB PLEASE RT.
snark can be fun from time to time to blow off steam, but it’s dangerous as a potential time and energy suck. when i’m pissed i’m focused on being pissed, which is fine, i guess, but i’m not going to get anything worthwhile accomplished.
[...] First there was Anis Shivan’s wading into the fray. Then Jason Jordan thought he’d talk about writers he isn’t fond of. Then John Madera thought he’d talk about how he wasn’t fond of how Jason Jordan talked about writers he wasn’t fond of.  Then Mickey Hess put a fork made of unicorn tears into it. And now the tussle continues in the comments on M. Bartley Siegel’s post  at Pank. [...]
Here’s a plug for the constructive negative review.
Well written negative criticism is harder to write. Any review demands the author should be intimately involved, passionate, take notes, reread, have an understanding of similar and competing works…praise is easier to write, so why bother with negative? Well, for the same reason a teacher criticizes a student…now a critic may not have this relationship with the author, but the good critic has a very similar motive, to improve literature.
Constructive criticism, whether negative or not, helps us decide what to read, whether it is Franzen’s Freedom or Bronte or Henry James. Sometimes a well written 1,000 words argued (from a trusted source) against Freedom (hypothetically) might keep someone from spending 50 pages before coming to the same conclusion.
I had a teacher who loved everything I did, and I didn’t learn anything, I had another teacher who hated everything I did, and my writing improved considerably.
Writing any review has the potential to help the literary critic with his or her own creative endeavors.
The negative review gives credence to positive reviews. There are valid reasons why people only praise, nevertheless…I’m reminded of the Seinfeld “ugly baby” episode. For those who’ve never heard: A doctor compliments Elaine, a friend of the Seinfeld gang has a baby and Elaine & Jerry & everyone agree it is “the ugliest baby” ever, except the doctor, who uses the same compliment he used on Elaine for the baby. Thus Elaine questions the praise.