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On Reviewing by Carla Billinghurst |
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Well...where do I start? Recently, Paul in the video shop said to me “What do you like?” and I said, “Oh, you know, things blow up with jokes and aliens; and some romance but not too much snogging.” He said, “Have you seen District 9?” I said “Duh!” What I actually took home was a Swedish movie about two gay guys adopting a teenager and the story of the first time a Californian chardonnay beat a French one in a blind taste trial. Paul said “Huh?” and I said, “Look - the French and the Swedish are alien to me, things blow up emotionally, they're both funny and there's a bit of romance going on.” And he said, “How does that help me when I want to recommend things for you?” And I said, “I don't want you to recommend things for me.” Curiosity A Love of What is Worthwhile The reviews published here are by writers for writers. So this is not going to be like a newspaper reviewing books for a broad readership. Does this book teach me about writing or demonstrate some Immortal Writing Truth? My background is in theatre, so what I enjoy in the written word often has to do with the sound of the words spoken aloud. What is worthwhile in theatre are words that sound good whilst conveying meaning. But for something to sound good, the audience has to be able to hear it. I once stood on the playing space of the ancient outdoor theatre at Epidavros and whispered to my sister who was sitting up in the back row, where two thousand years worth of bottoms have sat and, of course, she could hear me. Try doing that in your local theatre without a microphone! So I can read Plautus or Terence and imagine one of those acoustically perfect performances. What that does is help me to read a script with an understanding of the thousands of years of thinking and effort and design sitting behind the perfect line, the perfect image, the perfect expression of what it means to be this character in this situation. And that gives some context, too – why would anyone read Plautus' Miles Gloriosus? Because it became that great film A Funny Thing Happened to Me on the Way to the Forum and because it was an early foray into writing that mocks self-importance, especially amongst soldiers. And because when you read a few of those works and realise that there is a consistent expression of these ideas and attitudes across time, then you start to find a richer sense of your own place in the human world. Worthwhile Words Outside Your Comfort Zone Reading outside your comfort zone doesn't necessarily mean reading a new book or a new author - it could mean bringing a new perception to an old favourite. That's an old theatre trick, too – put on a version of Henry V with everyone in Nazi uniforms or set Hamlet in an insane asylum. Reading is a little less flamboyant, but when I first read Lord of the Rings I didn't know that Tolkien had written all through WWII; re-reading it later with that knowledge, I had a different understanding of his despair and the endless trials he put his characters through. Reading To The Lighthouse with an understanding of how Woolf constructs and layers meaning by having a character's thoughts run for three pages in between the tiny steps of darning a hole in a jumper, means you read with more of an appreciation of what the author is doing. It might not be such a 'comfortable' read but it lets you learn from the great writers. Engaging with Writing For the last couple of years I have been writing a fairy tale. For a long time I resisted and resisted reading any of the “authorities”, the collectors like Grimm, the early parlour fairytale writers like Perrault, great intellects like Bettelheim who studied fairy tales and Campbell who studied myths, modern scholars like Zipes and Warner, the great fairy tale re-writers like Angela Carter, but then I gave in. I don't know precisely what I had been frightened of – perhaps that I would become part of an existing body of thought and therefore find my options narrowed, losing sight of the interesting things I wanted to write. Perhaps I was worried that I would discover it had all been written already and there was nothing left for me to say. What I actually found was evidence of a huge and learned audience of people wanting to read this type of fantasy and an enduring tradition that has informed and stretched my writing without limiting it. Reading New Things A richer experience of food or art is not a necessity; we can do without it. But how beige our lives would be if we didn't want more. So while our reviews may not offer choo-choo noises, they will hopefully encourage a curiosity about what is out there beyond Guinness and Beans. What we would like a review to offer you So You Want to be a Reviewer?
Critiquing and reviewing are great practice for writers. I joined Critters for a while and found myself reading stories I hated without any idea how to express why I hated them. Why did a story leave me cold? Why did a plot-line leave me yawning? What, exactly, was so irritating about a particular style of sentence construction? Like most writers who start critiquing other writer's work, I had to learn fast how to respond to other writers works in progress. Reviewing and critiquing are quite similar skills, so most writers these days probably have the nuts and bolts skills of how to read someone else's work and provide some critical feedback. But reviews are different. Critiques presume a work is under construction; when you're reviewing, the work is finished, edited, and published. Critiquing can be a relatively private affair; reviewing is public. Critiquing is a dialogue between you and the author; reviewing is more of a one-way street. At Perilous, we'd like to publish reviews from a broad range of perspectives. So, we'd welcome your reviews, but we do have some ideas about what those reviews should do:
*** About the Author Carla Billinghurst is the reviews editor for Perilous Adventures. If you'd like to submit a review, or contact her about writing book reviews for Perilous, email reviews@perilousadventures.net Carla lives and writes in the Blue Mountains where she tries not to think too hard about the Ninth Legion. She is currently working on a novel, The Dragon's Restaurant, which spills the beans on everything you always suspected (and more) about Sleeping Beauties and Bad Faery Godmothers. * |
Why bother to write reviews at all? Isn't it just a matter of walking into the library or bookstore or logging on to Amazon and checking out the “People who bought this, also bought...”
Years before I discovered that Dickens had written all of his books to be read aloud in music-hall performances, I was home-schooling my son and we decided to read Great Expectations together. The difference between the written word and the words read aloud was extraordinary: suddenly the text came to life, and an English lesson that we were concerned would be a chore became a daily delight. We discovered Dickens could have been sitting next to us, telling us what he thought about men and women and love and hate. After that we read Orwell, Shakespeare and Virgil. I don't know that my son would voluntarily read Dickens today, but I know he feels connected back through time to thoughtful people and I know he will experiment, he will take the time to try and read something new and that he will know why it is new, what is new about it. I'm not sure whether that explains him reading the whole of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in one sitting but, hey, someone had to.