On criticism, gratitude and grace

Recently, I sent paperbacks of my two short story collections to a reviewer. He regularly writes for a major journal. (Unless he tells me otherwise, I'll assume he'd rather not be named here.)

And late last night he sent me an email. (Simply by doing this, he is in the upper echelons - you'd be appalled by the number who never respond.)

My books weren't to his taste and he wouldn't be looking to review them. Fair enough. Clear, polite, to the point. Not leaving me hanging. You can't please everyone, etc.

But then he wrote feedback. Long, generous feedback. Questions and thoughts and suggestions and advice. This is beautifully generous and I am grateful.

Had I thought about...? Why had I chosen that structure? Why slow the story down with ... when it should be quickened with ...?

I have answers to all of these questions. Sometimes I had thought about that very point when constructing the story. Sometimes I didn't but I still prefer the way I wrote it. Sometimes I agree entirely.

But who cares? He's not trying to 'beat' me. I don't have to try to 'win'. My 'answers' to his questions are utterly and totally irrelevant. He's not telling me to rewrite the book.

He's helping me to write a better book next time. He still might not like it. And that would be fine - because you can't please everyone, etc.

And the big, heartening point I take from all of this is that he felt it was worth his time. So I'll extrapolate from that to infer that he doesn't think I'm wasting my time. Or that reading my books wasted his.

Thank you. (If you read this, you know who you are.)


Elsewhere

Recently, I finished reading NW by Zadie Smith.

I wanted to like it. I tried to like it. Really I did. There was something compelling but, I have to admit, an awful lot that I found deeply irritating. I finished it though. (Didn't like the ending much.)

Maybe I only like the odd ones (the luminous White Teeth, the fabulous On Beauty).

But I'm not trying to write a proper review here. (Just as well.)

The outside cover, the inside cover, the opening pages - they're all plastered with as many reviews as anyone could want. (All positive, of course. Maybe it takes a different sort of author to promote books with the negative ones.)

And there, in the centre of the back cover, is A. N. Wilson's opinion. Just after he compares her to Dickens, he writes...

"it's hard to imagine a better novel this year - or this decade"

I find this hilarious in any number of ways. I have read some books I have enjoyed immensely and yet I've never felt it hard to imagine that in the ten years that follow, I might read something I enjoyed more.

If you spot him waxing lyrical about any other book before 2022, perhaps try to ask him whether he has to retract his NW review yet.