(no subject)

Marie de France is coming, but not yet. So are more recipes. I just fell behind because yesterday was interesting in health terms and am in catch-up mode today. Also don't-pres-things-too-far-cos the migraine-isn't-as-far-gone-as-it-ought-to-be mode. Also why-doesn't-summer-mean-lazing-at-the-beach mode. of course, Canberra is rather stingy on beaches, so it makes sense it is stingy on lazing, too.

I did some work yesterday, but not any of the things I normally do to postpone real work - like writing blog entries. I am finished drafts for all my oustanding short stories (all two of them), started thinking about the one outsanding article I have to do, remembered about ten things I have been putting off which are rapidly becoming urgent, ran down my telephone battery with important conversations, and made a list of things I need to do in the next week and a half.

Lists are important. I am entering into competition to see who can most diminish a list in a given time frame, you see. I don't know if the winner gets anything except a case of exhaustion and a sense of finally being caught up with things, but I am a list person so it is a good idea. And it will get me out of my post-migraine funk. It will. All I have to do is keep saying that.

Sorry, Gillian is ranting

Reviewing is such a complicated business. There are so many notions about how it should be done and what it should achieve.

When I first read reviews of my own work, I wanted every review to somehow reflect things I saw in my own writing. I soon realised that they could only reflect how the reviewer saw my writing. No-one saw the book I wrote. All they saw was the book they were reading. And the book they were reading was partly of their own creation. Each and every reader brought their own ideas to it and fitted it around their needs and expectations.

Writing is such a terribly personal thing that the fit between my perception of things and anyone else's is approximate at best. When I read, I bring myself into the equation of someone else's work. When I review, you see my interpretation of how I experience the book. For years I didn't review at all, because I knew that my particular background gives me views that others might not share.

When I started reviewing, I had to face this. I decided that I would stick to honesty and strive for a fair and balanced review. How successful I am at this is obviously not for me to judge. I get feedback from the reviewed and it is mixed. Sometimes it is very negative. Even when I say positive things, they can be read as negative. The review is just as much a piece of writing as a book or short story and the reader of the review brings their own views into the equation.

The latest reward for my approach is that I have been accused of 'lazy destructiveness and intellectual dishonesty'. I am sorry I hurt the author in question. It was not my intention. I am less worried about my having an 'unsurprising predilection for migraines' than I am about the intellectual dishonesty bit. And the fact that I have hurt someone.

Reviews are funny things. You can be very positive about something and be accused of giving a negative review. Some people only write extremely positive reviews in order to avoid that trap. I can't do that. If I don't like a book I will say so, and admit why. I also admit it is personal. In every review I try to find out who the real audience is if it isn't someone like me, so that the readers of the review can see I am not the target group and can weight my words. Each time we read a review we need to make our own judgement about how useful that review is for us. Sometimes I will go out and get a book because the reviewer hates it, and I don't agree with their reasons.

And I thought all this was a sensible approach. Now I don't know. The comment on laziness and on intellectual dishonesty has me all a-twitter. What could I do differently? What *should* I do differently? And will any of it actually improve my reviews, or will it simply pacify authors and leave readers of my reviews with no useful guidance.

The funny thing is that the author in question is prize-winning and has a good reputation. My review isn't going to change that. Just as my review isn't going to prevent the right audience enjoying the book.

You know, my review quandary fits in with what I have been saying about openings and their genre indications. I was the wrong audience for that book and I said so, and I have been slammed for it. The writer was looking for comments on specific themes, but I wasn't looking for them, so I didn't comment on them. Genre indication and finding the right audience is entirely crucial to a book's reception.

Which is a great as a thought, but doesn't help me on what I should do with my reviewing.

APOLOGY: (added Saturday morning) I misquoted. I am apparently guilty of arrogance, not dishonesty. I am sorry - I really was fraught by the whole thing, but that is no excuse for such a bad misquote.