How Mean Should a Negative Book Review Get?

Has anyone ever written a negative review of this book? If so, it better not have been mean!

I don’t like admitting that some writers might be too smart for me.  Yesterday I was reading an article on The New Yorker website about “hatchet job” negative book reviews when I got lost.  There were a lot of names I didn’t recognize and words that I didn’t immediately know (I don’t look words up in the dictionary very often anymore), so I lost interest.  But the topic of mean/nasty book reviews intrigued me. 

The author’s point (or one of them) was that British reviewers still go for the “hatchet job” while American reviewers go for the more gentle approach.  That makes sense to me.  The United States has been inundated with anti-bullying campaigns for years, and maybe it has taken hold in the literary community.  Writers like Dorothy Parker and Gore Vidal (and a bunch of old book reviewers whom I had never heard of), who were once celebrated for their literary insults, would now be viewed upon as literary bullies.  I don’t know if Great Britain has gone anti-bully.  I watch sessions of the House of Commons just for fun every once in a while (I have no idea what they’re talking about), and I don’t think any of the speakers I heard could sponsor any anti-bullying legislation with a straight face. 

I guess the “hatchet job” was more common in the United States a generation (or two) back.  I’d also guess that some of the “hatchet job” reviews were more for the ego of the reviewer than for the education of the reader.  Dorothy Parker and Gore Vidal were known for insulting other writers, but from what I’ve read (which is a tiny percentage of everything they’ve written), their insults weren’t very good and their comments weren’t very insightful.  As school children, they might have been bullied (pure speculation on my part) for being snooty, not for being clever, and that might have contributed to their mean-spirited negativity. 

Part of the problem is that people aren’t trained to give or take criticism.  A couple decades ago, I was in a writers’ group where we were encouraged to start our critiques with statements like “If I were writing this, I would take this approach,” or “If this were my selection, I would focus on this character instead of that character.”  It was positive but still constructive.  There wasn’t any “This was good,” or “This needs more work.”  It was a difficult standard to maintain.  About a year into the group, a member threw my manuscript on the floor and called it a waste of his time.  That wasn’t constructive.  It was kind of mean and negative.  And it wasn’t clever.  At least Dorothy Parker and Gore Vidal tried to be creative in their insults. 

If anything, book reviews today have gone too far the other way.  Now there are too many too positive reviews.  The positive review has become just another sales technique, which is okay as long as we readers are aware of that.  Between sock puppets, friends of the author, and reviewers not wanting to make anybody angry because they’re trying to sell their own books, it’s tough to trust book reviews anymore. 

During my first year of Dysfunctional Literacy, I wrote several negative reviews of popular books, but I hope my negativity had a point.  I wrote that Stephen King uses too many clichés in his newer books (and his older writing wasn’t nearly so lazy).  I wrote that John Sanford’s characters all talk the same way.  I wrote that Sue Grafton’s alphabet mystery series was a really stupid idea (but she found a market of readers who follow her books, so that gives me hope that readers will go for some of my stupid ideas too).  My reviews were negative, but I hope they weren’t mean.  I’d read them again to find out, but reading posts that are two year’s old can be painful. 

***** 

The New Yorker is not meant for me.  I’ll admit that.  The article that I mentioned is an example where the author has taken an interesting topic and then lost me after a few paragraphs.  I’d criticize the article for being longwinded and rambling, but then I’d leave myself open to accusations of being ironically mean-spirited for writing a “hatchet job” on a New Yorker article when I claim to not appreciate “hatchet jobs.”  So I’ll just say the topic was great but the article wasn’t for me.  I hope that isn’t negative. 

But enough about me!  How negative should reviews get?  Have reviews gotten too positive recently?  Do you even trust book reviews anymore?  And finally… does anybody read The New Yorker on a regular basis anymore?