Recently I wrote that I do not request review books I believe are not to my taste. At the same time I like to believe my taste is fairly broad. I am more interested in quality writing than in genre. I read science fiction (recently Isaac Asimov), mysteries (Tara French), thrillers (Thomas Perry), historical fiction (Hilary Mandel), even an occasional fantasy (Kate Atkinson). I don't do well with romance, horror, or westerns. I respond best to and am most interested in literary fiction.
Occasionally of course I pick up a book that looks as if it should appeal and discover it doesn't. In the past, I've read on in the usually mistaken hope it will improve. (I also believe you have to clean your plate or else no dessert.) Only recently have I decided there are too many books I want to read to invest any more time with one I don't want to live with.
I've read reviews in which the writer seemed more interested in demonstrating his superiority than in discussing the book. The book exists only as an excuse for vituperation. Why spend time on an inferior work? After reading such a review with guilty pleasure, I feel mildly degraded. I'd rather promote a good book than dump on a bad one.
Especially when posterity may show you up as a fool. The New York Times Sunday Book Review recently printed excerpts from its 1961 review of Catch-22: The book, pronounced the reviewer, "has much passion, comic and fervent, but it gasps for want of craft and sensibility. A portrait gallery, a collection of anecdotes, some of them wonderful, a parade of scenes, some of them finely assembled, a series of descriptions, yes, but the book is no novel . . ."
No novel? Are you sure? I'm glad my name is not permanently attached to such condescension.
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