A while ago, I read an essay about what to do when you're friends with a writer and you don't like her work. The essay quoted a playwright who said he would tell a critical friend, "I would prefer that you value my feelings over your opinions." Clearly he was not an academic, or used to hanging around with one.
Last month's column was about how to avoid hurt feelings and battered relationships when friends turn to you for a close read, before publication (The Chronicle, January 9). Here I'm talking about the proper response, post-publication, and not just from friends.
I'm grateful when someone takes the time to read my work carefully enough to give me a smart response. When I get something wrong, I like to know about it. When someone disagrees with me, I can be enchanted by a strong counterargument. One of the things I like most about writing for national publications is being part of a larger conversation. It's lonely, horrible work getting something to the point of publication. It's nice to know that people are paying attention.
When I lived in North Carolina I did occasional commentaries for my local public-radio station. Friends and acquaintances would say to me: "I heard you on the radio."
Now what are you supposed to say to that? You can't say "thank you," because you haven't been given a compliment. I would never ask, "What did you think?," because that's a setup for a potentially awkward conversation. Usually I would shrug, smile, and say, "Oh."
One day I smashed up my car. I called my mechanic, Pete. First he offered condolences. "You loved that car," he said. Then he said, "I heard you on the radio."
"Oh," I replied.
Then he continued, "Here's what I liked about the essay. You set up the arc right from the start. The way you developed the ideas was unexpected, but it worked." He went on like this for a while and also pointed out places he thought didn't work as well. Pete was the only person who let me know that he had paid attention not only to the fact that he had recognized my voice, but to what I had to say.
The response dilemma pervades the arts. I know people who spend time during a performance by someone they know thinking not about the work but trying to craft an appropriate comment. After it's over, most try to find something nice to say, even if it's "Your hair looked really shiny."
I generally don't trust comments that are made directly to my face, right after a reading. My friends are nice people; if they don't like something I write, I don't expect them to be honest. I'm more likely to believe a kind remark that comes to me secondhand, or from a stranger.
Most academics don't spend a lot of their time performing. Only a rare and talented few get applause from their students after a lecture. While we can all think of extraordinary exceptions, professors don't tend to have groupies. And, when a scholarly book is published, the expected response, at least for some time, is silence. All those years of work and finally a bound book is in hand. The publisher sends it out to reviewers. Silence. You give it to friends and family. They say the cover looks really nice and isn't it exciting to have it out, finally.
How many people can you expect to read your monograph on the mating habits of the banana slug? (Actually, I'd read that one in a heartbeat: Those crazy slugs defy belief.) Which of your poker buddies can't wait to dive into a historical analysis of the toile industry? Will your mother slog through your book about the teleological suspension of the ethical?
It's a lot easier to respond to a performance, or a talk. There, all you have to do is show up and think of something smartish to say. It's a different story when someone gives you an offprint of a journal article, complete with a sweet inscription. Or when an author forks over a copy of a monograph that costs more than a tin of caviar. The fact is, most academics are lucky to be read by people outside of their subfield. If you give a book to someone, it's a rare friend who will put down her own research — or an old issue of People magazine — to read it.
I love receiving copies of people's books. And I almost always intend to read them, right away. But then they get piled under all the other stuff I have to do. And then I forget about them.
If we can't expect our friends and families to respond, we can hope that reviewers eventually will. That can be a good thing, or not. A good negative review — one that takes the work seriously, engages with the argument, and points out the flaws you knew were there but hoped no one would notice — can be useful to an author. A bad negative review, and we've all read those — where the reviewer has not read the book carefully, willfully misrepresents the argument, uses the author's book as a vehicle to discuss something completely unrelated, or is just plain mean — isn't worth the trees or pixels used to present it.
But professional and peer reviewers are, of course, asked to share their opinions with the rest of us; whichever editor has asked them to comment clearly thinks that they have something to say worth hearing. And they are accountable for what they write. So those reviews do have value. Unlike, say, the ones written by anonymous reviewers.
The Internet has brought us so many good things that it's impossible to think of life without it. (Can you imagine dating without Google?) But one aspect of the Web I could easily forgo is anonymous online reviews or blog posts. They are the refuge of cowardly, craven, dastardly, lily-livered, faint-hearted, gutless wimps who are unwilling to stick their necks out like those whose work they so readily, facilely, easily, and often nastily critique. (There: I bet that's going to get me a slew of anonymous trashing.)
Amazon.com has given voices to those who have been bashed and battered by the traditional means of access. Now, instead of working hard to get published, you can spend your time and energy dumping on those who have. Blogs and Internet chat groups allow everyone a chance to be heard. But if you write a review you're proud of, why wouldn't you want to sign your name?
Wanting to write anonymously about the personal or professional details of your own life is one thing. I understand the reasons for that. But carping about other people from behind the curtain? That's the sign of a very bad wizard. It saddens and depresses me to see the tone and nature of so many of the anonymous responses to articles in The Chronicle. As academics, we are paid to have thoughts, to hold opinions. But Internet forums, great venues for the exchange of ideas, often turn into mudslinging of the most petty and mean-spirited kind.
I'm OK having mud slung at me. Maybe sometimes I deserve it. But I like to see who's pitching it, to know the background and qualifications of the person who is expending energy to take me down. Is that too much to ask? When I do a review, either for publication or as an anonymous peer reviewer, I ask myself if I would I be able to speak what I've written directly to the author. Were we to meet, would I feel bad or guilty? Would I try to avoid her at a cocktail party? If so, I know I need to revise. It is possible to be critical without being nasty, funny without being mean. If you must be negative, have the nerve to stand by what you think and sign your name to it. Live with the consequences. The rest of us have to.
And if it's the work of a friend, and you really don't like it, you should either keep quiet, or say, "Gee, your hair looks really shiny."
