... The conversation: Should we celebrate scathing book reviews? | Comment is free | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I don't think a review should be celebrated just because it is scathing. In this review, for example, my friend Paula Marantz Cohen takes apart Umberto Eco's latest novel, but the review is not a hatchet job. It may weigh Eco's entire work in the balance and find it wanting, but it is not gratuitously nasty.
I don't entirely agree with it. I liked Foucault's Pendulum. But I still found what Paula says well worth pondering.
I wrote a positive review of Baudolino, though I thought it a lesser, somewhat mannerist book. (Of course, I'm a sucker for practically anything Medieval.)
I haven't read the new one, and Paula's review doesn't make me want to bother. Why? Because the case she makes is very strong, and life is short. That's why we need reviews in the first place.
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