Paul Fussell wrote an essay about what he called the ABM, the "Author's Big Mistake", a letter of complaint about a review.
There are always options, particularly for the novelist Anthony Burgess slipped unflattering references to the reviewer Geoffrey Grigson into a couple of novels at least (Abba, Abba and The End of the World News). And I would bet that it was a snide review from Peter De Vries that led Frank Herbert to name the bad-guy assassin in Dune Piter De Vries.
I think it's okay to reply when the reviewer has blatantly misrepresented facts or clearly not read the book. I think one ought to do so civilly, however, with full knowledge going in that it could rebound on you. The best responses by writers to reviewers that I can recall were basically along the lines of, "No, what I actually said was this...." and "No, in fact it was 1962, not 1963...." That sort of calm correction. In other words, nothing about opinions, everything about fact-checking. You can't reply to an opinion, because it will always come down to taste. Towards a bad review based on opinion one must merely shrug.
A lot of writer are tempted to respond to bad reviews in the heat of passion, which is almost always the wrong time to respond. Everybody escalates, no one wins.
Paul Fussell wrote an essay about what he called the ABM, the "Author's Big Mistake", a letter of complaint about a review.
ReplyDeleteThere are always options, particularly for the novelist Anthony Burgess slipped unflattering references to the reviewer Geoffrey Grigson into a couple of novels at least (Abba, Abba and The End of the World News). And I would bet that it was a snide review from Peter De Vries that led Frank Herbert to name the bad-guy assassin in Dune Piter De Vries.
I think it's okay to reply when the reviewer has blatantly misrepresented facts or clearly not read the book. I think one ought to do so civilly, however, with full knowledge going in that it could rebound on you. The best responses by writers to reviewers that I can recall were basically along the lines of, "No, what I actually said was this...." and "No, in fact it was 1962, not 1963...." That sort of calm correction. In other words, nothing about opinions, everything about fact-checking. You can't reply to an opinion, because it will always come down to taste. Towards a bad review based on opinion one must merely shrug.
ReplyDeleteA lot of writer are tempted to respond to bad reviews in the heat of passion, which is almost always the wrong time to respond. Everybody escalates, no one wins.