The Perfect Reviewer
By R. A. SCOTT-JAMES AUTHORS of books have always been held to be the legitimate objects of criticism; but not so, to the same extent, the reviewers of books in the periodical Press. The latter, purveyors of criticism, are generally them- selves immune from criticism; aggrieved authors seldom hit back, since it is a convention of taste that they should not reply to their critics except when there has been an actual mis- statement of fact. But recently there has been a good deal of criticism of the critics; among reviewers there has been a disposition to comment on other reviewers, and among readers in general a desire to question not so much the opinions as the method adopted by reviewers. Not long ago a newspaper printed a letter from two readers complaining that reviews appearing in its pages, though admirably written, told them just nothing about the character and quality of the books noticed. In conversation I have heard that complaint again and again.
What then do we expect, or ought we to expect, from a reviewer ? Not surely just an agreeable literary essay in which the writer uses a book as his peg. There are occasions when an article of this kind may be justified. The writer may be a more interesting person than the author of the book, and the editor may well be content to have from him an essay alluding to a book which does not deserve extended discussion; but it would'he wrong to call such an essay a review. It does not fulfil the function of a review. Equally wide of the mark is a form of " reviewing " not so much in vogue now as once it was—the " gutting " review. The most extreme exponent of this easy device for filling columns was the voluminous journalist, T. P. O'Connor, who once a week used to fill about a page of T. P.'s Weekly with a report of a book consisting almost entirely of quotations. You were invited to judge the character of a book by having it potted for you by an adept in the practice of " gutting."
It was suggested some time ago by Mr. Stephen Spender that the reviewer is a special kind of writer, distinguished from all other kinds, sui generis. This at any rate is what I under- stood him to mean when he put critics in one class and reviewers in another, seeming to imply that they were writers in different categories. This in my opinion is to make too modest a demand on the reviewer. Ideally there is not a single attribute of the critic which should not be his; he should have all the qualifications of a critic and some besides. He is in fact —ideally—the critic devoting himself to a special task imposed on him by a special occasion. That occasion is the publication of a new book or a new edition of an old book. His job is to let the reader know, generally in-a short space, %hat sort of a book it is, and how it is presented—what its object is, whether it is a worthy one, how it is achieved or not achieved. The critique will be a failure if it does not convey to the reader the scope and character of the book, and be so written as to arouse interest in it.
We turn to the reviewers in the first place for information. Since some ten to thirteen thousand new books are published every year in this country alone, and we cannot even examine the jackets of most of them, we look to the literary, pages of responsible journals for a survey of what is significant in this immense field, and to individual reviewers for a factual and critical account of the particular books which may interest us.
The National Book League rightly exhorts us to buy books, but if we have any sense we are not going to buy a book until we are pretty sure it is one that we want to read and keep.
It is the reviewer's function to give that information to the best of his powers—factual, informative, explaining what the author set out to do and does; critical, making it clear from his observations in what respect the author has succeeded or failed.
I think it would be disastrous to set demands upon the reviewer too low. We should not accept the suggestion that he may be something less than a critic. Granted that he works under difficult conditions, that he has too little space and perhaps not much time, and that for some incomprehensible reason he is usually paid not more, as he should be, but less than other writers, still we cannot accept these difficulties as sound reasons for lowering his status or aiming at less than the ideal. A good priest or minister of religion would not suggest that the smallness of his stipend or his humble social status justified him in falling short in his religious duty. A reviewer should regard himself as a priest in the service of literature and truth, whether he is a great panjandrum with archiepiscopal rank or a humble parochial ministrant among note-writers; in either case he is charged with the responsi- bility of making " the best ideas " prevail.
A moment's thought will show that, ideally, he cannot be less than a critic in the full sense of the term. Like the latter, he should be acquainted with the subject which the author has chosen. The author will have pursued his path through some tract of territory which he is exploring, and the critic must be prepared to follow him over that country and as far as possible repeat in his own consciousness the experience which the author has recorded. He must ask himself what was it that the author set out to do, to what extent has he done it, and, in any case, was it worth while, has it become a valuable con- tribution to knowledge or to aesthetic experience ? Tho reviewer, by adequate knowledge of the subject, by under- standing of the language used, by power of sympathy with the mind of the author and sensibility to literary form, must be able • to reconstruct in his own mind whatever has been intelligibly constructed by the author; and, if he is dealing with a work of creative art, he should be capable of imaginatively reconstructing it, and conveying hints of that reconstruction to a reader. Only if he himself has been capable of such an imagina- tive effort will he be fully qualified, in the light of his own vision, to detect the essential qualities of the author's work or to explain his convictions of its merits and defects.
Whether, after statement, analysis and conclusions, his verdict will be a true one, or one which is at least worthy of consideration, depends on his critical capacity. He should be able to judge, as Coleridge said of the critic, " in the same spirit in which the artist produced, or ought to have produced." We can trust no judgement of beauty, said an earlier critic, Longinus, but that of one whose " judgement of literature is the long-delayed reward of much endeavour." These are exacting demands to put to any critic, and the more so in the case of the reviewer when we remember that he has certain functions to perform which are not those of every critic. And we cannot let him forget those special functions. He is a reporter as well as a critic; he is giving news about books which have now for the first time appeared; he is helping to guide readers in their choice of works which convey new knowledge and the new ideas of our own generation. He must in these respects be efficient if he is to satisfy us, and he must at the same time pursue the high ideals demanded of all other critics.
No doubt this is asking for a good deal. No doubt we shall not always get it. But it is well to know what we want to have, what we ought to have and how far what we are actually getting falls short of that.
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