Reviewing with Intention: Negotiating the Ethical Dilemma of a Balanced Review // Sanchari Sur

As part of our guest edited month, “Roles and Functions of Criticism: Comments on our Review Culture,”Sanchari Sur writes about “learning the art of speaking your mind.”

The first time I reviewed a book, I was fourteen. It wasn’t for school but for a writing website in Dubai I was “working” for. I wasn’t paid in money, or even the book itself (I had to return it after the review was done). Instead, I got to go to two concerts in Dubai for free: the Irish bands Westlife and B*Witched. The book itself was about a cis-het white man in the States who takes a road trip and comes to some realization about his life. Although the book would go onto sell well and win some awards, it was pretty boring for a teenager who was just getting interested in South Asian literary fiction. Not a book I would have knowingly picked to review.

In my early adult life, after I graduated from York University with a Bachelor of Arts in English and Psychology, I would go onto review books for community newspapers. I picked books that seemed fascinating (Ru Freeman’s On Sal Mal Lane),or featured a protagonist I could identify with (Saborna Roychowdhury’s The Distance).It was a fun exercise to see how I could apply my skills as anEnglish graduate, while I figured out my life and writing aspirations on the side.

Later, from 2015-2018, I would review fiction/poetry/non-fiction/children’s books for Shameless Magazine, writing short 100-word reviews of multiple books in a month. It would be here that I would encounter my first ethical dilemma as a reviewer. In my three years writing for Shameless, there would be two books that I would genuinely have an issue with writing anything positive about. The first, a new poetry collection by a renowned and respected Canadian poet, and the second, a novel by a first time Indian writer published from a small press in India. For the second, I would check in with my editor, and write a caustic (but honest) review of a badly written book. I cringe now at the memory of how much I hated the book, and at the time, I did not find it in my heart to even consider any possible merits. For the first book however, I would falter. While in 2015, I was yet unknown on the Canadian literary scene, I had every intention to “break out” soon, so to speak. Any negative words about the poet’s work could potentially jeopardize my break-out moment. I debated with myself for days, even asking for an extension on the review. In the end, I weakened, and wrote a generic neither-good-nor-bad 100 words on the book. It is easy to evade negativity in 100 words, as I have learned over the years.

These days I review with intention. I choose books that I genuinely believe have voices that need to be amplified, works that need to be highlighted. I don’t know if it matters in the end. Apart from writers of the reviewed books, their publishers, the family/friends of those writers, and maybe other book reviewers, who is reading these book reviews? I know I read them to improve my critical skills, to support writers/friends who are engaged in this noble endeavour, and generally to see what folks are saying about a certain book I am excited about.

Ethical dilemmas happen even now. For example, do I review a friend’s book? And if I do, do I do so honestly? In the Canadian literary world, it is impossible to avoid reviewing a fellow friend/writer. So yes, I will review a friend’s work if it’s commissioned (as was the case with Jess Taylor’s Just Pervs for The Puritan),and I will do so with utmost honesty. In other cases, I usually try to avoid conflicts of interest (whether real or perceived). That too is a personal tenet of a good review policy.

But if academia has taught me one thing, it’s this: Good criticism is a balance of both the positive and the negative overviews of a certain work. It is impossible to become a good, or even an above-average critic, if one is scared to openly write about what doesn’t work. I know of publications that discourage negativity of any kind in their book reviews, and I wonder why. Perhaps the answer lies in CanLit’s long tradition of back-scratching relationships through good reviews between academics, publishers, and writers. Don’t take my word for it. The author, scholar, and well-known Canadian critic Robert Lecker highlights this relationship in Making it Real: The Canonization of English-Canadian Literature (1995). Yet, any forward movement, re-evolution, or re-imagination, of literary works from this region of the world can only exist through honest review practices. Don’t be an asshole, of course, but learn the art of speaking your mind. Sometimes, you may have to use pretty words to couch harsh criticism (lest you hurt feelings and egos). But I have always believed that just like writing a good, balanced review is an art, so is the art of reading a review.

Sanchari Sur has reviewed for Shameless Magazine, and currently reviews for Arc Poetry Magazine. They have reviews forthcoming in Arc, THIS Magazine, and EVENT Magazine. They are also a PhD candidate in English at Wilfrid Laurier University, and a writer with works forthcoming on Joyland and Al Jazeera. Find them on Twitter: @sanchari_sur, or http://sursanchari.wordpress.com.