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Shashi Deshpande has her own review on reviews and reviewers. BAGESHREE S. was present when she let off steam
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Shashi Deshpande: miffed that too many irresponsible views and biases get passed off for reviews within the little space left
SHASHI DESHPANDE is a soft-spoken person. But the well-known English writer can surely pack a punch when she is irked by something. And there were many punches coming as she spoke about reviews and reviewers at Select Book Shop.
Shashi started on a tentative note, wondering if it is right for a writer to talk about reviews at all, being an "aggrieved party" and therefore not completely objective. But such doubts seemed to peter out as she gallantly took on the tribe of reviewers and critics.
Reviews are very important, Shashi conceded. After all it is the first response a writer, till then caught in a "tunnel vision", receives from the world beyond. "To be ignored is the worst fate for a book and its author", she said, somewhat like "being dropped into an abyss". But the business of reviews is always double-edged, while a good one can spur you on, a bad one can ruin the morale, and in the worst case, even put someone off the business of writing altogether. Keats, they say, "died of the Quarterly Review" and Hardy stopped writing novels after his Jude the Obscure got bad reviews. Margaret Drabble's angry outburst after reading a review was: "Look me in the face and say the same things." But there was also a P.G. Wodehouse who said: "They won't get a sob out of me." And Doris Lessing simply never read any reviews of her books.
Most writers feel rather helpless and frustrated after reading an irresponsible review. Not to respond at all is, most often, the best and the most dignified option for a writer. But there is no point blacking out an issue that rankles. "There are many things only a writer can say — so why not me?" thought Shashi, and decided to take on the mighty task. After all, it's not easy to remain unaffected by a review. Virginia Woolf once said that she felt "flooded with ideas" after a good review, and "all the lights sank, my reed bent to the ground" after a bad one.
To start with, there is the problem of shrinking space for literature in newspapers and magazines, said Shashi. A review hardly exceeds 600 words today. And she's miffed that too many irresponsible views and biases get passed off for reviews within the little space left.
In India, reviewing is not even seen as a specialised area of work. How can someone who hasn't read anything of the author beyond what's come her way for review qualify, wondered Shashi. And horror of horrors, there are reviewers who don't even bother to read the book. One reviewer wrote about Shashi's Small Remedies as if it was an autobiography! There are greater ignorances though, like a reviewer in Washington Post complaining about Indian names in Shashi's book. Equally dangerous is the tendency to attach tags and slot writers, what Margaret Atwood calls "put-down syndrome".
And there's the menace of oh-so-smart reviews, which started with Shobhaa De's books. They give her half-page reviews, thanks to her celebrity status, but choose to write condescendingly in a "see-how-clever-I-am" tone. This would offend any writer who takes her own writing seriously.
Who then would qualify for a good reviewer in a serious writer's scheme of things? Shashi had an answer: "For a writer, a good reviewer is not the one who just praises, but who understands what you're trying to say, what you are trying to do, and tells you how and where you fall short of it." A category not easy to come by. Reviewers hardly ever give grace marks to first-timers, Shashi complained. "Kindness, which I don't think is spoken in any book of criticism, certainly matter in life."
Considering the barrage of complaints authors have of reviewers, should authors themselves double up as reviewers? This was also a question Shashi asked. Maybe, considering that people such as Eliot and Woolf themselves made such excellent reviewers. Authors, in general, have "greater respect for written work". But there are problems as well, such as the difficulty in sitting in judgment over a colleague and the familiarity within a small circle. When Salman Rushdie wrote a good review about Kiran Desai's book, people said he was paying back the debt of a good review her mother, Anita Desai, gave him years ago for Midnight's Children.
Sales figures can sometime make up for an unkind review, said Shashi. And so do response of readers themselves. Jane Austen, for instance, collected the opinions of family and friends and never mentioned any critics. They matter a lot of Shashi herself, since it is not a studied response, but one that comes from emotional bonding. After all, literature is all about "touching people's lives".
As she rounded off her talk, Shashi said: "In theory, I have no hostility towards critics." With an unmistakable emphasis on "in theory"! Well, you need everyone to make up a world of knowledge — readers, writers, and critics too. "But I wish... " she said, and let it trail.
Of course, there can be no defence for an irresponsible review or newspapers sparing more newsprint for fashions and trends, while shrinking the space for serious issues, and literature. But then haven't publishers, bookshop owners, and authors themselves also learnt to handle this situation rather cleverly? Isn't every book launch and reading (organised by publishers and bookshops) diligently reported by the media? Knowing perfectly well how event-hungry every newspaper has become, books too are these days packaged as events. One wondered why Shashi didn't dwell talk about this trend, though she did say: "The forces of marketing work through the media and otherwise to create an idea of a book."
However, having said what had been weighing on her mind for long, Shashi was relieved. "Tonight I can sleep in peace... It's a load off my chest." But that offloading had enough in it to set something gnawing within a reviewer's mind. Consider this: "The lack of good critics is a big problem for most Indian writers, the biggest problem for English writing in this country... There is a sense of angry impotence... What do we do when ridicule and supercilious pieces of destructive judgement are all that the reviewers seem to be capable of?"
Should there have been a reviewer at Select Book Shop to respond to this charge?
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