Fulford vs. the conflict police
In today’s National Post, Robert Fulford weighs in on the issue of book reviewer bias, one that was covered just last week on this very blog.
Fulford’s take on reviewer bias as a cause for concern is largely dismissive: “Nobody complains if reviewers can’t write, know little about their subject, put their readers to sleep or absurdly overrate a book’s quality. But if there’s a chance that Bruce’s vicious teardown of Samantha’s novel was motivated by a rotten review Samantha’s husband gave Bruce six years ago, it’s a scandal.”
The main thrust of Fulford’s argument is essentially, “conflict, schmonflict.” Here is an excerpt from the column sure to offend at least one officer of what he calls the “Conflict Police:”
“Do the people editing book pages read criticism as well as commissioning it? If they do, they must know that in the last century much of the best critical writing was produced by people close to their subjects. Have they heard that the most celebrated American critic of his time, Edmund Wilson, wrote more than a few words about his dear friend F. Scott Fitzgerald? Or that H.L. Mencken had a platoon of novelists he both reviewed and published in his magazine, the American Mercury?
That won’t impress the Conflict Police. They never rest. They live in fear that a sinister network of interlocking backstabbers operates within the otherwise pristine republic of letters. Armed only with a sense of self-righteousness, they are determined to purge the book pages of unethical conduct, even if they have to destroy reviewing in the process.”
Related links:
Read Fulford’s full column here
