The little drummer boy

[hazelk]

So catching up with the weekend papers at last a review of Barbara Gowdy’s new novel Helpless about a paedophile reminded me of the whole still-puttering-on ‘responsible writing’ debate.

The novel throws up many issues. Such dubious territory, for example, should arguably not be navigated in what is essentially entertainment. But, on the other hand, the prose masterpiece that is Lolita would never have been written without considerable boundary-breaking. Helpless, however, is more reminiscent of Stephen King than of Nabokov. There's a strange sense here that Gowdy has both held back and stepped too far. Being propelled through this skilful but unpleasant page-turner leaves the reader with a distinct feeling of being stalked.

It was a perfectly standard broadsheet piece on a book the reviewer found mildly disturbing but not without merit. You could find similarly measured book/TV/movie reviews all over LJ yet expressing the same kind of tempered reservations about a piece of fanfic is nigh on impossible. It can be done but it isn’t *done* or when it is the consequences can be kerfuffles like the one that recently swept SGA fandom on race. So people may feel such reservations but don’t speak them because the default with LJ comments is to take criticism personally. You can try to depersonalise as heatherly did by emphasising her expert status but it doesn’t really work. Fandom provides a safe space for writing and for squee and both of those are hard in the other places so it’s good that they exist but it’s not a safe space for criticism or counter speech and that can be problematic. But I’m not sure how it could be otherwise.


OK I love John Simm. Sure there were eye and ear-rolly moments, the commission of song fic among them and do we have to know every villains childhood trauma these days? But actually the latter was worth it for the sheer aptness of Simm’s Master as gloriously insane, evil genius, eight year old, Captain Scarlet hover-thingy, jelly babies, Teletubbies and all. Although once they knew they had Derek Jacobi on board they should have gone for Tombliboos. Teletubbies are so last year’s pre-school entertaiment.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/peasant_/]

yet expressing the same kind of tempered reservations about a piece of fanfic is nigh on impossible. It can be done but it isn’t *done*

I think it could be done if someone set out to specifically mimic the style of newspaper reviews - in other words where the purpose of what they were saying was clear. If a piece of criticism was purposely presented as being to provide a measured rec for readers, complete with any reservations, then I think most writers would be able to see the difference and would not take it personally. However I have never seen that done. And when critical comments are specifically left on the writers own journal it is very hard not to take them personally because they have been directed straight to the author, one to one.

But I do think that if someone wanted to actually try to mimic the style of a newspaper review it would become accepted - and even imitated. And it would be performing a useful service for both readers and writers because at the moment most recs are limited because it is very hard to judge the reccers value (other than through long experience of what they rec) since very few reccers put in any details, or demonstrate why they think a particular piece has more worth than any other random piece.

I do often hear people complain that LJ isn't safe for critical commentary, but nobody seems willing to take the plunge and just try it. Where are the train wrecks? Where are the people who tried to write detailed critical reviews and got kerfuffled on? All I've ever seen are people who ranted against a particular style or genre or (in the worst cases) author and that inevitably led to kerfuffle. But an actual properly written critical review leading to kerfuffle - does that actually happen?

[genarti]

I have seen it done in reccommendations once in a blue moon, I think, although I can't think of any specific examples. I think of it as something I've seen on a few LJs in posts directed at the writer's friendslist, not at more specifically dedicated recc journals or websites. And, yes, it is generally set out somewhat in the style of that kind of newspaper review, or at least a more informal version of the same. And, as I say, I can't remember any specific examples, so possibly I've only seen it once or twice and am half-consciously broadening the trend in my memory.

I've never seen it done in concrit directed to the author, however.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

You’re right the most recent examples are not of people attempting a dispassionate critique of a named fic. The SGA racism kefuffle started from a hit and run comment, the SM one from what only looked like an impersonal critique to outsiders at first and heatherly’s post critiqued a genre and possibly by naming no names got all kinds of bystanders up in arms. I do remember someone starting a journal to review Spuffy fics and getting flamed and withdrawing and I think there is an SGA community for reviewing fics quasi-academically. There’s a vid review community that works quite well (the_reel), I’ve done a stint on it myself. It’s quite hard psychologically setting yourself up as a judge on another fan’s work there’s a whole “what do I know, I’m just a geneticist” aspect to it that’s different from tossing off BSG episode reviews, or commenting on student essays or peer reviewing papers. There needs, I think, to be some mechanism in place for depersonalising yourself as a reviewer to get the critical juices flowing and fandom has an inherently personal feel to it that makes that difficult. It's not so much the external fear of censure as the internal fear of censoriousness.