BOOK reviewing is one of the great literary industries. Yet I doubt whether any other is so poorly organized. Short-story writers have rule books which may be regarded as authoritative, compiled as they are by professors of the art who fifteen years ago sold a short story to the Argosy. But the great intellectual army of book reviewers must still plod on with the same old methods of presumably looking into each book as it comes, and writing each review afresh, thus cutting down immeasurably the number of books that can be reviewed and the reception of those gratifying cheques for six dollars and thirty-two cents. Individual reviewers, to be sure, have their own little stock supplies of words into which they can dip and re-dip and so reduce the labor of thinking. A still more useful possession, one in fact which almost eliminates any need for thinking at all after the initial book has been reviewed, is a theory or a point of view. This gives the reviewer a certain reputation for critical reliability and profundity as well. But these aids have their limits, as every reviewer must realize.
A larger preparedness is called for in this modern age of invention. A certain famous author, well known in the literary world, realizing this great need, has caused to be compiled, after much research, a little booklet, available to reviewers for the sum of only a few cents. It will prove of incalculable service to the young author starting out on the career of book reviewing, and contains new hints for the seasoned reviewers as well. The numerous cases which this booklet covers can be no more than indicated, since it is a complete guide. But even the table of contents here reproduced will prove intriguing and illuminating:
The problem before us—Why this book—Be alert—Never use last season’s words—Know correct authors for reference—Compare women poets to Emily Dickinson—Better go slow now on “Rabelaisian”—Easiest reviews rehash plots—Fine chance to be clever here—Reviewer must maintain superior attitude—Ways of getting in dig at the author—Use of full name, “Mr. Jason Blank,” gives English touch—How to work off own prejudices, predilections, grievances, etc., through reviews.
“Out of the great mass of undistinguished and indistinguishable verse”—“There are times when even the most seasoned reviewer”—“If you happen to be one of those old-fashioned readers to whom …”—“As a refreshing antidote to …”—“A new novel by Mrs. Wharton is always sure of a welcome from her large …”—“No book of recent times …”—“This is another of those …”
“But I shall not give away Mr. Soandso’s story”—“The reader must read for himself to find out …”—“Suffice it to say that the mystery is eventually cleared up and all ends happily”—“venture to predict will outlast all the …”—“Meanwhile I shall await Mr. Blank’s next attempt with …”—“but it is not Art”—“provides a veritable feast for kings”—“takes its place at once among the great masterpieces of …”
“Not since The Old Wives’ Tale has”—“There comes to the jaded reviewer”—“Ring all the bells and sound all the drums”—“Sees the rising of a new star”—“For all time”—“Of no less than astounding and astonishing genius”—“Combines all the——of a Homer and an Anatole France with all the ——of a Mary Roberts Rinehart”—“Takes its place at once among the great masterpieces of …”
That intimate personal touch in the introduction—But avoid too highbrow suggestion—“In the cellars of Greenwich Village”—“Brilliant satire”—“Gallic wit and brevity”—“Not meat for morons”—“Will not please the Rotarians”—“Has a sardonic eye for …”—“Innocent and diverting foibles of the human race”—“This very modern heroine”—“Wise, witty and profound”—“Old woman from Dubuque.”
“This saga of”—“Does for the plains of (prairies of, mountains of) ——what Knut Hamsun did for peasants of Norway—what Reymont did for peasants of—what Hardy did for …”—“Epic sweep”—“Titanic struggle”—“Brute forces of nature”—“Elemental forces”—“Primitive passions”—“Stark tragedy”—“Same pagan love of the soil that …”—“Takes its place at once among the masterpieces of …”
“Erudition”—“pity and irony”—“devastating sense of …”—“brilliant subtlety”—“like the flash of a rapier”—“sane”—“eminently readable”—“to while away the hours of …”—“most fascinating heroine in modern …”—“cerebral”—“the art of Joyce, Proust, and Richardson”—“pungent, sharp, unsparing”—“merciless dissection”—“in hands of a skillful surgeon”—“relentless realism of the most …”—“our smart young writers”—“so-called modernists”—“attack on most cherished …”—“to pull down from the pedestals where history has …”—“Unlike the method of the old dull biographers, Strachey unlocks the inner heart of … shows Blank was the victim of …”—“genius due to Oedipus complex, Electra complex, inferiority complex, inversion, perversion, extraversion, Freud”—“Miss Blank knows her region, and these simple folk, so simple and at the same time so profound”—“cleanly factual, bare, unadorned, admirable prose”—“admirably nervous”—“takes its place at once among the masterpieces of …”
NOTE: If all other terms of derision go stale make some simple reference to the lady novelists.
1927