Yet I fancy that we should more often consider what we owe to readers, as well as our duty of generosity to fellow writers. The Sunday Times did the book world a big favour recently by exposing the monstrous practice of bookshops, including some of the most famous, which will only feature titles in their catalogues and windows in exchange for hard cash from publishers. This policy stinks, and debases the whole literary world. Reviewers and literary editors are not in the least venal in that fashion, yet could more energetically pursue frankness about the products we road-test, rather than sustain a quiet life or accommodate personal interests, benign or otherwise.
It would be unrealistic to propose that we should not review books by friends and acquaintances, because in the nature of things historians know other historians, novelists other novelists, and so on. If personal ignorance of the author became a condition for reviewing a work, criticism would be the prerogative of hermits, and poorly informed ones at that. There seems a good case, however, for literary editors to insist that when critics choose their ‘books of the year’, no writer should be allowed to recommend a title by another author personally known to him. At present, these lists are about as unbiased as Tony Blair’s view of Peter Mandelson.
I would also suggest that there is a case for even upmarket literary pages to adopt the star-rating system. This may be vulgar, an insult to nuanced reviewing, but it would oblige critics to offer clearly comprehensible verdicts to prospective purchasers.
Books pages are not very corrupt, but they possess significantly less integrity than do film and theatre criticism. All of us involved bear some responsibility for this state of affairs, of which the worst manifestation is the wetness of many reviewers’ judgments.
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