Everyone's a Critic

I picked up Kate Atkinson's new book One Good Turn last night, and was reading along happily when, gulp, I read...

Wait, let me back up for a sec. Let me just say that I'm a big fan of Kate Atkinson. Really loved her book Behind the Scenes at the Museum, which was a sort of sprawling, family drama with a wicked sense of humor. Then I read and liked Case Histories, which was a sort of literary murder mystery. So I was happy to see this book, and I'm liking it, too.

So I'm on page 11--enjoying her sense of humor--where she's describing her character Martin Canning, a mild-mannered mystery writer, and his work. She's describing his novels, talking about his seventh:

"The seventh was "darker", everyone seemed to agree ("Blake is finally moving toward a more mature noir style," "a reader" had written on Amazon. Everyone's a critic.)"

Ouch. That Amazon critic sounds like me. Ah, well, it's true. Everyone with a laptop and some free blogging software is a critic these days.

But the writer Mary Gordon (in the NY Times) said, “I subscribe to the theory that a good review makes you feel good for seven minutes, and a bad review makes you feel miserable for seven years,” and I have to respect that (see the very interesting article)

So that is part of the reason why I am a gentle reader. I really don't write about things I don't like. What's the point? Why waste the mental energy? However, that isn't to say that I'm always 100% nice...

Hmmm, I wonder what Kate would think...