Hi, Anny, I had to laugh at your description of
>How many times I had to read a
>book
>with a stomachache, hurriedly on a Sunday afternoon, and be able to finish
>it so that they could have the "piece/article" for Monday morning. Such a
>book becomes boring right at the title.

And yes, reading on demand, and reviewing, can give one
a case of literary indigestion, though usually it's my
head that begins to ache first!

take care,

Rebecca

Rebecca Seiferle
www.thedrunkenboat.com

-------Original Message-------
From: Anny Ballardini <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 08/12/03 10:22 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Enzensberger

>
> I am trying to go back and read the mails I skipped previously, since Ialso
contributed to the thread and feel it is my duty to know what happened
before.

I wanted to highlight Rebecca's thoughts on how she faces her
responsibility
as a critic. Which is more or less mine. How many times I had to read a
book
with a stomachache, hurriedly on a Sunday afternoon, and be able to finish
it so that they could have the "piece/article" for Monday morning. Such a
book becomes boring right at the title. But as a critic you have to keep
well in mind that you are the person who passes information, and as an
intellectual you are the one who criticizes the fact that nobody reads,
and
that television broadcasts only stupid programs and so on and such, this
is
one of the few opportunities given to spread at least the wish of reading
a
book. So I usually overlook my personal dislikes and try instead to find
the
good rather than the bad in every book I have to review. Which anyhow acts
as a positive message for those who only read my review, but will never
get
to the book.

Take care, anny

From: "Rebecca Seiferle" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>


> Hi Tony,
>
> Well, since your post is "partly" to me, perhaps I should reply.
>
> I'm not really, hence the partly, knowing of Muldoon's work
> enough to participate in this argument about the merits or
> lack of them.
>
> My thoughts were mostly to do with critical judgement and
> the exercising of it and informed by my own experience. And in
> that much more general sense, I wonder at your simultaneously
> standing by a review and acknowledging that it was "intemperate."
> Perhaps it's just my own assumption, but as critic, I've always
> thought that temperance was required, that the reviewer responded
> to the work, irrespective of the poet's reputation or what
> other reviewers may have said, positively or negatively, about
> the work in question, in order to respond to the work wholely.
> I have given a favorable review, in general, to a book, while
> at the same time noting various elements in which it seemed
> to fail or not work, and vice versa, the generally negative
> review which notes certain positive elements. As you said,
> your intemperance arose in the gap between your sense of
> the work itself and your sense of Muldoon's reputation. But
> what does his reputation have to do with it? That seems to
> imply that if his work had met with critical disdain or none
> or if he were unknown, you would not have been intemperate
> and might have reviewed the same work differently. My
> argument is basically in favor of a temperate reading
> of the work itself, irrespective of reputation or lack
> of it, or the effect on the poet, because I suspect that
> otherwise reviews are driven by something else, a sense
> of the poetry scene in general, a sense of what other
> reviewers are saying and a need to reply to or correct it,
> etc. and am most likely to dismiss them as a way into
> the work, whether the work is a dead end or a road leading
> somewhere. So my comments originated in this particular
> thinking of mine.
>
> Best,
>
> Rebecca
>
> Rebecca Seiferle
> www.thedrunkenboat.com
> -------Original Message-------
> From: Tony Frazer <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: 08/11/03 04:11 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Enzensberger
>
> >
> > Iain (&, partly, Rebecca):
> I said my review was intemperate. I do not regard that as an apology,
> merely a statement of fact. Had I thought the review needed apologizing
> for I would have changed it or withdrawn it. (I've done this once,
> incidentally, where I attacked someone for something I thought they'd
> said, only to have it proved categorically that I had got it wrong - on
> an issue of fact, rather than opinion.) I was moved to intemperance by
> my extreme impatience with the imbalance between reputation and
> execution in both the books reviewed.
>
> My views of the two books have not changed one iota. I still think the
> Mulddon book execrable. I'm sorry you find the word offensive, Iain,
> but that's your prerogative. I'm not a poet, by the way, so I'm not
> offending a fellow-poet here; perhaps you find that worse? My throwaway
> line about him not being bothered by my comments was surely accurate?
> Someone who's just won the Pulitzer, the Griffin, the PBS Choice and
> has been shortlisted for the Forward, plus garnered positive reviews in
> most if not all the journals where poetry books are reviewed, is not
> going to be bothered about an attack from a small one-man journal like
> mine. The weight is all of the other side, I would have thought.
>
> I accept there may be an alternative view of the first poem in Duhig's
> book, as there manifestly are regarding Muldoon's. I still find it a
> formulaic list-poem that depends for its impact upon audience
> recognition of a series of period amusements - exactly the kind of
> thing I hear done to death at readings, and always, always,
> successfully. Hence my comments, by which I continue to stand.
>
> Tony Frazer