The one where I mention I didn’t like Friends
Random thoughts on reviews (and a visit to the Laika exhibition).
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Sometimes when I’m reading a book, I go to Amazon and check out the one-star reviews. This is a terrible idea and I don’t recommend it.
I began doing it with books I consider masterpieces to reassure myself that no matter how good something is, some heel will have written 1000 words on why it’s vacuous drivel. I thought it would help pre-callous me against the negative reviews I will inevitably receive when I finally release these bloody books. After all, even the best novels in the world aren’t for everyone. There are people out there who didn’t like Wolf Hall, or Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, or Olive Kitteridge, or The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (I know because I read the reviews). You might even be one of them.
But instead of reassuring me, reading one-star reviews regularly has the effect of making me question if perhaps the book I’m reading *is* actually vacuous drivel. Unlike a lot of opinionated people, I actually have a pretty loose grip on a lot of my apparently strident opinions.1 Often, I can be persuaded that I’m wrong, and I know from experience that many of the things I used to feel strongly about no longer burn with such intensity.
So, yes. Reading bad reviews half way through a book can be very confusing2 but the second reason it’s stupid is that it doesn’t actually make me feel any better. After all, if even Susanna Clarke gets a stinker what hope is there for the rest of us?
It’s enough to make you want to give up on everything.
The third reason it’s stupid is that writing negative reviews is SO easy. Being scathing is fun, and it’s often hard to effectively disagree with the harshest accusations. The people writing one-star reviews have a huge incentive to put their thoughts to pixels. To this day, two of my most popular pieces on the now defunct nerd website, Dork Adore, were listicles3 of things I hated about Gilmore Girls and Fifty Shades of Grey4. For someone with my terrible nature, slagging things off is super-fun, while it’s so much harder to gush interestingly.
That thing you love is under/over-rated
The reason I’m thinking about all this and trying desperately to weave this all into coherent thought, is that it’s the anniversary of two big cultural things at the moment and I have thoughts on both. The first is Jeff Buckley’s Grace album and the second is Friends, which are both celebrating their 30th birthdays.
Buckley’s anniversary has coincided very neatly with a rabbit hole I went down recently and now I’m going to drag you into it too. Bear with me. It all started when I finally watched All I Can Say, a film about Shannon Hoon, who died in 1995 a month after his 28th birthday.5 Hoon was the lead singer for and creative force behind Blind Melon. For those who can’t quite place them, you’ll almost certainly know their only hit, peppy pop ditty No Rain.
It’s an incredibly poignant documentary. Hoon filmed everything constantly, and the footage from his life goes right up to the morning he died. It’s a record of a fragile soul who needed better protection.
After watching it, I tried once again to understand why Blind Melon don’t get the attention I think they deserve. Partly it’s the fault of No Rain, a hit that is unrepresentative of them as a band, and became an inevitable millstone around their necks. In the wake of that smash hit, the band released their second album, Soup6.
Reviewers were confused and didn’t know what to do with it.
In his piece for Grammy.com, “How Blind Melon lost their minds and made a masterpiece,” Jim Beaugez puts Soup’s failure down to a couple of things:
MTV buried the videos for "Galaxie" and "Toes Across the Floor."7 Radio was unimpressed, too[…] Then came the biggest blow—a scathing review by Rolling Stone and a paltry one-and-a-half-star rating. Writer Ted Drozdowski decried Soup’s lack of riffs or "hippie positivity," derided Hoon’s vocals as out of his range and predicted their impending irrelevance.
I read this review and then spent probably too much time googling to see if Ted Drozdowski has had a think about his behaviour and now regrets it (no sign)8. And then I found myself reading other terrible reviews given to great albums by Rolling Stone. That brings me to Jeff Buckley’s Grace, which is currently 147 on Rolling Stone’s Greatest Albums list, but which at the time Stephanie Zacharek damned with a three-star review. Here’s a sentence that has aged badly:
The young Buckley’s vocals don’t always stand up: He doesn’t sound battered or desperate enough to carry off Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah.’
The cover version of the cover version that launched a million cover versions doesn’t stand up? Nice one, Stephanie.
Now I’m conscious as I write this that I want to have my cake and eat it (what right-thinking person doesn’t?) because I want – for example – to slag off Friends and let you know how disappointed I am that everyone seems to love a show that in my mind sits just above Saved By the Bell and just below Game On in the list of the most mediocre comedies of all time, but I also want to press home the belief that reviews are not just subjective to a person, they’re also subjective to a time and a place and any given day in a hormonal cycle.
They’re also, as Sarah Ditum points out in her reassessment of Sally Rooney’s writing, affected by the work that has come before. So the experimental New Orleans jazziness of Soup was infected by the success of pop ditty No Rain, whereas Rooney’s previous book Beautiful World, Where Are You? possibly got a bit of a free pass in some reviews thanks to the love people had for Conversations with Friends and Normal People.
Meanwhile, when it comes to Normal People, my opinion was also shaped by the books I read around the same time, namely One Day and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow...
Let’s talk about all those books everyone else was talking about ages ago
I never seem to know what the big zeitgeist book of the moment is, so when the TV adaptations come out, I’m often totally blindsided to discover everyone has read the books already and is Very Excited. (Is there some sort of memo that goes round that I’m missing? It happens with shoes too). To try to make up for my ignorance, this year I did a big catch up and listened to both One Day by David Nicholls and Normal People by Sally Rooney. By sheer fluke, I did actually read Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin when it came out, so I get some brownie points there and I look forward to not feeling like a moron when the film comes out.
What struck me (supremely cold take incoming!) was that these are all books about emotionally stunted idiots who can’t have a simple conversation with the person they fancy over the course of years and bloody years. And despite continually misunderstanding basic signals, these characters often persuade themselves that they are staring at the only person who really and truly ‘gets’ them. I’ve got news for you, sweetheart, that emotionally constipated sexyperson is not your soul mate. That is someone you share a toxic co-dependency with. Run for the hills!
These characters are nearly always snobs too, either believing they’re too good for the other person, or believing no one else has ever experienced a love like them. In Tomorrow³ one of the protagonists claims that not being together makes their love purer. Purer, presumably than the boring simps who manage to hook up with the person they love and live mostly happily ever after.
When I’m reading stories like this, all I can think is, “Have these people never read a book?” Anne Shirley realised Gilbert Blythe was the one when he nearly died. Eliza Bennet figured things out when she saw Darcy’s massive house. David Copperfield put two and two together when he’d done his back in carrying his first wife from sofa to sofa. Surely, their idiotic mistakes serve as helpful lessons? But no. I guess we have to accept that protagonists in stories like this don’t learn helpful lessons from other characters in books or their failed romances couldn’t span decades.
Another thing I think is, thank god none of these people are my friends or co-workers. Can you imagine having to witness these people making continually poor decisions? Making doe-eyes at their true loves in any social gathering and being perpetually emotionally unfaithful to whichever doomed partner they’re with at the time. Never mind Normal People, how about Dreadful People (amirite?!)
Now then, look what’s happened here. I’ve sunk into writing bad reviews. See how easy it is to do? And what does it achieve? Not much at all. I’m not even being very insightful. Yes, these sorts of stories often read to me like a teenager’s idea of what love is, but it’s not really news is it? Stop the press, a forty-five-year-old woman wouldn’t want to be friends with a lot of twenty-somethings. Dear lord no. I woudn’t even want to meet myself at that age.
But honestly I did actually quite enjoy these books (I think…? You might persuade me otherwise). And maybe I always miss out on these kinds of Hot New Authors9 because I just wouldn’t pick them up naturally10. I don’t have anything clever to add to the literary debate in that regard, I just think that reviews are interesting in themselves and right now it feels like a lot of critics are trying to work out which is the Correct side to come down on. No one wants to be Stephanie Zacharek being quoted in Jeff Buckley anniversary pieces.
What am I actually trying to say here? I’m not sure. I admit the central theme of this newsletter got away from me some time ago and now I’m just busking. It’s just that I have been thinking a lot about reviews recently and I wanted to talk about Blind Melon and how great Soup11 is, and how 30 years later, Jeff Buckley vocals are most definitely standing up, and how Rolling Stone journalists probably need to start waiting 10 years to write their reviews just in case.
Last minute update: In the comments of Sarah Ditum’s piece, I was discussing with Tom Cheeswright how Normal People was less enjoyable than The Secret Life of Addy LaRue by metaphor-addict and YA author VE Schwab. In a nice bit of serendipity, it turns out it’s also the 20th anniversary of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. In the anniversary edition, VE Schwab did the intro, and RF Kuang gave a cover quote (alongside the Guardian, which compares Susanna Clarke to Hilary Mantel).
Anniversaries all round!
Looney for Rooney
Second last minute update: While I was putting this together, literary Substack has been losing its mind over Ann Manov’s TLS review of Intermezzo. And Rooney stans are coming for any doubters over on Twitter with an intensity that rivals the Swifties. For those who want to go down that rabbit hole, you can start here with Celine’s Nguyen’s take down of Manov’s review and work your way backwards. For a different opinion, you can also read this rather blistering review of Rooney’s literary style by Courtenay Schembri Gray.
The whole debate made me want to delete this entire email and apologise for accidentally wading into to the conversation. But actually I have no dog in this fight. I remain agnostic about Sally Rooney’s books, I wish her no ill will. I’ve just come to the conclusion that when it comes to a certain kind of book, it’s no bad thing that I keep missing the memo. I won’t be reading Intermezzo – I’ve still got loads of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s back catalogue to get through.
At least Neil Gaiman didn’t get the Laika exhibition cancelled
At the weekend, we went to the Laika Studios exhibition at the BFI. And here is where you’ll see how bad I am at writing glowing reviews and just really over-use words like “brilliant” and “amazing” and “excellent.” But it really was brilliant to see all the amazing figures the Laika teams design and build for their excellent films.
In case this newsletter isn’t long enough, I’m also pasting in something I wrote on Notes about Neil Gaiman.
What should we do about Neil Gaiman’s projects? Many are being paused or cancelled and it’s hard not to feel conflicted. Set aside the “separation of art and artist” debate and there’s still a glaring problem: a heap of people are going to lose their jobs because of one man. And if we’re going to rely on the morality of men to prop up an entire creative project I think history can teach us what’s likely to happen.
Recently two of my writer friends had two major projects in development with a production company headed by a man who got cancelled. So two women lost their big break because of one man. I don’t know the answer here — after all these men stand to gain from the projects if they go ahead. But I’m not sure obliging hundreds more people to bear the financial brunt or lose their big break is the solution we really need either.
I’m glad Laika didn’t get rid of their Coraline display just because of one man.
PS. I once met a fellow dog walker with a dog called Laika. I said, “Oh, doesn’t it make you really sad every time you say the name?” and she said, “No? Why?” I replied, “Because of how Laika died,” and she laughed and said, “All dogs die.” So I said, “Yes, but not alone in the emptiness of space.” And she looked at me funny like I was mad and rushed off to catch up with her partner. So my theory is, either she’s a heartless psychopath, or her partner named the dog and she didn’t know who Laika was. I also would like to know how Laika Studios people go into work every day without feeling feel sad about that poor dog.
Anyway, I promise not to write such long emails in future and they certainly won’t be this regular again. But thanks for letting me get that all out of me. Have a lovely weekend!
Someone recently asked me if Halt & Catch Fire was worth watching and I sent her about five paragraphs of equivocations: Alexandra Goldstein, who I admire and trust, loves it and did a whole podcast dedicated to it, but the characters are quite annoying and the plotting is all over the place. The actors are great and the story is really fascinating if you’re into tech startup stories, but it’s also quite triggering if you ever worked on a web startup and had to deal with shareholders. And apparently we gave up on it just as it gets really good, so maybe it is worth sticking with – or some people say just start at season 2 – and we keep wondering if we should go back and try again. Etc etc ad infinitum. She replied, “Have gone for Gardener’s World instead.”
I set aside the perfection that is Kavalier and Clay for about 3 months thanks to some (presumably insane) stranger on Amazon saying nothing happened.
Hey, it was 2012, what can I say?
Yes they were cheap and petty but in these two cases, I have no regrets – the comments I got were a lot of fun and all the writers behind the projects continue to be millionaires – although I would, if I could, hide my mean words from the actual creators.
One of my theories about why Shannon Hoon is not more widely mourned is that he doesn’t feature on 27 Club lists.
Soup celebrated its 24th anniversary last month, which I grant isn’t quite as neat a number.
The video for Galaxie really is bad, but I’m going to defend Toes Across the Floor, which I thought was great even before I became friends with the director, Jamie Thraves. (Who also, fun fact, did the iconic Radiohead music video for Just, as well as filming sections of a recent video in my wood for Bess Atwell.
Rolling Stone gave the All I Can Say movie four stars.
David Nicholls obvs not included here, but One Day fits the mould of books about emotionally illiterate young people so he gets honorary mention. Plus I’ve been totally oblivious to him as a phenomenon.
Although don’t get me started on Babel by RF Kuang, which looked right up my alley and which I thought was going to be a story about awesome magicians coming up with amazing ways to take revenge on their colonial oppressors, but turned out to be the tale of some really dreary teenagers writing leaflets.
Discog customers just voted Soup the fourth most underrated album of all time.
This was so fun and insightful. I am delighted to have stumbled upon it. But now I am never going to post that poor drafted review of the “house of dragons”.
Thought-provoking and beautiful, and wow, that Jeff Buckley review. I like the idea of Rolling Stone waiting 10 years (less suicides) but I'm not sure the industry would tolerate it. Thank you for the Blind Melon doco trailer; will seek it out.
I always read the 1 star reviews of books. I feel they save me a lot of grief. I can usually tell if the person is an idiot or not i.e. whether I will agree with their opinion or not, so it doesn't impact the buying very much. My own 1-star reviews (received, never given) are brutal.