At the Editor’s Desk

Scenario: a friend has just approached you, explained that he has heard that you are a writer, and asked you to review and critique his book. Your first reaction is probably a hasty fabrication of some general remark to make on the book, such as ‘your style is very original,’ or ‘the story was an easy read’—something definite enough to convince your friend that you actually read his book and sufficiently foggy to allow you to retain him as your friend.

The art of constructive criticism isn’t an easy one. Yet, take the personal element out of it, and you are still no nearer the goal of objectively determining whether a book is good or not. You probably have a whole list of favourite books, but can you say exactly what it is about the books that makes you love them? And we all know that there are two kinds of‘good’ books: those that are snapped up by the masses and are usually cranked out in series of seventy volumes or so and those that the elite critics (e.g. those who review books for a living) approve—usually dull, depressing, or difficult to make sense of, and almost never as popular among ordinary people as the first kind are.

This conundrum is easily explained by the fact that there are two ways of judging a book. In the editors' own opinion, there is only one way, but we will explain the two commonly-recognised methods first.

Popular books are judged by how much amusement they afford the reader. People like books that are fun to read and don’t take too many brain cells to digest. But critics judge a book by how well the author wrote it—his techniques, special effects, and over-all writing style. A very well-written book may not be terribly amusing.

But, in our opinion, there is one way to judge a book: by whether or not you like it. A book does not have to be popular or well-written for you to like it, and if you do not like it, it does not necessarily matter to you if it is on the New York Times best sellers list or the Princeton Review.

In the first place, a book must not be judged as an inanimate thing. You might judge its dust jacket, or its cover photograph, or its type of paper as in and of themselves inanimate components, but even in this you may misjudge a book. (We dislike to digress, but we would mention that we’ve judged paperback copies or hardcovers bound in gaudy colours, such as orange, or with silly-looking pictures on the fronts rather severely and later regretted it, for we’ve found wonderful friends in books with even these handicaps.)

You ought to judge a book as you would a person. A person can help some of his faults but not all of them, and the greater part of his faults are faults only in your own eyes: to another person they may be mere eccentricities. A book, too, has faults and eccentricities, but these do not necessarily prevent you from being friends with a book. We have never found a book that we could sincerely say was without fault, although we’re still looking for such a phenomenon. Likewise, although we say it with hesitation knowing this article will be read by several of our friends, we have never met a person without fault, either. we like people with their faults and in spite of them, because otherwise we should not be able to like anyone (and because we know that, unless they did the same by us, we should be very unpopular people).

And unless we liked books with faults, we would never be able to like any books at all. Most people understand this principle. What people do not understand so readily is a very subtle, and yet important, operation that nearly every thing performs in one way or another. This operation has not been scientifically analysed as yet, and has been named by the expression (in default of a better) that a thing ‘grows on you’.

The odd idea of a sort of cannibalistic process exerted on one creature by another is so bizarre that it would be repelling were it not quite accurate. When something ‘grows on you,’ it becomes a part of you. We have met many books (to say nothing of people) whom we did not take a particular liking to first off, but which after a while we came to love dearly. When this happens, it is usually not because the book (or person) has changed in any way, but because we ourselves changed in the way we saw things and interpreted them.

We must take a case in point. We once read a book which, when we started it, we did not expect to like at all because we knew from the first page on (or perhaps even sooner) exactly how it was going to end—the sort of story that one would call predictable. However, when we did get to the end (and it ended as we had expected), we found that we had enjoyed the story immensely and that the book had become one of our favourites. Our great mistake was focusing on one shortcoming of the book instead of taking the story as a whole.

The reason why we could predict the end of the story was because it treated commonly over-treated themes, such as war, forgiveness, and ethnic misunderstanding; and, because we’d read many books which treated the same themes in the same way, we had a fair idea of what would happen in the story.

And in this case we were right, but we weren’t upset by the fact. We might have been more upset if the author had not followed the basic formula. In the first place, the story worked well because it was a children’s story, and children are not so well versed in predicting endings as more experienced readers are. Because it was a children’s story the themes needed to be treated in a simple, easily-understood way—the way they are most often treated in stories (i.e. the little girl learns that not all Germans are bad). The story itself was a simple, straightforward tale (and in case you want to know, it is called The Little Riders, by Magaretha Shemin); the author did not intend to show off her superior skills in convoluted plot or modern style, she only intended to tell a good story.

Most importantly, the story had a happy ending. While we are in favour of surprise endings, we don’t like a surprise ending at the expense of a good story. Authors often attempt to surprise the reader by making things turn out differently than they usually do in books. The author may marry the heroine to someone other than the hero, or the author may kill off a character and really kill him off, thereby disappointing any readers who may fondly await his miraculous return at the end of the story. We enjoy these surprises occasionally, but sometimes they completely spoil the story and, what is more, the majority of readers would agree with us. For example, if we may take an example from an actual story, if the hero has been disinherited in favour of the villain, it is not likely that anyone will be particularly pleased to find out at the end of the story that the villain is not really the villain after all—it may surprise the reader, but the reader will be disappointed that the hero can’t get his ancestral estate (or title, or millions, etc.) back.

But even this sort of unsatisfactory surprise may be a success if it works well in the story. The main thing is that you must take a book as a whole; you cannot take it apart like a vivisectionist or you will lose the delicate vitality of the thing. Look at it in context; look at it as a living, dynamic entity; and don’t necessarily judge it by other books you’ve read.

But we our sure you are wanting a practical guide to critiquing a book, or what will you tell your friend? So far everything we’ve said applies to determining whether or not you like a book. But when asked to critique a book, your ultimate goal is to like it and all that is required is your advice as to how the author may arrive at that goal. Keep in mind that it is difficult to maintain a balance between trying to help an author make his book better and trying to make an author write the book the way you want it. It is helpful to have a list of things to look for so that you can adequately represent the author’s audience without taking over his job of writing the book.

Whenever we don’t like a book, it is usually because it lacks one (or more) of three things: a strong beginning, likeable characters, or a satisfactory end. But we do not mind boring-ness and extraneous material and many readers do, so we may as well add two other items to the tally and list five important requirements for a book.

A Compelling Introduction
The very first lines of a book should catch the reader’s attention and hold it tightly. A book does not have to start out suspenseful, but it should be interesting and make the reader want to read more. If your friend’s story does not catch your interest at the very outset, kindly suggest that he revise it.

A Strong Beginning
Most readers want to know where the story is going so that they know whether or not they really want to keep reading it. A good, obvious problem in the story helps them see where the story is headed, as well as a few plot direction indicators, such as either/or choices the main character must make, supplementary problems, and moments of discovery.

A Solid Plot
Though the story may amble about a bit, it should basically stick to what the story is about, or the reader may become bored or lost.

Likeable Characters
These are what make the editors personally like a book or dislike it. The author may make any mistake he chooses and we will still like the book if the characters are loveable. On the other hand, if we don’t like the characters, it doesn’t make much difference to us how wonderful the rest of the story may be.

A Happy Ending
Almost everybody loves a happy ending. It is not required in a story, but very preferable. The ending should make the reader feel that the problems are solved, the characters are happy, and the story’s potential is realised.

You will notice that many of these points have to do with the beginning of the story. The beginning is the crucial part, because that is what most people read first. If the reader doesn’t like the beginning, he is not likely to press on. The characters (at least some of them), the problem, and the over-all style of the story are introduced at the beginning, and those are three of the most important factors of a book.

The happy ending is probably the third most important part, after the characters and the beginning. One book came very close to receiving five stars from the author of this article, but its anti-climactic ending cost it the perfect rating. The ending must live up to the rest of the book because that is what most people read last and that is the impression of the book that they are left with.

Obviously, what you like in a book may not be what someone else likes, but criticism is rarely, if ever, objective. It is subject to the opinions of the odd, erratic, and very subjective people who produce it—that is, everybody. But criticism is a high and lofty art to which few have attained with credit. Let the noble aim of honourable criticism be yours as you pursue your editorial career.