Joe Muggs after he read our collective criticism.who wrote this?
Joe Muggs after he read our collective criticism.who wrote this?
Well, of course! That's undeniable!!His skins not actually all that thick but he took the review well. I think it starts by saying his writing is magnificent, which took the sting out of the thing
That seems to happen quite often, not necessarily in terms of the reviewer attacking someone or thing, but that a review ends up being something other than a review. You see it on LRB quite a bit. They list whichever books are being reviewed at the top then the article barely mentions them and they just write their own article on the subject or something adjacent to it.Feel for Kit though. I'm sure he's got a thicker skin, but nothing more disappointing than wanting someone to engage with your book and finding a review is used as an opportunity to drudge up an old beef. Felt the same about when my book and Macon Holt's got dual-reviewed in the Wire last year. It was more a review of "Exiting the Vampire Castle" than anything to do with the musical content of either book.
I'm not against this in principle, tbh. I actually quite like when a review waxes lyrical a bit, using the book or film or record under consideration to examine the lay of the land a bit. Ironically, that's what I think Reynolds is particularly good at, and what gets him into trouble — people don't always like what he sees. But all I get from Muggs' review is a sense of the end of his nose.That seems to happen quite often, not necessarily in terms of the reviewer attacking someone or thing, but that a review ends up being something other than a review. You see it on LRB quite a bit. They list whichever books are being reviewed at the top then the article barely mentions them and they just write their own article on the subject or something adjacent to it.
That's certainly true.I don't mind it too much, but I might if someone were reviewing something of mine. That, and it means I'm none the wiser as to whether the book's any good.
have to say I am a bit surprised the wire assigned it to him. and if they didn't know about the chip on joe's shoulder beforehand, they could have rejected the piece when it was submitted, or asked for a revision. it would be one thing if muggs spent a sentence or two on the topic, but it's literally the majority of the review.
what happened, @Diggedy Derek ?