GOOD AND BAD REVIEWING.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1366, 17 February 1912, Page 19

GOOD AND BAD REVIEWING.

"A.G.W." in the "Academy," who knows what he is talking about, has an incisive nrticle on reviewing, which may bo commended to those who aro concerned in any way with what is at once a difficult art and an art in difficulties. Willi a good deal of what he says wo must agree, and particularly with tho protest against tho inovitableness of long reviews of expensive books. A high price may usually be considered a presumption against wide intorcst, ail exterior of scarlet and fine linen is not the thing, and many of these swollon tomes are gross oxamples of dull compilation. And who reads them ? This is one of the mysteries to those who cannot follow the transactions by which so many of these books do positively achicvo distribution. There must be a largo cla«3 of pseudo-connois-sours laying up great stores of depreciating goods, and perhaps jtliey are the brothers of those who buy large, middling oil-paintings by joyless Academicians. It is for reviewers, and especially for literary editors, to realise that somo of the best literature comes freshly in cheap and small form, and perhaps there are some who do realise it. And, though the business of selection is difficult and must involve frequent mistakes and misjudgments, a great deal of discrimination can be exercised in a short time by a competent person. No doubt thero are an exasperating number of books in the debatable country between good and bad, but; as the decision is not for eternal lyaise or blame, a little push one way or w , neither mako nor mar. \Vith the contention that the whole tono of reviewing is too favourable wo way agree with some qualification. It is frequently too easy and lenient, but thore is still, perhaps, too much of tho disposition among Gerious reviewers to treat a book as either good or bad. Perhaps reviewers are recovering from this inclination to clinch the summing-up with a sentence, or rather, perhaps, to mako a sentence of the summing-up, and thero are occasions on which it is necessary or salutary. But it ds particularly tho Toyiower s duty with a book of any charactor to stimulate its author with the recognition of what is good in it, even though somo curtailment of the list of faults be necessary.—'"Manchester Uuardiaiu