I am a classically trained tenor and recently I participated as a chorister in the Atlanta Opera's production of Carmen.
Not to go too in-depth, but it appears the classical music critic for the only newspaper in Atlanta, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, hates, detests and abhors the artistic director of the Atlanta Opera, and takes every opportunity, especially in reviews, to trash the product the company produces.
As a proud former (former only because I've begun receiving engagements as a principal tenor with other companies...) member of the opera chorus I've felt personally insulted by each bad review, and on one occasion after a rather ugly opinion piece by the critic even responded, in part to defend the a.d. of the AOC, because I have a great respect and admiration for him - based on my own rather broad and somewhat in-depth knowledge of opera. Probably unwise for my now burgeoning career as a soloist to alienate the only classical music critic for a major newsspaper, but I'm a redhead, whaddya want?
Naturally, that response I wrote was rather nasty about the whole issue of criticism, and the kind of person who writes reviews. In this case, of course, we were talking about opera, and I was questioning what truly qualified the AJC critic to write anything worth a damn about shows done by the Atlanta Opera.
Reading all this you are wondering why this article has been placed under the blogcritics category for "Books."
Before I was ever an opera singer I was a voracious and omnivorous reader. My favored reading over the years has tended to skew in certain directions - namely horror, suspense, dark fantasy, tales of the weird, the paranormal - but I've given everything else a shot as well, it seems - including disparate genres like westerns and romance novels. (Yes, I just admitted that I'm a tenor and have read a romance novel in the same blogcritics entry.)
Anway -
I have an equal love of writing, and have studied it as a craft. What writing I do I do try to do very well, for whatever that's worth.
Recently, I not only claimed some review copies of books I will be reviewing here over the next few months, I bought some books that I knew I wanted to review. The books I bought are by dark fantasist Caitlín R. Kiernan.
I read Ms. Kiernan's novel Low Red Moon about a year ago, and while I felt it was brilliantly written, I found the story a bit uneven and difficult to follow, and the ending unsatisfying and rather rushed. I found out she lives in Atlanta, and has a weblog. The weblog is interesting reading in and of itself - she updates frequently, rants, muses, and generally writes in an intense and honest way about the journey a writer goes through internally.
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
very reflective and absorbing Steve - you do an excellent job of explaining your processes - thanks!
2 - vikk
Enjoyed your post. I've been to Kiernan's blog and made a note to buy a couple of her books. Thanks for reminding me.
3 - Dana Huff
Edgar Allan Poe was resoundly hated for his scathing literary criticism. In some cases, those who can not only do, but also point out the flaws in those who try to do and can't.
4 - Mac Diva
LOL! When it comes to literary criticism, I aspire to be Dorothy Parker with a good tan. She was actually fired by publications because irate writers and their friends would throw hissy fits about her reviews. There are more good books and plays than I will have time to read in my life time. That gives me the right to dis the bad ones. The writer has wasted my time.
Steve, a note on writing blog entries. There is enough material in this one for three or more. Blog readers have shorter attention spans than even newspaper readers. (The average length of a visit to a blog is about two minutes.) So, long entries don't get read. Consider shorter entries on just one topic. If you tend to write long, you can go back and divide the long piece into shorter ones.
5 - Steve
Ms. Diva, thank you for your comment - I agree with you wholeheartedly on criticism, you put it very well.
While I believe you have a point about the length of the entry, I'd like to clarify something: I'm not new to blogging, just new to blogging here - so I am hoping that your note about writing blog entries was really more specific to perhaps the kind of blog entry one expects to see on blogcritics.org. If that's what you meant, I see your point. However I completely reserve the right when I blog otherwise to go on at length if I choose, the reader's attention span be damned. Please understand I'm not debating your point - it's a good one - I'm just trying to clarify it. Because my focus in a blogcritic entry might be less personal than a planethuff.com entry I agree with you - if I feel I have something worthwhile to say I should say it concisely. Like I did not do with this comment.
6 - godoggo
I tend to think bad reviews should be for people who are known. What's the point of telling people, "Here's a book by somebody you've never heard of. He sucks"?
7 - Rodney Welch
I see what you're saying, but I disagree completely -- because basically what you're saying is publications should only print positive reviews of debut novels, and that's just not fair to the reader. Readers deserve to know there's a mix of opinion, if there is one. I've given harsh reviews -- and glowing ones -- to first novels; I feel it's patronizing not to take a first novel as seriously as you would one by a seasoned writer.
8 - TimeCube CubicAO
Knowledge is a crystal that has fallen beneath a sea of murk. Like
an anchor thrown from a ship, it's stuck down there, and will remain
stuck until we do something about it.
At the moment, there's a lot of confusion. What's going on with
that anchor? Could it have magnetically fused with the rocks in the
seabed? Thus do the sailors conjecture, little knowing that they
could be right.
On the other hand, they could be religious zealots who blindly
believe fiction. Blindly believing, they would deserve the ignorance
to which they had been bound. Moreover, they think that vague,
error-prone religious scriptures are evidence in support of their
faith.
Well, Occam's razor speaks differently. Occam's razor is a
rational principle. It tells us what not to believe: thus it protects our
rationality.
But when fantasy and reality merge together, and when the
dangerous thrill of the unknown seizes upon everything that at
present lives--then, only, can change occur. Then, only, can
evolution take place!
Evolution is in contrast to nihilism. It's in contrast to leaving that
anchor down there forever. Having made that clear, it is now time
to raise the anchor. It is now time--to think rationally.
Is God real? We must conclude the negative--for Time Cube's
proven true, therefore a 1-corner God cannot be.
Time Cube, however, has four corners. Four corners.