A subjective defence of subjective reviewing

This started as a comment over on electricant's post about the perils of subjective reviewing, but I found what I was writing had snowballed past being a comment. Go read Gene's post.

I still read many more reviews that are objective rather than subjective, and long may that continue. But I know myself well enough to know that a well-written or spoken subjective review is far more likely to make me go to a book and read it.

I have magpie tendencies, which probably accounts for me owning more books than I will ever reasonably expect to read in my lifetime. Why did I buy them? I know dozens of people the same. In my head it's like living in a library (currently spread across four locations on two continents) where I'm condemned to be constantly choosing the next book to read. Many of these books will remain unread by me and in my saner moments will probably end up in a charity shop somewhere. A balance of several influences will have 'sold' them to me in the first place – I've just taken a few minutes to think about what they are and put them in a rough order of likelihood. In all honesty, at this point in time:

A previous good experience with this author
Word of mouth
It looks fun
A subjective review
The plot or elements of it
The cover
The genre
I know the author(s)
Pull-quotes
An objective review
It's less that 250 pages (the shorter the better)
A well written blurb
Its scarcity

Yes that's a rough order, but notice how far I put 'a subjective review' above 'an objective review'. Depending on your own degree of inclination, academic or otherwise, you might think that's a failing. I don't happen to think so.

Most of the following comments will apply to genre reviewing, particularly science fiction. I've not reviewed much in the last couple of years (I'm talking 500 words or more for a website or publication – Vector, Strange Horizons, Foundation, etc.) mostly because I haven't gone out of my way to do so because of life circumstances which have also severely cut back my reading. I have no problem writing objective reviews; I think I can do so at least quite well but have no expectations that people will actually go by my recommendations to read something, or heed my vague warnings of a possible disappointment.

There's often an unfortunate sense that reviewers are expected to be harshly analytical/critical of the things they read, and this has often left me uncomfortable. As a generality, I'd say criticisms are accepted in a review far more readily than enthusiasms, even though enthusiasm can be conveyed objectively as well but usually involves a careful balancing of word and nuance, so that the enthusiasm doesn't gush. These days I wouldn't consider myself an active reviewer, restricting the activity here on LJ to brief 50/50 objective/subjective summaries about what I've been reading/watching/hearing (nevertheless, if you read them I hope you find them interesting and perhaps even useful). In a personal blog one can be as subjective as one likes, and this venue, this blog, is fortunately in complete acceptance of my own subjectivity if I ever feel inclined to reveal it. Not all review venues are so tolerant.

This discomfort factor is also present (subjectively of course) whilst in the act of writing: cleaving my review to separate out subjectivity from the objectivity, to then discard all or most of it. This discomfort is sometimes confirmed by my reactions at a later date to what I have written: I wish I could have said more about what I subjectively felt about the book, and enthused a little more. Maybe it's just my lack of skill in gently getting across that emotion without the reader actually noticing it.

But, to the point. When reading an objective review or several objective reviews of the same book, too often I have ended the review(s) somehow feeling, well, I've somehow partially already read it, now, or at least got a good feel for it's shape, texture and direction, but I also get a feeling that I now know the book enough, even when the reviewer has tried to keep it as spoiler-free as possible while still trying to engage the reader. That's probably my bad. Perhaps perversely I consequently feel a little less inclined to read/buy the book, particularly if it's outside my own intra-genre reading preferences, as I now have a vague indication of its place within the genre as well as the degree of long-term praise it will likely reap, and move onto something else. Most will say "good" to that: I can seek out the book at a later date if I feel so inclined, and the well-written objective review will have done its job. But I often need something more to push me across that line into suddenly lifting a book nearer to the top of the reading pile, something more like a reaction to how a book made that particular person feel about it. Most often it's word of mouth, but frequently it's done just as effectively by a subjective review. Reading too many objective reviews of a book leaves me feeling that part of the reading experience for that book will have already dried up and become a subconscious and largely irrelevant academic exercise to see if I align myself with a particular reviewer's point of view: did I agree with X, and has Y got it completely wrong? And really, who cares?

A reviewers job is not to sell a book, it's to review it. We all have books we seem to know by their vaulted position (or otherwise) within their genre without actually having read them, and probably never will. Personally speaking, I gain that knowledge about these unread books via their (mostly balanced and objective) reviews, word of mouth and any accolades they may have received. An objective review of a book I'm curious about may be very well written, but it still doesn't necessarily make me want to read it – something else probably did. See list above. What's yours?