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In days not so far gone by, newspapers and magazines ran extensive review sections, and the reviews (critiques) were often by writers of considerable stature. In the UK, for instance, reviewers included the likes of Kingsley Amis, Anthony Powell, Graham Greene, (and in the US, science fiction had James Blish writing as Atheling Jr.) and so on. I have enjoyed some of their reviews of books I have read, and whether I agreed with them or not, I thought they were well written and thoughtful.
However, these guys were professional writers who could understand what the author was getting at, or trying to get at. And they were not paid by the publisher, but by the magazine or newspaper.
The art of the full review or critique has vanished from the newspapers, replaced by a picture of a cover and maybe two sentences. And the awful, awful addition "if you liked this you will like..."
(Which is bullshit. A reader can enjoy a single book by an author and dislike all the rest by that author, never mind similar books by similar authors in a similar genre...)
There is a huge gap between full reviews by professional critics and the "comments" on websites, comments which tell you nothing at all about the book, but a lot about the anonymous commentator.
Somewhere or another I have one of Pauline Kael's collections of movie reviews, which are tedious and long-winded but occasionally illuminating. But I got quite annoyed when she persistently described Cary Grant (Archie Leach) (in a lengthy discussion of his career,) as a cockney. Kael evidently thought cockney = working class. It doesn't; Grant was from Bristol, in the west of England. Cockneys are from east end London (traditionally born within sound of Bow Bells, the bells of St Mary-le-Bow in Cheapside.)
I'm not British, but even I knew that. Made me wonder what else she may have got wrong. Cast a considerable cloud over the rest of her reviews, I thought.
The art of the independent review, the critique, is in rapid decline.
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