Reviews (the writing of)
Jun. 10th, 2010 06:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceOver in Another Place (that would be Facebook in this instance, not the House of Lords), Katherine Kerr asked if I'd be reviewing the performance of Oscar Wilde's Salome I saw last evening. To which - well. I replied in the hopeful voice, but not the confident.
I have an ambivalent relationship with reviewing. Ambivalent at best. Sometimes, it's positively problematic (to the point of my saying "yes, I'd love to" and then never turning in the copy, which is ... well. A problem).
I think it is actually a matter of confidence, on a whole other level. It's of a piece with my magnificent inferiority complex about academia: I love the scholarly mind, I want it, I don't have it. (For those who don't know, I'm a college drop-out: I fled university before the end of my first year, and never went back. And regret it deeply, bitterly, while still believing that I was probably right.) I admire critics but mostly cannot follow them, I do not get critical theory: in consequence of which I understand myself to be a superficial reader, and therefore inadequate to the task of serious reviewing.
Right now, I am supposed to be writing a review. And - well, behold me, ducking the issue. Whimpering about my inadequacy for the task. Frightened of showing myself up, perhaps; or just incompetent to supply what the book deserves; or... Yeah. Inferiority complex, performance anxiety, call it what you will. I have trouble with this.
I have an ambivalent relationship with reviewing. Ambivalent at best. Sometimes, it's positively problematic (to the point of my saying "yes, I'd love to" and then never turning in the copy, which is ... well. A problem).
I think it is actually a matter of confidence, on a whole other level. It's of a piece with my magnificent inferiority complex about academia: I love the scholarly mind, I want it, I don't have it. (For those who don't know, I'm a college drop-out: I fled university before the end of my first year, and never went back. And regret it deeply, bitterly, while still believing that I was probably right.) I admire critics but mostly cannot follow them, I do not get critical theory: in consequence of which I understand myself to be a superficial reader, and therefore inadequate to the task of serious reviewing.
Right now, I am supposed to be writing a review. And - well, behold me, ducking the issue. Whimpering about my inadequacy for the task. Frightened of showing myself up, perhaps; or just incompetent to supply what the book deserves; or... Yeah. Inferiority complex, performance anxiety, call it what you will. I have trouble with this.