“Unreliable Memoirs was just too hard to classify: most of the first wave of American reviewers had convicted it of trying to be truthful and fanciful at the same time. Since I had clearly had no other aim in mind, I read these indictments with sad bewilderment. The most powerful reviewer, in The New York Review of Books, had seized on my incidental remark 'Rilke was a prick' in order to instruct me that Rilke was, on the contrary, an important German poet.”

— Clive James

Dick Cavett, p. 97
Essays and reviews, Cultural Amnesia: Notes in the Margin of My Time (2007)

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Clive James 151

Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator an… 1939–2019

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

From the preface, p. 9
Memoirs, Unreliable Memoirs (1980)

“[On book reviewing] I will only turn down a book if I know I won't be able to muster enough interest to read the bloody thing. Or if I realize that I despise the author, and that I'm just going to become hysterical in my dispraise. A couple of times in my life I've disobeyed my own rule, and later regretted it. […] It's a delicate business. All too often, if one writes a favorable notice, it's seen as a product of the old-boy network, and if one dispraises a book, it's seen as envy. Nobody seems able to accept that I review books as a book reviewer, not as a competing novelist. When I review, I'm being as honest as I can. And I'm saying to the reading public — the minuscule segment of the reading public that reads reviews — that this is my judgment.”

John Banville (1945) Irish writer

John Banville, The Art of Fiction No. 200 (2009)

“I was noodling around Rotten Tomatoes, trying to determine who played the bank's security chief, and noticed the movie had not yet been reviewed by anybody. Hold on! In the "Forum" section for this movie, "islandhome" wrote at 7:58 a. m. Jan. 8: "review of this movie … tonight i'll post." At 11:19 a. m. Jan. 10, "islandhome" was finally back with the promised review. It is written without capital letters, flush left like a poem, and I quote it verbatim, spelling and all:
:hello sorry i slept when i got back
:well it was kinda fun
:it could never happen in the way it was portraid
:but what ever its a movie
:for the girls most will like it
:and the men will not mind it much
:i thought it was going to be kinda like how to beat the high cost of living
:kinda the same them but not as much fun
:ill give it a 4 0ut of 10
I read this twice, three times. I had been testing out various first sentences for my own review, but somehow the purity and directness of islandhome's review undercut me. It is so final. "for the girls most will like it/and the men will not mind it much."”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

How can you improve on that? It's worthy of Charles Bukowski. ...The bottom line is some girls will like it, the men not so much, and I give it 1½ stars out of 4.
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mad-money-2008 of Mad Money (17 January 2008)
Reviews, One-and-a-half star reviews

“You read reviews by top reviewers of films that not only had remarkably interesting scores, but films whose effectiveness was absolutely enhanced, and frequently created by the music, yet the reviewers seem unaware that their emotions and their nervous reactions to the films have been affected by the scoring. This is a serious flaw. Any film reviewer owes it to himself, and the public, to take every element of the film into account”

Jerry Goldsmith (1929–2004) film composer

ibid., p. 209
On Goldsmith's irritation at the lack of response from responsible critics

“My sister lives in New York and she was struck by how class-ridden the reviews were. Everyone had to mention that I'm posh. British people are obsessed by that. I said to John, 'I'm not posh.' Is my voice posh?”

Nigella Lawson (1960) British food writer, journalist and broadcaster

As quoted in "Say What You Like About Nigella Lawson" by Alex Bilmes in Q Magazine http://www.nigella.com/nigella/detail.asp?article=35&area=10 (January 2001)