The nature of my present position is such that I m far more likely to know, however slightly, the people whose books I m asked to review, and I cannot pretend that has no effect on what I write. I had been in New York only a short time when I met a man at a reception whose book I had disparagingly reviewed several years earlier. As we were being introduced, he offered a wide and friendly smile. Then his memory clicked in, the smile froze, and he turned away quickly. What I had written was not, I think, unfair, but at that moment I wished I could take back the words that had clearly caused intense pain to someone who had done me no harm and who was, by all appearances, a perfectly decent man.
Writers have long memories for unfriendly reviews.
Not long ago at a book party I attended, a prominent New York intellectual refused to shake the hand of a man who had savaged one of his books some thirty years ago. I remembered its contemptuous tone myself that I could not blame the author. Yet reviews that have no touch of the personal can be as devastating as those that do, and can wound as deeply. Editors, I have found, take very different approaches to what might be called the politics of reviewing. I have been asked to soften criticisms of books on the grounds that the author was an intellectual ally whom the editor did not wish to offend.