But the reviews suffered most. One, I remember, came down to "It
is a bad book," or to express it algebraically, it is a bad book.
Another disappeared entirely. On strict analysis it was discovered
that the reviewer had said nothing not canceled out by something
else. But most remained as a weak liquor of comment upon which
floated a hard cake of undigested narrative. One student found a
bit of closely reasoned criticism that argued from definite
evidences to a concrete conclusion. It was irreducible; but this
was a unique experience.
The long-winded are the dullest of dull reviewers, but the most
pernicious are the wielders of cliches and platitudes. Is there
somewhere a reviewer's manual, like the manual of correct social
phrases which some one has recently published? I would believe it
from the evidence of a hundred reviews in which the same phrases,
differently arranged, are applied to fifty different books. I
would believe it, except for the known capacity of man to borrow
most of his thoughts and all of his phrases from his neighbor. I
know too well that writers may operate like the Federal Reserve
banks, except that in literature there is no limit to inflation.
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