thegoodbookguide.com
Although I include the link, the website is not functional at the moment, as the GBG had terrible problems last year and nearly went into administration. However, it has been pulled back and restarted by the brilliant editor, and is again viable.
Every month I am sent several books to review, usually in art subjects, photography, sometimes music, literature, and recently, poetry. It always is a bit of a thrill to open up the package and see what's there, and the flow satisfies my book lust somewhat.
Even though I have been doing this for over a decade and have reviewed hundreds of books in all sorts of subjects, I always wonder if I will be able to sum up and deliver something coherent. Of course at times it is challenging - recently I reviewed Human Anatomy: Depicting the body from the Renaissance to Today. By Benjamin A. Rifkin. It's a truly fascinating book, showing the history of how human innards had been portrayed by artists and scientists for centuries, reflection the evolution of dissection and medicine itself.
Perhaps humanity is divided into two sorts – those who can draw and dissect bodies, who can overcome their initial unease of innards, and can perhaps work within the medical profession. And then there are those others, such as myself, who finds the images of unpeeled humans, no matter how educational and imperative to science, utterly repulsive. More than diagrams, skeletons were depicted before the modern era in humanistic poses, lounging about, cadavers splayed out, especially amidst landscapes.
I remember several years ago there was an exhibition about art and medicine at the Hayward Gallery. After a short time, I had to blinker myself to get through the exhibition. It seems to me that this inside out way of looking at humans is how serial killers must view bodies, with a curiosity to discover what is in there, and where the person is.
So, a challenging review, as I must of course overcome my own prejudices to deliver a balanced view of the contents and the delivery of the material, while giving fair warning to others.
Some years ago I reviewed a book about Jack Vettriano. Now, there's a contentious issue, and one which I should bring to the coffee shop for debate. He is popular, people like him, and those who like him may well like him enough to buy the book, so my job is to convey whether aspects of the book deliver.
An Imperfect Past. Jack Vettriano.
Well, why isn't it art? Why is Vettriano, who is the most widely distributed and best selling artist in Scotland, not represented in the National Gallery of Scotland? He has somewhat campaigned for this recognition, partly because of his own achievement, and partly as a stance against a perceived snobbishness and elitism which disdains a self taught painter whose subject matter is nostalgic, wishful and slightly erotic. I appreciate any attempt at art, no matter how shallow.
Summarising was always the thing I hated most at school, and found most difficult. Yet although reviewing and assessing is really all about summarising, I have been very drawn to this area. What is this book, what is it trying to say, does it actually deliver what it claims, is there anything about this book which fails or works against itself, is there anything which it ought to have said but doesn't. I have got pretty good at scanning books and getting the gist. The difficulties come when one feels something is deficient in some way. I would never trash someones work, even if it falls well short, so one has to really identify and express exactly what the deficiency is.
I know all this book reviewing has led to the assessing for the arts council - more of which later, and other ways of approaching art, looking at it, and trusting my thoughts and instincts in response to it. I'm sure my art practice is also informed by this critical attitude.
You have to be open to a book to review it, open to an exhibition to assess it, open to art to accept it. Resistances, disappointments, failings within art can be identified, analysed, understood.
All activities really are linked.
19th May 2011
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