Heidi Julavits has largely given up on book reviews. In an essay in the new magazine Believer, she writes: “Maybe it’s simply that book reviews have devolved to a point where they function as little more than advertising posing as criticism; the only books likely to be ratified by critical coverage are the books that promise to be ratified by the marketplace.” Critic Bob Hoover takes offense: “The newspaper book editors I know, me included, have never written or run a review of rearranged copy cribbed from a press release or looked at the best-seller list as a source of recommendations, those titles ‘ratified by the marketplace’.”
Tag: 04.06.03
Thaw In French Government Attitude To Art
The French government has for some time been deaf to concerns of the art market. But “last year saw the right wing get a resounding majority in Parliament, and the present government is no longer hostile to the arguments of the art market. The reform of auctioneering has shaken up the establishment and brought new players into the field.”