Criticize responsibly

Re “Not everybody’s a critic,” Opinion, May 20

Richard Schickel is right: Any reviewer, either paid professional or hack amateur, should aim for more than mere “opinion-mongering.” But all too often their ill-conceived words live on, diminishing a book’s prospects of connecting with a wider readership.

For some years now, Amazon.com has prominently displayed two such judgmental gems for would-be readers of my two books: an uncredited Publishers Weekly review of my first novel, which declares that “most readers ... will find that surfing and detection make for an uneasy mix” (as if the anonymous critic had conducted a poll), and the comments of a lay critic who, paradoxically, found my second novel to be both “written well” and “slow-moving and confused.” Most of what passes for book criticism these days already isn’t much. For authors, the “purely democratic literary landscape” to come could be darker still.

JOHN DECURE

Long Beach

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We agree with Schickel. After all, the most “bruited” books, films, plays and objets d’art are obviously only those that were subjected to the elegant, intelligent and cultured critiques of Schickel and his ilk. We unwashed, soiled masses owe our gratitude to these word warriors. Without them, we would never correctly understand or appreciate art and would think that “Talladega Nights” is akin to Shakespeare.

RICK AND CARON LEVY

Tarzana