Reception studies: on reviewer bias

AGE MATTERS
Kimball [an older man reviewing on Amazon] argues that our school systems are currently designed to shove these literary masterpieces down the throats of students who may not be ready to read them just yet. This forcing can, and does discourage many young readers from continuing to read after they have finished school. Like Moby Dick, many works of writing are only seen as “great literature” when they are read at the proper time [in one’s life trajectory]. –Ann

What about children though? Reading is fun for them—would Moby Dick be? I decided to check out the reviews for the Great Illustrated Classics version. 5 reviews, all of which the kids gave positive reviews. Were they positive for the same reasons as the older reader? Well, no. Here, the kids raved over the fact that the whales were really cool, and how there was even a cannibal in the story! Even though these versions cut down books to just their plot, it was still really sweet to see how enthusiastic they were. For those cuts that were cut out in the Great Illustrated version, the older readers seemed to grab those up and read those parts the most voraciously.—Mabel

NATIONALITY MATTERS
One particular passage in the review [London, 1851], betray[s] the author’s distaste for popular fiction of the time. Of subject matter of such fiction he states, “it is indeed ‘refreshing’ to quit the old, wornout pathways of romance, and feel the sea breezes playing through our hair, the salt spray dashing on our brows, as we do here. One tires terribly of ballrooms, dinners, and the incidents of town life! One never tires of nature” (603). . . . He is sick of the same domestic stories told over and over, each time held up as a brilliant example of brilliance, weary of the reactionary reproduction so closely tied with Romanticism and Victorian writing. He is looking forward to “originality”, to seeing the genius in creating something nobody enjoys (yet). . . Whereas many American writers and reviewers were seeking to shoulder their way into the established literary world of England and Europe and achieve “high culture” through words, as if to prove themselves, English reviewers had the clarity of being inundated with such a culture – they had the secure space from which to praise experimental work.–Justin B.

[on the same review:] It’s equally “refreshing” how accepting of Melville’s writing this reviewer appears to be. In this review, Melville is mentioned with the likes of Hawthorne and Poe, forming “the big three” of American romantic literature. Though Hawthorne was a popular writer in his own time, Poe and Melville’s work wouldn’t be canonized until well after their deaths. The reviewers comment on tiring of the “town life” expressed in British novels of the time is very revealing of their own personal sentiments. This reviewer recognizes a changing of the guard, and expresses a viewpoint that American authors should no longer be subjugated by the old world, and recognized in their own right. . . . Equally bold is to distinguish America, a foundling country, unrecognized for its culture, as a leading place of literature, more in tune with the world than Europeans. –Michael J.

NOVELISTS CAN MAKE LOUSY REVIEWERS
I read through most of them and decided to start by discussing the very last and most recent review by William Faulkner entitled “I wish I had written that.” Right off the bat, I couldn’t help but notice how grandiose he presumed himself to be by comparing his desire to rewrite other people’s works to the supposed desire of angels for correcting “the Lord’s” creation of the universe. As a matter of fact, most of the review was not even about Moby Dick. It appeared to me that Faulkner was more concerned with mentioning all the great works that he could have perhaps written better. . . Faulkner compares Moby Dick to the simple and brilliant works of the Greeks, and this reminds me of the ethnocentric manner in which Americans of European descent give the Greeks and Romans most of the credit for contributions to society while ignoring all of the “third world” contributions that have been made. This is a blatant disregard for all the other non-western influences that affected the writing of Melville’s novel. –Rosa