Boyd

There may not be a more sensible set of literary reviews published this year than those in Bamboo, the first collection of such pieces -- plus art reviews, travel writing and other assorted articles -- from the British novelist William Boyd. The author of nine novels, three story collections and many screenplays, Boyd is unfailingly judicious, whether praising the "potent manipulation of symbol" in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, the "compelling dry-eyed poignancy" of Raymond Carver's stories or the "curious blend of faux naïveté and profanity, of innocence and deep irony" in the writerly voice of Kurt Vonnegut.
It's difficult, in fact, to argue with any of Boyd's conclusions. But if one can't argue with a review, why bother with it at all? One would rather -- at least, I would rather -- read a striking if ultimately dubious argument about a book or a movie than the level-headed evaluations provided in these pages. It is more important for a critic to be interesting than to be right. To truly interest the reader, a critic must risk something and be prepared for the embarrassment that follows a questionable enthusiasm or the contrition that's the result of an ill-considered pan.
There are advantages, certainly, in Boyd's measured approach. His review of Michael Ondaatje's novel The English Patient is a model of open-minded consideration, especially given that Ondaatje's subjects, war and the British Empire, have provided material for several of Boyd's own books. "Ondaatje eschews the nuts and bolts of period detail, the roughage of authentic fact," Boyd writes, drawing an implicit contrast with his own historical fictions. But what we get in exchange, he says, is "the trenchant reverberation of metaphor and image." To focus on the novel's implausible aspects would be "pedantic" Boyd writes; the "strange power" and "final reality" of the book "belong to it alone."