Paul Auster On Book Reviews: 'I've Learned Not to Look'

WSJ:

One that that has changed, though, is Auster's relationship to critics. "I've learned not to look at reviews," he said. "Early on I did, I was always curious. You tend to feel very hurt when people attack you and feel indifferent when you get praise. You think, 'Of course they like it. They should like it.' I've learned that reading one of these attacks is like drinking poison; it goes into your system. You'll remember the nasty phrases. You can't get them out of your head. And that doesn't do you any good as a human being at all to walk around with that sense of rancor or frustration. What can you do?"

Read the whole story: WSJ

Comments

[Alette]

04:12 PM on 11/14/2010

That's great that Auster has learned not to look at reviews. Now if only he could learn how to write.

[TheWM]

11:31 AM on 11/11/2010

Nevermind reviews of my own work -- I've pretty much sworn off reading reviews of other authors' works except for those written by colleagues: reviews written by novelists of novels, reviews by historians of historical works and so forth. Any reviews written by William H Gass because he writes in seemingly all genres.

http://thewrongmonkey.blogspot.com/

[TheWM]

02:09 PM on 11/11/2010

I thought of one exception, one living full-time critic whose work I like: Harold Bloom.

http://thewrongmonkey.blogspot.com/