Archive for the ‘ Literary Criticism ’ Category

Security in Obscurity

We were lying in the fields on an overcast Saturday, 28 degrees, the sugar of iced lollies dribbling down our hands and hoping the sun would bless us for long enough to darken our transparent skin. Beautiful people surrounded us on all sides: impossibly thin; impossibly well dressed in that garage-sale chic kind of way; [ READ MORE ]

Still Not Convinced: YA is awesome!

In comments on my recent post about claims that YA literature is ‘intrinsically of less cultural value than the real books’, Linnet Hunter raised some interesting questions about the perception of YA literature in Australia I was going to reply with a comment, but I was compelled to delve deeper into the subject. Reviewing Space The first [ READ MORE ]

Critics With a Cause

My friend Felice posted me this link on Facebook: ‘Critical mess: whose ‘must see’ is it anyway?’ The article starts with a guy having a fight with his girlfriend because they have different expectations of art reviewers. She likes to rely on her own curiosity when choosing the film she’d like to see, and her own [ READ MORE ]

To Win, Or Not To Win

There’s a really good agent blog coming out of Sydney, called Call My Agent! The anonymous blogger, Agent Sydney, posts and answers fictional queries based on what are, presumably, emails that an agent might receive, in a pithy and sometimes scathing manner. In a post about competitions and rights, Agent Sydney dishes out such pithy advice [ READ MORE ]

Inferiority Complex, Much?

I often read claims like this: So is YA taking over the grown-ups’ table? It’s a revealing question, steeped in the kind of condescension that assumes books aimed at young people are intrinsically of less cultural value than the real books, speculative or otherwise, that are ostensibly for adult readers. It’s also drenched in fear because, [ READ MORE ]

Ploughing Author Intentions

I have a question to ask that seems simple, but which grows increasingly complex when you think about it. How do you consider author intention when reviewing a novel? I’ve come up ambivalent about a book I’m reviewing. When this happens I like to make note of the positives and negatives and try to round up [ READ MORE ]

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