The Star, by the stars

My joke for the way Dan Smith at the Toronto Star puts together his weekly book section is that he is guided "by the stars." Anyone who has written reviews for him knows the drill: a review submitted one week can appear in the paper the next, or not for months, and occasionally not at all.

Case in point: I picked up Eliza Clark's Writer's Gym last June and sent in the review shortly thereafter. And now here, more than six months later, is the review.*

The more significant piece in this weekend's Star book section was the farewell by Phil Marchand, who is moving over to the film beat (?) to make room for the incoming Geoff Pevere (??).

While Marchand's reviews have been showing distinct signs of reviewer-fatigue of late – a lot of plot summary to bulk up the word count, a tendency toward repetition, and an overall sense of resignation in the face of a steadfastly parochial literary culture – when his boiler was sufficiently stoked, he wrote the kind of sharp criticism he was known for, the kind that can be found especially in his book Ripostes, which I end up re-reading every year or so, both by design and by accident.

Personally, I think the guy should get a medal. (And okay, so should Dan... but have it come much later than expected.)

My hopes for Pevere are, or course, that he will be sharp and funny and perceptive and all that, but really, I just hope that he sticks with it, and that this isn't the first step in the elimination of that position altogether. After all, count the number of full-time literary critics we have in this country.


* ADDED: Awfully good idea to begin the lead up to the publication of my first novel by suggesting that ordinary people shouldn't write novels, isn't it? I sometimes adhere too closely to Klingon-style diplomacy. Oh well.