Triveni is a journal dedicated to ancient Indian culture, history, philosophy, art, spirituality, music and all sorts of literature. Triveni was founded at Madras in 1927 and since that time various authors have donated their creativity in the form of articles, covering many aspects of public life....
Critical appreciation or evaluation of a text is popularly called its review or appraisal. A crop of such exercises is found these days in print media. Analysis of facts presented in a publication, manner of their communication, authenticity of that matter and the contribution it is likely to make to existing knowledge constitute a review. It may be objective or subjective. The former is appreciated, while the latter often gets decried.
A reviewer should possess proficiency in his branch of knowledge. He has a four-fold obligation as well; to the author, to the editor or publisher who seeks appraisal, to the reader and above all to himself. Gone are the days when the writers resorted to display their scholarship through verbosity or obscurity without caring whether they were communicating their ideas with clarity or not. It was left to the imagination of readers or to be explored by critics. Such exercises taken by different persons at various times lead the reader nowhere. An editor may contrive to project his favorite despite the latter’s merit and a publisher is normally led by a craze for profit. A reviewer should not fall a prey to such manoeuvers. A reader has the right to know correctly and variedly. A reviewer ought not to take this obligation lightly.
Just as a judge is enjoined to be impartial, likewise a reviewer is expected to be objective. His liking or disliking for the author to be appraised and lack of sincerity towards the reader may not only create an unhappy situation but harm his credibility too.
In literature, a reviewer will be comprehensive as well as effective, if he is proficient in more than one language. Communication channels have vanquished lingual barriers and replaced narrow considerations emanating from native affinities by broad-based humanism. A writer is expected to communicate with humanity at large and a reviewer is obliged to evaluate that contribution for global audience. Many societies are getting multilingual and like to read the texts in languages other than their mother tongue. The reviewer is expected to find out important events about writer’s life and the influences on him. This helps in assessing what he seeks to state.
A reviewer in the fields of humanities and sciences should have interdisciplinary knowledge. Otherwise he would appear to be the proverbial frog in a well.
Before reviewing the biography of a political person, it is desirable to find out whether its writer is his admirer, detractor or an objective researcher. The villain for a section may be a hero for another.
A creative writer should not indulge in the gruelling task of evaluating the works of his contemporaries. In the long run he would find his exercise unpleasant as well as erosive for his natural talent. L.S. Sisson, a well-known American poet, who got prevailed upon to become a literary critic echoed similar sentiments. He makes a few constructive suggestions in this respect.
Sission observes that a reviewer should not evaluate the book; written by a friend or an adversary; he has not read thoroughly or understood well; and that which does not belong to his field.
He may not base his review on what is printed in the jacket of a book or stated in its preliminaries i.e. preface, foreword, introduction etc. Thus, he will be either assisting unconsciously selling tricks of the publisher or endorsing unwittingly the views already expressed. He should also not read any previous review of that book because he is likely to be induced either to concur or dissent with the earlier exercises, thus diverting his attention from the writer.
A reviewer should not interpret the views of a writer according to his own leanings. Such an approach deprecates constructive difference of opinion and ends often in an unproductive exercise. If a writer has already been extensively reviewed, one should not accept to appraise that work unless something new is to be stated.
A reviewer is enjoined to give clear judgement about the substance of a book instead of indulging in verbose jargon or merely summarising its contents. An editor should not accept a review arranged by the writer himself. He will be eroding the credibility of his paper by becoming a party to an underhand attempt for self-projection. Such a writer dwarfs himself too.
An enlightened reader has a corresponding onus or obligation. He should not be influenced by rumours but form his own opinion. So often, governments play destructive role by proscribing a book to appease a bigoted populace or suppress disagreement with their unpopular policies. Glory of mankind emanates from continual exploratory thinking. A writer, and editor, the reviewer and avid reader have a collective obligation to uphold that human distinction.
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