should reviewers review their reviewers?

Today's feeding: Lite Toronto-centrism. I figure we can start in the centre of the universe and work our way out to where the serious stuff happens. But the question that has tongues wagging down on Queen St. West is: Should book reviewers review their reviewers? That perennial question, which seems to arise only within the Canadian (Toronto?) world of letters, was raised anew last week, when Ryan Bigge went bonkers on Globe columnist Leah McLaren’s new novel The Continuity Girl, in the pages of the Toronto Star. Link to the review here… caution: bodies, limbs, blood. This is mean, vicious reviewing. It is also rubber-neckingly awesome to read. As Bigge himself notes in the review, not everyone will like it, but those who do like it will like it a lot. And as some people were quick to notice, McLaren might have started it, having launched an unprovoked assault on Ryan a few years back. Yesterday I was forwarded an email in which the writer suggested that newspapers should have a policy of not allowing feuding writers to review one another. The rationale, as far as I could gather, was that the obvious conflict of interest could lead to all sorts of evils, from biased reviewing to childish shin-kicking. There’s something to this, I suppose. Books cost money, and reviewing is, in part, a form of consumer report. Readers should expect a fair and reasonably objective account of a book’s features or failings. At the same time, there is the fact that criticism is itself a form of writing. It is entertainment, and nothing, I mean nothing, is more entertaining than a good literary hair-pulling. One might argue that, if anything, editors should make a point of picking reviewers who might be looking to get blood on their knuckles. For example, who other than Christopher Hitchens should have reviewed Martin Amis’ Koba the Dread? The fact that it is two old friends unloading on one another is what makes it worth reading. A good editor should be able to mediate between the poles of dry objectivity and naked vengeance-seeking. As long as conflicts of interest are disclosed and punches are kept reasonably above the belt, I see no reason not to put the cats into the bag and let them hiss scratch. Whether Bigge’s review falls within the rules of fair play is not for me to say. Disclosure: In the fall of 2004, a book I co-authored was negatively reviewed in the Globe and Mail by Hal Niedzviecki. In our book, we criticize a passage from some of Hal’s earlier writing, which he took extensive issue with in his review. A few months later, I dumped all over Hal’s book I’m Special in the pages of the National Post. A summary of this "feud" was published here. Arguably, Hal should have declined to review our book on the grounds that he could not be objective about its contents. I thought Hal’s review of The Rebel Sell was self-serving, in that he spent most of the review promoting his own work. Equally arguably, I should have declined the chance to review I’m Special on similar grounds, that I was simply looking to even things up. Perhaps I was. But I stand by my review, as I’m sure Hal stands by his.