November 21, 2003
Is It a Memo to Heidi Julavits?
Neil LaBute talks about dealing with reviews in his Thursday diary entry for Slate.
It's always interesting to me how different artists respond to their critical reception. Some won't read anything, while others voraciously read it all. Still others have more elaborate lines of defense—think of the Maginot line but it actually holding. Various colleagues have detailed for me their personal rituals on the subject, and each time I find it fascinating. Certain artists will read just theater reviews, while a different number of them will glance only at film reviews, and all for different reasons. For most of them, the critics seem to be a kind of mild annoyance. The collective image they project is that of Orestes, being slowly but perpetually chased across the horizon by furies. My feeling on the subject, however, is pretty simple: Read everything and believe nothing.
It's very healthy, that. If he's never wracked by self-doubt after a negative review, even for a tiny bit, well, he's a stronger person than most.
posted by Laila Lalami at 06:15 AM
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