In Spain, the Sun Shines Everyday, and all the Lit Supplements are 204 pages long

ONE OF THE more painful juxtapositions of world literary culture and what is happening with book reviewing in America was apparent on the last day of the London Book Fair. As the NBCC geared up to protest the removal of Teresa Weaver and a book editor job at the AJC, there was a panel at the LBF on Spanish literary supplements, featuring editors from El Pais, La Vanguardia, the Times Literary Supplement and several other newspapers in Spain. Lit supplements are in a hey day there, according to most of the panelists. There are more than 25 major stand alone supplements published across the country, and many 'provincial' newspapers as they were called, are adding them presently.

The goal of the panel was to determine whether these literary supplements had any influence on book buying, but the presentations wound up -- by nature of how articulate each panelist was -- forming a terrific argument for why literary supplements are essential to culture full stop. A cultural journalist, argued Luisa Blanco, "has to help a reader make free and independent choices, not confuse fame or popularity with value, and must present real cultural values: rather than those created by the market."

Comments like these made it hard not to see a yawning cultural difference between America and the rest of the world - especially when it comes to our belief in 'market' forces. This isn't to say that I believe that our literary sections follow the industry slavishly, but I doubt a section editor would ever articulate his or her job in precisely those terms. Do our book pages ever attempt to direct our attention at cultural values in books, rather than literary merit? With a few exceptions, the answer would be no -- there's something deeply frowned upon in the U.S. about book sections becoming (or trying to become) idea leaders: that's for the op-ed page. (Which is why when sections are combined, as in the LA Times recently, book sections wind up next to opinions -- it allows critics to review without having their literary critique marred by "opinion").

I always find this a dubious parsing. How, after all, could one review "Slaughterhouse Five" without commenting upon the novel's deeply humanistic vision? How will critics talk about former NBCC winner Jim Crace's upcoming apocalyptic novel "The Pesthouse" (which is set in America) without engaging with the very real political undercurrents caused by his flip-flopping of our greatest migration myths (having people trying to leave the country, rather than enter it)? How does one review a book like William T. Vollmann's "Poor People" without pausing for more than an aside to marvel how infrequently this population winds up in a book at all?

This, too, is just an aside, but it's something that I wish the panel had more time to discuss. Blanco went on to say that literary sections are charged with preserving the act of seeking knowledge, and that one of critics' major jobs is "to seduce people, to convince them to read," and that criticism should compel readers to try and read more enriching literature, as opposed to that which does not challenge them intellectually. It sounds like a familiar story to us in America, where reading is on the wane, but apparently these are issues -- declining readership, etc. -- that Spanish publishers and newspapers face, too.

Manuel Rodriguez Rivero from ABC argued that in this enviornment, with more than 164 books published per day, the way a literary supplement in Spain affects readers is by simply winnowing (but he went on to point out that out of the 1,000 or so titles each supplement reviewed per year, between 70 and 80 percent of them overlap with what other publications were reviewing). He took the stance that outside of this winnowing, literary supplements don't have much influence on reading at all.

The editor from the Times Literary Supplement -- Rupert Shortt-- disagreed, since the TLS has gone out of its way to review literature in translation (and had a Spain focused issue in 2002) and Shortt felt this made a real difference on reading, especially since some of the books they review don't get reviewed anywhere else. He did point out, however, that the kind of high-minded reviewing his publication publishes is on the decline, that their readership today is half of what it used to be 50 years ago and that a growing -- almost 50 percent -- of them come from overseas, much of that from America. Shortt said English literary supplements might seem a pale version of what happens in Spain, but he said it wasn't as bad as the cultural deserts between east and west coast in America.

One of the best panelists was a woman whose name I didn't catch, which is a shame, since her definition of what a lit section should do was especially articulate and concise. She began by reading a quote by (Alberto Manguel?) which said "In order to feel at home, you have to have a book and a bed, and you don't take any old thing to bed." Thus, a book section's first job is to be the literary equivalent of that friend who drags you away from the lout at the bar before you go home with him (or her). She went to say that a lit supplement provides 5 things.

1) It establishes a dialogue that's clear, that includes the widest range of literature for the broadest group of people: in other words, everyone from specialists to occasional readers can get something out of it.

2) It never discourages -- it never makes literature remote, difficult, hard to reach or a province of the few

3) It is engaged with the culture of liberty -- (this comes back to what I said above about cultural values)

4) It is objective. (She spoke of asking academics with no literary connections to review in order to weed out conflict of interest)

5) It applies the basic principles of journalism; i.e., it is accurate, alert, independent, and transparent

She said a lit supplement needs to reach readers quickly, and make the kind of references that are accessible to its readers -- be it films they have watched or news they are watching. She said lit supplements need to be aware that marketing & publicity has supplemented critical analysis (hence, capsule reviews and 'mentions' rather than reviews). She says lit supplements need to present an alternative to this type of noise, and the way it can do that is by

1) Being rigorous

2) Writing clearly

3) Putting forward a diversity of critics with a diversity of opinions

4) Being up to date

5) Connecting with the public

The panel went over its time limit, so the discussion was somewhat abbreviated, but I was able to ascertain that, for example, La Vanguardia's lit supplement is underwritten by one corporate sponsor (which puts the review under no obligations whatsoever), that all of these papers are developing or expanding on their websites (and that 30 percent of their hits are from overseas), and that none of them --as yet -- have plans to do an English language version.

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