"I rarely read or buy a book because of a review"
About this Quote
Harrison’s line is a small act of literary insubordination: a refusal to let the commentariat stand between a reader and a book. Coming from a writer who built a career on appetite and sensory immediacy, it’s also a declaration of method. Reviews are downstream of experience; Harrison is talking about going upstream, where taste is made in private, not managed in public.
The intent is deceptively modest. He’s not claiming criticism is worthless; he’s dodging its power as a consumer guide and, more pointedly, as a prestige filter. A review turns reading into a supervised activity: buy this, skip that, admire in the approved way. Harrison’s “rarely” is doing important work here. It’s not a purist oath, it’s a practiced skepticism - a writer’s recognition that reviews often reward legibility, trend, and the critic’s own performance as much as they reward the book itself.
Subtext: the culture of reviews can flatten risk. If you pick books by consensus, you end up with consensus books, and literature becomes another market of “best-of” lists and social proof. Harrison’s posture protects the kind of reading that leads to idiosyncratic discovery - the dusty paperback found by accident, the strange voice that doesn’t travel well in a pull-quote.
Context matters: Harrison came up in an era when gatekeepers were fewer but louder, when a review could crown or bury a book, and when regional, working-life, and genre-adjacent writing could be condescended to as “minor.” His sentence is a quiet counterpunch: trust appetite over approval, encounter over endorsement.
The intent is deceptively modest. He’s not claiming criticism is worthless; he’s dodging its power as a consumer guide and, more pointedly, as a prestige filter. A review turns reading into a supervised activity: buy this, skip that, admire in the approved way. Harrison’s “rarely” is doing important work here. It’s not a purist oath, it’s a practiced skepticism - a writer’s recognition that reviews often reward legibility, trend, and the critic’s own performance as much as they reward the book itself.
Subtext: the culture of reviews can flatten risk. If you pick books by consensus, you end up with consensus books, and literature becomes another market of “best-of” lists and social proof. Harrison’s posture protects the kind of reading that leads to idiosyncratic discovery - the dusty paperback found by accident, the strange voice that doesn’t travel well in a pull-quote.
Context matters: Harrison came up in an era when gatekeepers were fewer but louder, when a review could crown or bury a book, and when regional, working-life, and genre-adjacent writing could be condescended to as “minor.” His sentence is a quiet counterpunch: trust appetite over approval, encounter over endorsement.
Quote Details
| Topic | Book |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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