How harsh is too harsh?

Hi guys (and onlookers).

I've been following the debate between Lindsay and Eugene Binx, the author she bagged for over-use of obscene words in Zen and the Art of Standup Comedy. Right from the start, I wanted to comment, but after the latest exchange I took the dog for a long walk while I thought things over.

On my return I find Suzanne has posted a couple of comments. They're helpful, and perhaps she's trying to calm something at risk of becoming bitter. Still, I'd like to add my two bob's worth. I'm not troubled if Eugene has used the F word seven times in seven sentences. If it helped develop our understanding of his novel's main character, or of its setting, that's fine by me. On the other hand, if it's gratuitous – put in just to shock us – I'd fall into line with Lindsay. I haven't read Zen and the Art of Standup Comedy.

I have Lindsay's opinions, but I don't know her general attitude to obscene words in popular novels. Are they distasteful at all times, or only when used gratuitiously?

English literature, popular or highbrow, would be much poorer if we admitted only those books one could read aloud on a crowded Sydney bus.

So I don't know whether Lindsay was too harsh. I hope Eugene isn't discouraged, and that he pushes on with his writing. He should think over Lindsay's comments, but if he disagrees, so be it. Write on Eugene, and I'll take a look at your next book.

Meanwhile, I think we should welcome robust discussions such as we've just had, but perhaps revise the format in which we conduct them.

First, we should invite authors to respond with full posts (not just appended comments) when we criticise their work. Before I read Eugene's comment, I'd already read Lindsay's reply. It's as if she held on to the microphone.

When we decided we would read different books, then tell the others about them, we became reviewers, as well as members of a book club discussion. That gives us some limitations and some more responsibilities, as the literary critic Kerryn Goldsworthy has explained. Our first task is to tell others whether a book is worth reading. But we should also remember our criticisms, if offered constructively, may nurture the talent of a novice writer.

[For you Globusz guys in New York, two bob is not very much money – two shillings in the currency Australia abandoned in the 1960s. So my two bob's worth is an inconsequential opinion but you're going to get it anyway. ]

The sketch? That's me, drawn by Sydney newspaper caricaturist Tony Rafty in 1982. I use it as a sort of signature when I'm blogging. -- Ian Skinner

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