Sometimes I read reviews, and without exception I will read critical essays that are sent to me. The critical essays are interesting on their own terms.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
To me, I read good reviews in lots of papers and bad reviews in lots of papers.
Essays, entitled critical, are epistles addressed to the public, through which the mind of the recluse relieves itself of its impressions.
I love essays, but they're not always the best way to communicate to a larger audience.
As much as I encourage communication with my readers, I don't want reviews from them, simply because I don't need to be hamstrung in the middle of working on something.
I personally read criticism - at least by writers I enjoy - to stimulate a conversation in my own mind, and I like to think that's the function I serve for others.
I would be far more critical than any reviewer could be of my own work. So I simply don't read them.
I reach my readers regardless of what the critics have written.
Good critical writing is measured by the perception and evaluation of the subject; bad critical writing by the necessity of maintaining the professional standing of the critic.
But I honestly don't read critics. My dad reads absolutely everything ever written about me. He calls me up to read ecstatic reviews, but I always insist that I can't hear them. If you give value to the good reviews, you have to give value to the criticism.
I don't like to read reviews. Even the good ones you start to analyze: 'Oh, did I do that? I have to make sure I do that again.'