February 24, 2004

Subject: Kane X. Faucher’s reviews

Dear Editors, Danforth Review

I have been following the heated exchanges in the letters section in regards to the reviews of Mr. Faucher, and what could be called an offended majority (if three responders constitutes a majority). As someone who has been following this site since its inception, I cannot recall a time when there has been so much controversy over what seems to me to be, at the end of the day, just a couple of reviews. I do not want to champion the underdog in this debate for the sake of championing the underdog. No, rather, I would like to state a few balanced points where I agree and disagree with what has truly crystallized into an issue of “sides.”

To be fair, right away, Mr. Faucher’s reviews put me on my guard. My initial reaction was one of being offended. I mean, who is this guy to be wielding this words and making a hash out of the reviewing process? Who is he to not make frequent contact with the books he supposedly reviews? And then I put these reactions aside, and reread the pieces over and over again. I do believe that Mr. Faucher is actually laughing at the entire apparatus of what we know to be a review! Mr. Faucher better bears this out in his responses above, all the while bringing up his idea of “satire”. It is this element of satire that he constantly reasserts, and it is precisely what I missed the first two or three times around when I was reading these pieces. But I am assured that it is there, in the text, and that this was not a fanciful reading on my part. He is genuinely having a good time playing with words, ideas, and names, and this sense of playfulness extends to himself (although, if he was truly being playful, why has he even entertained responding to his critics?).

I do not think that his reviews are very clear or insightful about the texts under review, but I believe that is the point. Perhaps this attempt at being clever makes a mockery of reviewing itself, and perhaps it is not clever at all. However, I can truly respect his unique style of going about it. He himself admits to be something of a polemicist, which is something that always rings alarm bells in my head. Of course, we can always distance ourselves by calling him a literary pundit, or, like Mr. Rechaufe claims, that he is merely covering up a lack of insight by name/theory-dropping. But, again, I think we miss the VERY subtle point in Mr. Faucher’s writing, so subtle as to be mistakenly missed. Apart from his responses, Mr. Faucher does not seem to take anything all that seriously, least of all himself. If the function of a review is to, yes, review a book and give us the pertinent details so that we can make informed decisions as to whether or not we purchase the book, Mr. Faucher’s reviews are a dismal failure. But if, as he claims right at the beginning of his review of a.e.m’s Solid as Echo, he does not know or care how to write a review, and does so anyway because it would be amusing to experiment in the way that he does, then why can we not share the amusement? Perhaps because this is not the venue for that function. Perhaps because the authors being reviewed are not advantaged by having this particular review as one of the frontispieces of their marketing strategy. I know that I would be somewhat wary or ambivalent if told that Mr. Faucher was going to review one of my books. But then again, he is just having fun, and really, I do not see that anyone is being harmed by it. Sure, he uses a lot of very specialized terms (and perhaps wrongly), but I am not as quick to jump to the conclusion, as Mr. Davidson has, that this is merely Mr. Faucher’s way of proving his intellectuality at the expense of writing a clear review. No, if we charitably take Mr. Faucher’s claim that this is a piece of satire, then even his bloated theory buzzwords are a part of this theatrical performance whose intention is to make fun of an established way of writing. I mean, I have had enough literary theory making sandcastles in the sky to make me very weary when I see terms used so loosely and ubiquitously. But are we not reminded here of Swift’s A Modest Proposal? At least I am.

Despite my initial reactions, I gave it my best shot. And just when I was about to give up on these pieces, it came to me like a flash that, indeed, we can even appreciate this text (if at all) on the merit of at least one thing: the considerable skill Mr. Faucher has employed in piecing it together to make it sound like drivel, and yet to install within it something (excuse me) “meta-review”. On the face of it, the texts are monstrous and full of vanity, but those with a certain sensitivity can see something lurking beneath it all, and not necessarily something that makes a bold claim on the psychological disorders of Mr. Faucher (as Mr. Rechaufe strangely felt free to comment on). In rereading these pieces as satirical, I have gained a new appreciation for them, although I do not think they fall under the category of review. Maybe only I get the joke, if there is a joke in it at all.

I cannot and will not defend Mr. Faucher, for he is his own person with his own motivations. But I will stand by my own interpretation of those reviews. I, too, wanted to know if I was being snowed by a hack, or teased by someone who knew exactly what he was doing. I think that Mr. Rechaufe raised a host of interesting points, but they fell within the inner confines of the text without seeing the bigger picture, and then after stating that his critique would only concern the two pieces, went on to make some very large claims about Mr. Faucher as a person. As I am prone to having the Internet at my disposal at all times in the day, my being offended prompted me to find out if I was being deceived, or if this person was even worth being deceived by. For if I am to make a competent judgment, I would avail myself of more information. And lo I found him all over the net. I discovered that, yes, he writes different things according to different contexts. Apparently, he has published in academic journals which, although not enough in itself to quiet my suspicions of his academic rigor, is enough to tell me that he is capable of writing things that are insightful and intelligent (or are perceived as such by an editorial board). I also discovered that he writes a strange kind of fiction, and found myself reading a few selections he felt confident enough to put up. I am (sadly) a very well read individual (at least I like to think so), and found his fiction—although a bit too edgy for my taste—unique, contrary to Mr. Rechaufe’s claim that Mr. Faucher possesses no literary talents.

I’d like to impart a different moral lesson to Mr. Faucher. I think he should continue developing his craft, and stop writing reviews. I think his future is in fiction and maybe academia, not here on the Danforth Review or any other reviewing body. I think, from the negative responses he has received here, that he is discovering that “reviewing” is not his strength, if reviewing means to write clear and concise reports on books that inform our purchases. On that, I will agree with the other critics. But I will not be so quick to make any gross statements on his academic or literary abilities, for I believe that what he does in those contexts may in fact be worthy of his efforts.

Regards
Paul Lowrie