A Defence of Tempered Praise and Tempered Criticism in Book Reviewing

[...]the brevity of Brady's observation is admirable: she uses so few words to say so much so well. [...]Brady here offers a mixed critical response: she is at once positive and negative about Keneally, with the two responses commingling rather than competing; her tone is moderate. (Menzies-Pike) The 'soft versus snark' dichotomy reflects, in my view, a broader problem in Australia regarding the way we go about publicly arguing/disagreeing with each other, not only about books and writing but about a range of artistic, cultural, political, historical and social matters, in which there seems to be no meaningful space between, on the one hand, blind deference, and, on the other hand, hectoring. [...]as Bennie notes, 'implicit in both models is the idea that the work of art is an autonomous object the sits ... independent of its cultural context' (21). [...]edition.