The first thing I noticed when I moved to Britain in 1985 was that the literary reviews were usually mere summaries and rarely critical (What a hatchet job!, Review, 4 February). I used to complain to my British friends that any 12-year old could be a critic here. The idea of a new prize to improve the quality of criticism is commendable, but I fear that reviews which aim to be outright hatchet jobs will just give us the other extreme and not the kind of criticism that is needed. The word critic is derived from the Greek krinein which means to separate the good from the bad. Thus the job of the critic is not to do a hatchet job, but to tell us what is commendable and what is not. The creation of this prize reflects another development in British society which I have been viewing with regret. It will appeal to those who have been brought up on the diet of Big Brother, X Factor and Jeremy Clarkson. These programmes aim to make nastiness appear to be acceptable and entertaining.
Miroslav Imbrisevic
Southend-on-Sea, Essex
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