31 The critics A s if it weren't enough that most of us struggle with an inner critic, writers also have to cope with outer critics: reviewers. Chekhov's attitude to critics suggests bitterness. He said: Critics are like horse-flies which hinder the horses in their plowing of the soil. The muscles of the horse are as taut as fiddle-strings, and suddenly a horse-fly alights on its croup, buzzing and stinging. The horse's skin quivers, it waves its tail. What is the fly buzzing about? It probably doesn't know itself. It simply has a restless nature and wants to make itself felt--"I'm alive, too, you know!" it seems to say. "Look, I know how to buzz, there's nothing I can't buzz about!" I've been reading reviews of my stories for twenty-five years, and