The literary critics

[imomus]

I am to be a published author, that much is now certain, for contracts and advances have been exchanged. Upon receipt of my work of literary fiction at their offices in Paris -- and after the collaborative travail of expansion, contraction, correction, extraction -- my publishers will send the redacted manuscript to the printing press in time for its announced appearance on the bookseller's heaving table in the season of autumnal leaves. But there is another set of gentlemen interposed between pen and public, and it is of these that I wish to treat today. They are, of course, those great public intellectuals of our time: the literary critics.



They are already awaiting my work with pleasure, these gentlemen, and not a little severity. For it shall fall to each of them in turn to subject my book to the closest possible scrutiny, to weigh its skill, meaning and import, and to inform their readers -- and mine! -- whether my work shall bestride Parnassus, taking its place amongst the greatest that has been thought, felt, and said throughout the centuries, or whether, instead, its destiny lies under Charon's shovel, in a pit of sulphur.



Now, you will tell me that the age of critical titans is long gone; that we are no more troubled by an Arnold, a Richards, a Leavis, a Morley, or a Lawson, now, than by Tartars or tigers. Nay, even less than tigers, you will add, for it was not critics who mauled the San Franciscan unfortunates in their bestiary! You will point out to me -- in a fine proleptical figure! -- that critical magazine (and enclave!) Stylus ceased upon the midnight hour of 2007, or that Woebot, woe-struck, has pledged to dissent no more. I will answer that scrutiny endures secure while Jarvis Cocker sits before the microphone at Broadcasting House tracing the history of the fanzine, that vibrant literary form!

Like Virgil himself they still walk before us through the spirall'd rings of labyrinthine invention, the critics, the public intellectuals of our time, their lamps raised high. Through reviews and injunctions they teach us to distinguish the failed metaphor from the successful one, the difference between metonymy and synecdoche, the tight lilt of the well-tilted phrase. Probably they smoke a pipe, wear sensible brogues and a tweed suit, and show a pattern of absent-minded stains down the front of their sweaters. They have long limbs, high cheekbones, and the genteel air of natural authority.

Although the author's intention does not always concern them -- that is the Intentional Fallacy! -- they are not above a brief detour into biography, especially if their subject is deceased and cannot contradict. Here, for instance, is St John Limbo, recounting the complex garlanding of life and lyricism in the work of the poet Ewan MacTeagel:

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Although I know they may well find my "Book of Jokes" despicable, incestuous, craven, hobbled, failed, stubborn, foreign, depraved, sophomoric, precocious, negro, sublunary or simply sub-standard, I am glad that such men still exist; men dedicated to the life of the mind and the vigour of the page. For, without them, without their scrutiny, their high standards, their determination to police the canon with the skills of Sherlock Holmeses rather than Lestrades, our national literary culture would surely crumble to Pantheon dust, or Parthenon sand.



Which of us does not write, secretly, with these gentlemen in mind? Let us lift a full and fluted pipe of best Navy shag to them, the public intellectuals, the literary critics of our time!

Comments

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

I touched upon my opinions of critics yesterday, but seeing as that's the theme of today's entry, I'll elaborate:

The word "critic" comes from the latin "criticus", which has its roots in the greek word "krinein" - "to separate/ to release"

If a piece of art or a book were a machine, the critic would be the mechanic -- carefully removing the casing, separating the gears and cogs, explaining and annotating the parts and mechanisms. For this diligence, critics deserve praise. Their analysation elucidates not only the sheer depth of the art itself but the influences behind it.

There is however, a side to their profession that I hold very little respect for -- the notion these people are (and deserve to be) arbiters of "taste". Taste is an entirely personal thing, and the idea that some people can universally define it is nonsense. Anyone who holds up critics as having superiour taste is a fool. I dont need to be told I like the taste of something, I taste it myself.

If I could create a new, improved version of the critic, I'd redefine their roles as disentanglers -- more "let me show you what I've seen", less "let me decide for you what to think".

Uugh, I've edited this multiple times. Sorry.

[alphacomp.livejournal.com]

"If I could create a new, improved version of the critic, I'd redefine their roles as disentanglers -- more "let me show you what I've seen", less "let me decide for you what to think"."

In a way, isn't that what an mp3 blog is at the moment? While many of them gush praise for their respective musical topics, they rarely say what isn't good. In articulating their praise, they disentangle their subjects.

Sure, what they regard as bad music could be implied by their selections to a certain extent, but that implication is almost always tempered on a particularly good mp3 blog by something that completely reverses your expectations of that writer's tastes.

[desant012.livejournal.com]

It's been a while since I've studied ancient Greek, but krinw can also mean to discern, to judge (though not necessarily the modern English meaning of 'judge') - it forms the adjective kritokos which means 'able to judge', and I think in one of those dusty philosophers it's used to mean the ability to judge between the quality of agaqos or kakos in something

[electricwitch.livejournal.com]

Oh Momus why is your background all sad and grey?

I also like how you have a weird existentialist mugshot to go with your being a FAMOUS WRITAH. I hope you will smoke a pipe, and that the blurb on the back of your book says it is AN ABSOLUTE TOUR DE FORCE.

Thanks for the Jarvis and fanzines link, omg! I hope he talks about porn a lot, because that´s what fanzines meant to me, back in the day when people actually made any.

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

I recently came across a gay fanzine full of alternative porn (read: hipster douchebags with their cocks out) and one of my friends was in it.




Thats the problem with fanzines full of nudes, youre not sure whether youre supposed to be appreciating the artistic work that's gone into it or masturbating furiously. throw in someone you know and it's enough to put you off all together. I say keep porn and art separate.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I hope you will smoke a pipe, and that the blurb on the back of your book says it is AN ABSOLUTE TOUR DE FORCE.

I think it's more likely to be described as a tour de farce, and accompanied by a Tour de France.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Oh Momus why is your background all sad and grey?

It's not sad and grey, it's folksy, restful, neutral, natural! See how it makes this entry (http://imomus.livejournal.com/343322.html) look so colourful! And any red image in the entry body is going to look wonderful now.

[cerulicante.livejournal.com]

That bitch at the bottom got a TIGHT briar, hell yes.



This entry was very good. I give it three thumbs up because it was cleverly written in an old style that pokes fun at the fags who can't write shit but tell everyone else that their writing blows.

[chuckdarwin.livejournal.com]

*lifts a full and fluted pipe of best Malvern Skunk to them*

[(Anonymous)]

p.ythons well tedious...i wonder about the smoke screens...stick to talking about music all this buildings...of talk....and jap jazz mags...we all know edinbrughs in england ...an you had to pay millions to get to skool there...i wis playin footie way yer cousion the other months his skills ran out after the first album ..take it easy pal see yah in sweden...i want you to want me to want you....i prefer nickers to trousours..

[(Anonymous)]

Will your book be published in French or English?

[(Anonymous)]

How do books like yours even get into the hands of said critics?

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

What a masterfully witty blow against the 19th Century!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

And the 20th! Any age in which your book was read by a dead white male with a name starting with two letters, basically. Oh, and a briarwood pipe, and a manner of "genteel authoritarianism". Charismatic critics are the worst ones. Greenberg was a kind of Stalin in his day.

best Navy shag

[pay-option07.livejournal.com]

After watching that Python clip I'd say the streets are full of wondering poets. Eh!

However your writing skills are quite adequate for critical analysis.But prose as a vehicle for something greater is what we wish we could all do.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I will admit that this entry was also influenced by the fact that Simon Reynolds will give a lecture (http://ripitupandstartagainbysimonreynolds.blogspot.com/2008/01/more-details-on-this-months-rip-it-up.html) not far from my house on January 23rd. But what is the point in going to hear a rock critic when the papers describe the state of rock like this:

job losses

[pay-option07.livejournal.com]

I'm sure they are blaming the downturn on the American housing slump like the Japanese are this a.m..

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Another thing I meant to include in today's entry was this Paul Morley show from the early 90s, in which he "interviews" Brian Eno:

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Now I love Morley (an important critic for me when I first started making records) and I love Eno, but put them together with the worst mannerisms of high 1980s TV PoMo and you get an incredibly frustrating programme. It's a good example of how the cult of the critic, at its height, could just eclipse everything else, especially when encouraged by PoMo's meta tendencies (which of course make secondary writing primary writing, and therefore allow the critic's voice to drown out the artist's).

It wasn't just PoMo that did this, though. I remember at university how everyone was reading critical accounts of authors rather than the authors themselves, and how it was often easier to find Iris Murdoch's account of Plato than Plato himself on the library shelves.

[vonbruckhousen.livejournal.com]

I recommend all to never read introductions, prefaces, or second-party interpretations included in books. These are the fault of publishing houses, who have no place including such rubbish.

[god-jr.livejournal.com]

Congratulations!

[vonbruckhousen.livejournal.com]

"Probably they smoke a pipe, wear sensible brogues and a tweed suit, and show a pattern of absent-minded stains down the front of their sweaters."

Should be:

Probably they smoke a pipe, wear sensible brogues and a tweed suit, and show a pattern of absent-minded stains down the fronts of their sweaters.

Dried Fruit, Monty Python, Thank you very much.

[vonbruckhousen.livejournal.com]

BTW, when can I get a copy (english please).

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

As soon as I get my hands on a copy of your book, read it five times, scribbled down notes and made research that have been lost, found, re-scheduled and finally re-printed I shall review it at my blog.

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

[cataptromancer.livejournal.com]

Compared to music reviewers, I would think book reviewers and literary critics are teddy bears.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Heh.

[thenipper.livejournal.com]

I think you rather missed a trick by not referring to James Wood (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Wood_(critic)) here - a literary critic who actually made headlines when he recently decamped to The New Yorker...

[count-vronsky.livejournal.com]

I always remember this Updike poem when I think of the critics I grew up reading and loving (and imitating?). Kael, Updike, Nabokov... It echoes the "standing on the shoulder of giants" idea above too. Critics as gatekeepers can be a problem, but the budding aesthete needs these frameworks to grow. (for some reason, probably because i have been on a momus binge lately, I hear your voice in my head when I read it now.)


Bindweed

Intelligence does help, sometimes;
the bindweed doesn't know
when it begins to climb a wand of grass
that this is no tree and will shortly bend
its flourishing dependent back to earth.

But bindweed has a trick: self-
stiffening, entwining two- or three-ply,
to boost itself up, into the lilac.

Without much forethought it manages
to imitate the lilac leaves and lose
itself to all but the avidest clippers.

To spy it out, to clip near the root
and unwind the climbing tight spiral
with a motion the reverse of its own
feels like treachery - death to a plotter
whose intelligence mirrors ours, twist for twist.

John Updike

interposed

[(Anonymous)]

Is "interposed between [X and Y]" a tautology?

If it is, does it need to be edited?

Congratulations and thanks.

[(Anonymous)]

Dear Mr. Momus, the man with the absent minded stains down his chest has had some effect on me. Thank you for introducing him to me.

Re: Congratulations and thanks.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

You're welcome, he's an old sweetie, isn't he? Perhaps even too much so -- in that interview, the one thing that comes across is how his own precocious brilliance opened so many doors for him, and allowed him to meet so many brilliant colleagues. It's an elite post-war world of posts in institutions.

There's an odd lack of attention to ideas in and of themselves. For instance, we hear that he worked on the problem of why the English Romantics failed to master the dramatic art, but don't hear his conclusions, as if the outcome of that enquiry were less important than the succession of posts he held.

Now, probably that's the way the interview is structured -- it's a "career biography". But it does say something, I think, about this world of academia. It is, first and foremost, concerned with its own internal processes of survival. The ideas come second. And Steiner's books are always there to supply the answers.

[peacelovgranola.livejournal.com]

[count-vronsky.livejournal.com]

http://www.slate.com/id/2181859/pagenum/all/