The literary critics
Jan. 16th, 2008 08:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusI 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!
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!
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-16 09:06 am (UTC)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".
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-16 09:12 am (UTC)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.
Uugh, I've edited this multiple times. Sorry.
Date: 2008-01-16 09:37 am (UTC)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.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-16 09:49 am (UTC)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.
Re: Uugh, I've edited this multiple times. Sorry.
Date: 2008-01-16 09:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-16 10:04 am (UTC)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.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-16 10:06 am (UTC)"This one is spirit, this one is peace and this one is incurable HIV..."
HAH HAH HAH HAH, I'm an insensitive bastard.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-16 10:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-16 10:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-16 10:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-16 11:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-16 01:00 pm (UTC)Re: Uugh, I've edited this multiple times. Sorry.
Date: 2008-01-16 01:16 pm (UTC)I think what lies behind today's (obviously spoofish) entry is a sigh of lament for the idea that there really aren't authoritative critics any more. Think of how Leavis or Clement Greenberg reshaped their respective fields. And, addressing Alphacomp's point, think of how John Peel did the same using implicit "selective criticism"; leaving out what he didn't like.
But imagine you're an AbEx painter Greenberg doesn't like, or a band Peel doesn't play (like me!). At that point you begin to feel very Oedipal about these gatekeepers. You long for the disintermediation and diffusion of criticism we have today.
I don't even know which country's critics I'd write my book thinking of, if I were to be writing it thinking of them. (I feel like I'm very much not doing that; it feels more like anarchy in the playground in teacher's absence). Would they be French ones (the book appears in French first), English ones, Japanese ones? Would they be internet critics, bloggers? The fact is, we're so global now, and so much split, aesthetically, into tiny tribes (who's the big Kidult Nippophile critic-gatekeeper?) that nobody can block or promote this book. The context just isn't there for that any more. In some ways that's a blessing, in others a curse. How, after all, do you publish a book into such a diffuse and pluralistic context? When there's no common culture any more, no generally-agreed set of concerns, no fixed idea of what the artist of our times should be doing?
I think one purpose of Click Opera is to create the context for the work I do, because nobody else will. Like a spider I spin context daily.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-16 01:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-16 01:19 pm (UTC)I think it's more likely to be described as a tour de farce, and accompanied by a Tour de France.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-16 01:26 pm (UTC)It's being written in English, but will be published first in French. If La Volte can find an English-language publisher to license to, it will come out in English shortly after that.
How do books like yours even get into the hands of said critics?
Well, my point is that I don't really think literary critics in the grand old manner really exist today. Books now get promoted, not criticized. I have no idea whether it'll get the kind of reviews necessary to generate a Metacritic (http://www.metacritic.com/) rating (and that whole idea is sort of amusing; rank rankings and produce a critical algorhythm for the internet!) But I'm looking forward to the Customer Reviews on Amazon.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-16 01:27 pm (UTC)here and there
Date: 2008-01-16 01:42 pm (UTC)A critic is just another bar you would not like to enter.
You have to be lucky with the editor, that is the most severe critic;
he will adapt the book's content to the publishing house's politics and sales policy.
I hardly think that literature is still considered to be a serious art form.
greetings from Berlin,
Rinus
Re: here and there
Date: 2008-01-16 01:48 pm (UTC)I agree, and yet as a result might we not see literature as, weirdly, somewhat free, underground, punky? Isn't it precisely being a "serious art form" (like Trestle Table Laptop Improv, ha ha!) that produces the most insufferable stiffness and mannerism in art?
My price winning book got destroyed, hmm-mmed, ignored and hossanahed by the critics.
That's an excellent phrase, "price-winning book"! It speaks volumes, I hope it was a beast seller!
best Navy shag
Date: 2008-01-16 01:57 pm (UTC)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.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-16 02:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-16 02:32 pm (UTC)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.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-16 02:41 pm (UTC)[Error: unknown template video]
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.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-16 03:21 pm (UTC)job losses
Date: 2008-01-16 03:21 pm (UTC)