Steadily as the American dollar, the value of informed opinions is decreasing. As information becomes ever more accessible and democratized, thanks to the likes of Google and Wikipedia and Things White People Like, the necessity for critics — previously our cultural gatekeepers — seems to be vanishing. Whether it’s food, music, or movies, the corresponding critics are getting laid of left and right from their respective publications. Much of the problem, as Jeremy Iggers and others note, stems from the declining budgets of print newspapers. But (as Iggers also explains), this trend may be equally due to the ubiquitous opining of the blogosphere.
The same thing, of course, is happening in the literary world. The following is a missive from the National Books Critics Circle:
At the Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, Newsday, The Minneapolis Star Tribune, The Memphis Commercial Appeal, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, The Dallas Morning News, The Sun Sentinel, The New Mexican, The Village Voice, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, and dozens upon dozens of other papers, book coverage has been cut back or slashed all together, moved, winnowed, filled with more wire copy, or generally been treated as expendable.
There seems to be a definite difference, though, between the demise of the literary critic and critics of other media. Namely, book reviewers see their fate as being tied more closely to their subject. While the sorry state of print newspapers isn’t helping their cause, nor the sexy snarky opining of clever online commentators, the real problem might stem from within the practice itself.
"Even if you think critics are parasites," said Louis Bayard in an article for Salon a couple weeks ago, "you have to acknowledge they can only survive when their host organisms thrive… If we want to bring the critic back to life, we first have to resuscitate the novelist."
The corresponding argument for restaurant reviewers would be preposterous: Food critics are dying off because food isn’t relevant anymore. Meanwhile, though Clay Aiken rules the radio and ‘Meet the Zohan’ is on the big screens, the independent communities in film and music still seem to be thriving. If anything, the emergence of the Internet has only made the musical climate more diverse and interesting, providing heaps of content for reviewers. Whereas the alternatives to Stephen King (as Bayard would have it) are becoming ever scarcer.
I take issue with the idea that the novel is irrelevant. Ignored, sure. But there are still some incredibly moving books and stories published each year. The question that’s raised, though, is what is the aim of criticism? And are their bloggers that do actually achieve this aim, thus rendering the prose pros (boo…) obsolete?
For me, the most satisfying reviews are the ones that throw light on a novel’s context, and show me how it’s supposed to be read. I trust critics to be smarter than me, and to have the ability to place a given book in its correct context, which I might otherwise miss.
In their essay "The Hype Cycle," the editors of N + 1 avow that there is not necessarily a set medium for criticism, but a set of rules. "Real criticism can take the form of a monograph, or a long review, or just a few words mumbled to a friend," they say. "In any case, it judges art with reference to the work’s internal logic and generic and historical situation." They go on (in other articles) to say that though strong examples may be found in blogs and on Amazon reviews, for the most part the emergence of these media have cheapened criticism.
Certainly there are some professional critics who satisfy the common criteria for reviews. Robert Pinsky’s write-up of Kathryn Harrison’s While They Slept, which appeared in this week’s NYTBR, gives us a precise idea of how to understand the book we’re about to read:
The violations that destroy human lives, or maim them, seem to demand telling…Possibly we seek such stories as ways to understand our smaller, more ordinary losses and griefs. Mythology and literature (and their descendant, the Freudian talking cure) manifest a profound hunger for narrating what is called, paradoxically, the unspeakable. Raped, her tongue torn out, Philomela becomes the nightingale, singing the perpetrator’s guilt. When Oedipus appears with bleeding eye-sockets, the tragic chorus simultaneously narrates and says it cannot speak; it looks while saying it must look away.
Having read the review, there is no way to consider the actual book without keeping this in mind.
But mostly there seem to be sloppy reviews that substitute analysis for opinion. The following is another review from last Sunday’s NYTBR, this one by Lucy Ellman, concerning Chuck Palahniuk’s Snuff.
What the hell is going on? The country that produced Melville, Twain and James now venerates King, Crichton, Grisham, Sebold and Palahniuk. Their subjects? Porn, crime, pop culture and an endless parade of out-of-body experiences. Their methods? Cliché, caricature and proto-Christian morality. Props? Corn chips, corpses, crucifixes. The agenda? Deceit: a dishonest throwing of the reader to the wolves. And the result? Readymade Hollywood scripts.
So not only has America tried to ruin the rest of the world with its wars, its financial meltdown and its stupid stupid food, it has allowed its own literary culture to implode.
Though I’m inclined to agree with her on all points, I’m not sure a book review is the platform. Throughout, she has as many problems with what ‘Snuff’ stands for as with the book itself.
Others substitute analysis for plot description, like Rachel Blount’s review of Charles Leerhsen’s Crazy Good in this Sunday’s Star Tribune. The most illuminating aspect of her critique is when she tells us that this book follows the Seabiscuit model. Otherwise, it’s 98 percent synopsis.
Ellen Emry Heltzel’s review of The Garden of Last Days, also in the Strib, fares little better. At first there is promise, as Heltzel tells us it’s "Dubus’ empathy for his characters" that make the book so titillating. Maybe she’ll explain his technique, why it’s so. Instead we just get a description of what happens.
I do agree that literary criticism is ailing, and not necessarily at the hands of bloggers or dying print dailies. To say that irrelevant models breed irrelevant reviews is one thing, but to me there seems also to be a lack of discipline on the critic’s end.
Maybe Norman Mailer put it best. "Critics were my judgmental peers," he said in an interview that appeared in The Paris Review last summer. "It was more exciting to meet [critics] than to meet most movie stars…you wanted their respect, and feared their disapproval. At the same time, as you grew and developed, you didn’t feel inferior to them…That was a nice moment. We don’
t have it anymore. Those critics have all passed away. There’s no one to replace them that I can see."
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