September 21, 2003

Critics are good for?

Jaquandor writes a nice piece on what we can learn from critics:

I read a lot of critics and reviews, because I think their writings are often informative. Critics are almost always very well-steeped in their chosen fields, so one can learn a great deal from them, about the history and development of the field, which works shaped the field and which might have, but didn't (and thus went on to become "unjustly neglected masterworks"). But I've always been deeply suspicious of critics as judges of what is good and what is bad, because - - and there is simply no other way to say this - - they so very, very often get it wrong.
And what we likely will not learn:

Critics can tell us what they like, and they can do a better job than most of telling us why they like it. But when it comes to telling us what future audiences will like, they're as lost-at-sea as the rest of us.
So, when Harold Bloom says something like:
"He is a man who writes what used to be called penny dreadfuls…That they could believe that there is any literary value there or any aesthetic accomplishment or signs of an inventive human intelligence is simply a testimony to their own idiocy."
don't expect it to stand the test of time.

On the other hand, Bloom is writing about Stephen King who has just been awarded the National Book Award for Lifetime Achievement:

Established in 1988, the honorary award cites not only literary merit, but "a lifetime of service."
I stopped reading King (except for one book which I expect to reread several more times) years ago. The same ol' thing just started getting boring.

I'm also not so sure that future audiences, if by that one means the same folks whose reading/listening selections populate the bestseller lists, are any better judge then today's critics. Perhaps, though, if the works do show up on various classic lists a 100 years down the road that is a beginning indication on the timelessness that we equate with at least one aspect of good literature and music.

Posted by Steve on September 21, 2003
Comments

When Bloom says that King writes "penny dreadfuls", he's saying that King's work will be almost completely forgotten. Now, I personally find that unlikely in itself, but that's not even my main point of contention: there is such a long history of critics being wrong about what will stand the test of time and what will not that I simply don't pay critics any attention at all anymore when they start prognosticating, especially the Blooms of the world who foam at the mouth, as if on cue, whenever anyone dares to admire that which they despise.

Posted by Jaquandor at September 22, 2003 9:03 AM
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