On Sunday, the LA Times ran a piece by film and book critic Richard Schickel. The title? "Not everybody's a critic," i.e. "anyone with a blog can express an opinion about a book. But real criticism is so much more." And all these faux critics are messing things up for the real guys. So I guess I'm part of the problem.
Except am I really? I wouldn't even call this a lit blog; it doesn't purport to be literary criticism. It is overtly a set of (often un- or at least underinformed) opinions about whatever it is I'm reading. And if I don't know you and you're reading this, awesome, but this was always intended as a way for me to share with family and friends my thoughts about the books and articles that occupy so much of my life.
That said, I think Schickel must be trying to provoke when he says
Let me put this bluntly, in language even a busy blogger can understand: Criticism — and its humble cousin, reviewing — is not a democratic activity. It is, or should be, an elite enterprise, ideally undertaken by individuals who bring something to the party beyond their hasty, instinctive opinions of a book (or any other cultural object). It is work that requires disciplined taste, historical and theoretical knowledge and a fairly deep sense of the author's (or filmmaker's or painter's) entire body of work, among other qualities.
Dude. Chill. We respect you.
Even more, I respect D.J. Waldie, who you quote as saying that "blogging is a form of speech, not of writing." Good point. I don't suffer over turns of phrase on this blog the way that I did when writing even grad papers, at least not usually. But I wish I did. And I think a lot of bloggers wish they did too. Cut them a little slack.
1 comment:
Schickel's a snob.
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