In a new interview series on Isak, I'll feature original conversations with folks around the world who are in the thick of literary culture -- the passionate writers, editors, critics, readers, translators, publishers, bloggers, designers, booksellers, poets, performers, journalists, and instructors who are bringing vibrancy and joy to the world of words. More than a rehash of things you have heard familiar names natter on about before, this series will turn its attention beyond the bounds of the usual suspects and the usual issues. The Isak Interview series is committed to a dynamic exploration of ideas, craft, language, literature, and culture with the people who are committing their lives to it.
Daniel E. Pritchard is the founder and managing editor of The Critical Flame, a young online magazine that publishes bimonthly reviews and commentary on fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. It describes its mission as "to keep the conversation alive." Elsewhere, Pritchard works with David R. Godine, Publisher in Boston. Celebrating forty years of independent publishing in 2010, Godine has released titles by Nobel Prize-winner J.M.G. Le Clézio, Henry David Thoreau, Mark Doty, John Banville, Sarah Orne Jewett, Andrew Motion, Robert Musil, Isaac Babel, and a great many other writers, both past and present.
In his spare time (!), Pritchard served as a founding member of The Boston Poetry Union and is the managing editor of Fulcrum: A Journal of Poetry and Aesthetics. He also blogs over at The Wooden Spoon and runs the reading series U35 Poetry @ The Marliave, which spotlights poets under the age of 35.
In full disclosure, I should note that I worked with Dan while editing a Boston street magazine some years back.
In our conversation, we discuss popular perceptions of arts criticism, the man who is Pritchard's favorite critic, The Critical Flame's future, and how humility fits into the critical life. The phrases "totemic awe" and "a nefarious messianic strain in academia" come up, and good ol' Samuel Johnson makes a cameo.
Here's what Dan has to say:
There's that old cliche: "everyone's a critic." Usually people toss that around dismissively to simply indicate that everyone has an opinion (especially opinions about things they don't like). In the populist and participatory atmosphere of the digital age, it has even more momentum What do you think of that? How do you distinguish the literary criticism you do at The Critical Flame -- or is making a distinction pointless?
Thanks for inviting me to take part in this interview, first of all. I
think it was Dr. Johnson who sort of coined the idea of the common
critic. Or if not, he gave it the most bite. In one of his Rambler
columns, Johnson wrote, "he whom nature has made weak, and idleness
keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a Critick."
That seems accurate. Any reasonably articulate person can put forth a
reaction to a work of
literature (or more broadly, to art) and thereby be called a critic. I
have no problem with the commonness of this designation, personally.
However.
Being a good critic — if the animal exists at all, and I wonder
sometimes — takes a large portion of humility. Not just a pretension to
it, but really questioning and criticizing one's own way of thinking,
one's own opinions, judgments, and reactions; you have to be humble and
sort of brave to re-read your own piece of criticism and say, "Is this
reasonable, or am I being small? Am I reacting to myself, my own taste,
my own psychological makeup?" All these are not invalid responses, per
se — they're the foundation of criticism. But you strive to be aware of
their influence and of your own faulty, idiosyncratic nature. You have to be
honest with and know yourself. And then when you judge, you must quote
from the text as evidence. Let the audience agree or disagree. I also
find that there has to be an element of education in good criticism.
Sharing acquired knowledge between intellectual equals (the writer and
reader); illustrating some insight into or point of access to the work
at hand. Good criticism is the goal of The Critical Flame. I'm sure we don't often reach it, but it's there.
The internet has made access to distribution nearly universal, but
it has changed little beyond that. Everybody always was a critic, and they
still are. It is worth noting that Johnson wrote that column in 1751 — I
think we ought to take our anxieties over the state of literary culture
a little more lightly.
That's interesting, because I think a lot of folks have an aversion to serious critics because of the stereotype of them not being humble at all -- that they are basically using other people's art to make a name for themselves, often by being willfully contrarian along the way. Now, I'm a lover of literary criticism but I'll be the first to admit that there's a lot of nonsense out there. You're right in reminding people that there always has been, and there's no reason for this to induce a panic. All the same, who do you think is doing criticism right? Or who are the past models that offer examples we might cultivate going forward?
It depends on what's meant by a "serious critic," I suppose. There are
many people who are taught everything they know about literature from a
university curriculum; they often get exposed to very scholarly stuff,
excellent intellectual work, which is then held up as being the only
"serious" criticism. But to believe that most people should be reading
scholarly work is absurd, and unfair: it's usually very demanding, and
requires a commitment that most people just aren't able to keep. People
have jobs and families and lives to lead. The word "serious" can be
venom to a discussion of good, serious critics because it is often code
for "scholarly."
I think there is a useful division to make: scholars write primarily
for other scholars and for critics; critics and reviewers write for the
reading public. Scholars work and research for years and they value
insight over communicability, as well they should. Critics write to
guide and offer insight to readers, often springing from and citing the
work of scholars. They have to be intelligible for the everyday,
college-educated person. These are not the parts of some value
hierarchy: scholars and critics have entirely different roles in the
life of a culture.
I'd also want to point out a nefarious messianic strain in academia
that has seeped into the larger culture. The figureheads of several
scholarly schools of criticism (of Theory, in particular — Derrida,
Lacan, Foucault, Zizek, Kristeva, etc.) are too often revered, or
dismissed, without any sense of humility. People graduate college
feeling that "serious critics" are somehow beyond question, and that
disagreeing with them is a great sin. Not so. No writer is beyond
question. People need to let go of this totemic awe. Critics such as
James Wood or Cynthia Ozick, to their credit, do not demand reverence.
Their writing is simply one side of a cultural discussion that neither
begins nor ought to end with their judgment. I think that the
intimidation many people feel stems from the influence of that academic
strain, from that fear of committing blasphemy.
All critics sometimes hit upon a good essay and sometimes miss. They
are flawed people trying their best. The reader should feel free to
agree or disagree, and will, but hopefully will continue to think about
the book or issues at hand. The humility of a critic isn't in the
posturing, or the tone of the writing: it is in the critic's ability to
be reflective, self-critical, and it shows itself in the quality of their
insights. There is plenty of nonsense out there. But, as with all
matters of judgment, one has to read widely to differentiate the good
from the bad. I've always been partial to Edmund Wilson myself, as a
model.
What do you like about Edmund Wilson's work? Anything in particular of his that you recommend?
Sure — can I just say, first, that there are plenty of other completely
dissimilar critics whose work I also enjoy? I don't want to
unintentionally convey a "best and only" status on any single critic.
Criticism is a community pursuit.
Now, as for Wilson: I think T.S. Eliot once described criticism as, on one hand, the analysis of the work and, on the other, an expression (or maybe he said correction) of taste. Edmund Wilson was able to do both of these over the course of his career, elegantly and eloquently: he inquired into the psychological ramifications of The Turn of the Screw and wrote on Symbolism as a movement; he also defended Ulysses and helped guide readers through and to Faulkner, Hemingway, Nabokov. He wrote about whether he enjoyed a book and why he enjoyed it, or why not. Of course, Wilson thought of himself as a journalist. Which he was. All people who write for public consumption in some way are. I recommend the Library of America volumes of his work, if you have the interest and the money. (I have the former but not the latter.) Otherwise, The Wound and the Bow is a good place to begin.
At your magazine's website, you describe The Critical Flame's team going forward "with the great hope that open and articulate discussion is as easily spread as wildfire, that CF will be a spark in arid kindling." Given that intention for this project, what are you most proud of? And does CF abide by the Wilson-esque conflation of journalism and literary criticism, beyond what you said about all writing for public consumption being in some ways journalistic?
Besides the fact of a growing readership? That seems like a kind of accomplishment, considering the whole operation is volunteer: no budgets, no salaries. But the thing that makes me happiest is the influx of writers with whom we have no connection, who read the journal and are compelled to contact us because they want to submit. It tells me that the project that I believed was worth undertaking, other people find worthwhile too. I would like to believe that they want to take part in a larger conversation which holds reasonable discussion, mutual respect, and intelligent insight up as standards — but, there's no way to know. I hope it is the case. And I'm not sure either that we hold to any pre-set formula for our essays, although many of them probably could fit the Wilsonian description.
So you're building readers and you're creating space for dialogue among writers ... it's a great trajectory to be on. And too rare for any publication, I might add. What else do you see in the future for The Critical Flame? Are there any particular projects coming up?
Well, we're trying our best. The list of things I'd like to do for The Critical Flame is pretty long — site redesign, nonprofit status, paying our writers, publishing monthly, maybe even advertising — and it all might happen ... SomeDay. Maybe. It's a one-man show over here. And I don't know how large we can get before it changes the nature of the beast. For now, we're just going to keep publishing as we have been, try to make every essay interesting and insightful, take it one issue at a time. I sound like a ballplayer.
Anything else you want to add?
Allowing me to speak open-ended may be a mistake. There is so much I'd like to add: to encourage people to think deeply, challenge themselves, care too much, be active in their communities, be honest about their failings and strengths, be humble in their judgments and opinions, be bold in their chances and declarations, remember the length of history before and behind them — but most of it has nothing to do with The Critical Flame or literary culture, or if so only tangentially. Thank you again for inviting me to take part in this interview. It's been a pleasure.
Image Credits: Via Daniel E. Pritchard and Flickr Creative Commons.
The most underrated trait in a book critic: unabashed joy in reading.
Posted by: freeverse21 | August 03, 2010 at 11:54 AM