"The Death of the Critic"

I am finally getting around to linking to this Salon essay about the prospects for professional literary criticism these days. I haven't read the book Bayard and Miller are discussing, but found their discussion quite interesting nonetheless.

One key part (for me) was their discussion on the pleasure of reading good criticism--how it's almost an art to itself. This is why, of course, creative writers often make such readable and enjoyable critics. And it's why my graduate school professors put so much emphasis on the quality of our prose. Anyway, here's a choice excerpt:

"I find I'm drawn to critics for the same reason I'm drawn to any writer: the quality of their prose. They can misinterpret and misevaluate to their heart's delight as long as they make the words dance. Helen Vendler and Harold Bloom may be preeminent in their respective fields, but I read their prose only under duress. Whereas, no matter how wrongheaded she is, I'll read anything by Pauline Kael. Or Anthony Lane or Clive James or, yes, James Wood.

And thanks to McDonald's book, I now want to read more of Northrop Frye, who fired this sterling round of grapeshot at T.S. Eliot for fiddling with the canon of great writers: '...all the literary chit-chat which makes the reputations of poets boom and crash in an imaginary stock-exchange. The wealthy investor, Mr. Eliot, after dumping Milton on the market, is now buying him again; Donne has probably reached his peak and will begin to taper off; Tennyson may be in for a slight flutter but the Shelley stocks are still bearish. This sort of thing cannot be part of any systematic study, for a systematic study can only progress: whatever dithers or vacillates or reacts is merely leisure-class gossip.' Of course, I take Frye's thematic point -- the vagaries of taste are a fickle criterion for evaluation -- but I'm more impressed by the dazzling execution of that stock-market metaphor and that ever-so-subtle colon in the last sentence. Anyone who wants to write about writing should be able to write."

One other point they touch on in the end: good criticism often reveals just how much the critic loves literature. If you can't sense that love--that genuine affection and enthusiasm for it--coming through the critic's words, then I'd be willing to be that you are less moved or persuaded by the argument the critic is making.

UPDATE: A commenter provided a link to his own exchange with the book's author. Check it out--along with his review.