Jonathan Mitchell's Blog
December 27, 2015
December 24, 2015
Happy holidays, everybody
Whatever holiday you celebrate, and with whomever you celebrate it...have a good one.
September 13, 2015
A review of the reviewers
(The following is excerpted from two essays in William S. Burroughs' The Adding Machine. Italics are mine.)
Matthew Arnold formulated three questions for a book critic to ask and answer:
1. What is the author trying to do?
2. How well does he succeed in doing it?
3. Is it worth doing? Does the book achieve what Arnold calls "high seriousness"?
Many critics disparage a writer because they don't like what he is trying to do, or because he is not trying to do something else. To use an analogy, suppose that Michelin Inspectors were equally devoid of consensual criteria for judging food. Here is one inspector..."food superlative, service impeccable, kitchen spotless", and another about the same restaurant..."food abominable, service atrocious, kitchen filthy." Another inspector strips an Italian restaurant of its stars because he doesn't like Italian cooking. Another complains that the chicken on his plate is not roast beef.
Now apply Arnold's criteria to The Godfather. 1. What is the writer trying to do? He is trying to entertain and tell a story and to give the reader some insights into the workings of the Mafia. 2. Does he succeed in doing this? He succeeds admirably. 3. Does the book possess "high seriousness"? Yes. Some very profound things are said about power.
Now here is a critic who doesn't like Italian cooking: "The Godfather is completely devoid of life-enhancing qualities. The writer subjects us to one scene of brutal violence and sexual depravity after the other until one is literally numb and, in the end, abysmally bored. This is not a book to be read. It is a book to be consigned to a cesspool or buried under a stone leaving free access to rats, insects and other crawling things, who if they cannot read can at least eat the filth off these pages."
The writer has been there or he can't write about it. Fitzgerald wrote the Jazz Age, all the sad young men, firefly evenings, winter dreams. A whole migrant generation rose from On the Road. In order to write it the writer must go there and submit to conditions he may not have bargained for. He must take risks. Only those critics who are willing and able to follow him on this journey are competent to judge his work.
Matthew Arnold formulated three questions for a book critic to ask and answer:
1. What is the author trying to do?
2. How well does he succeed in doing it?
3. Is it worth doing? Does the book achieve what Arnold calls "high seriousness"?
Many critics disparage a writer because they don't like what he is trying to do, or because he is not trying to do something else. To use an analogy, suppose that Michelin Inspectors were equally devoid of consensual criteria for judging food. Here is one inspector..."food superlative, service impeccable, kitchen spotless", and another about the same restaurant..."food abominable, service atrocious, kitchen filthy." Another inspector strips an Italian restaurant of its stars because he doesn't like Italian cooking. Another complains that the chicken on his plate is not roast beef.
Now apply Arnold's criteria to The Godfather. 1. What is the writer trying to do? He is trying to entertain and tell a story and to give the reader some insights into the workings of the Mafia. 2. Does he succeed in doing this? He succeeds admirably. 3. Does the book possess "high seriousness"? Yes. Some very profound things are said about power.
Now here is a critic who doesn't like Italian cooking: "The Godfather is completely devoid of life-enhancing qualities. The writer subjects us to one scene of brutal violence and sexual depravity after the other until one is literally numb and, in the end, abysmally bored. This is not a book to be read. It is a book to be consigned to a cesspool or buried under a stone leaving free access to rats, insects and other crawling things, who if they cannot read can at least eat the filth off these pages."
The writer has been there or he can't write about it. Fitzgerald wrote the Jazz Age, all the sad young men, firefly evenings, winter dreams. A whole migrant generation rose from On the Road. In order to write it the writer must go there and submit to conditions he may not have bargained for. He must take risks. Only those critics who are willing and able to follow him on this journey are competent to judge his work.
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