If the Observer was hoping to reignite the debate on the future of cultural criticism they couldn’t have found a soggier squib than American academic Neal Gabler’s unenlightening essay.
Professional criticism, thinks Gabler, is dead. According to him, reviewers, or “cultural commissars”, used to be able to control what we “ordinary folk” read, watched and listened to “through a process close to cultural brainwashing”. Now we ignore them, consulting blogs and Twitter instead. Gabler sees this as a revolution against cultural elitism.
Several things annoy me about his doomladen, US-centric prognosis:
1. The conflation of the death of criticism with the death of cultural elitism
If professional criticism is in trouble it’s because people don’t read newspapers anymore. Gabler’s idea, that for years critics have been coercing us into watching and reading things we didn’t want to, and that Twitter has finally given us the key to unlock our chains of cultural oppression, is bonkers.
2. The conflation of criticism with reviewing
There will always be a place for academic cultural criticism (as long as there are universities, anyway). A book review in a popular newspaper has quite a different function from one in an academic journal: it needs to entertain as well as inform; it needs to be a good piece of writing on its own terms.
The problem with American reviews (and the occasional English one) is that they tend to confuse the function of the academic reviewer and the journalist. In general, they’re far too earnest and reverential, too full of lit-crit jargon, and as a result pretty boring to read.
3. The myth of a golden age of critical authority
Gabler and others seem to have this notion that olden-days people used to crowd round their watercooler (or well, or whatever the equivalent was) to discuss the latest piece of cultural criticism: “I say, did anyone see the hatchet job FR Leavis did on Iris Murdoch in yesterday’s TLS?”
Most people have never paid the slightest bit of attention to reviewers, which explains the success of critical flops like Arnold Bennett, Gone With the Wind and Catherine Cookson.
4. The idea that blogging is killing professional criticism
One of the experts drafted into the Observer debate was a blogger called Bookslut, who claimed critics were “simply an extension of the marketing department” and that the only place to find independent thought and lively debate was online.
Many book-bloggers have a dreadful persecution complex about “the literary establishment”, which they believe conspires to keep out first-time novelists, women, and — most importantly — their own fantastically interesting opinions. They shun professional reviews, because they assume all writers are best friends and are always having dinner with each other in Hampstead where they chortle about writing reviews for each other. Which no doubt some of them do, and some reviews are wildly overblown in their praise, or lazy rehashes of press releases.
But many are not and are intelligent and well-written, which is more than can be said for 95 percent of blogs. Book-bloggers are passionate about reading, which is lovely, but it doesn’t make them good writers.
The other advantage that professional reviewers have is that you’re more likely to have heard of them. Even though I might not agree with everything she says, I’d rather hear what Julie Myerson has to say about the latest AS Byatt than Lynette, full-time mom and doglover from Arkansas.
5. The idea that social networking is killing professional criticism
This is just silly. Anyone who’s used Twitter knows it’s impossible to say anything worthwhile in 140 characters or fewer. As for being able to tap into friends’ recommendations, for this to work you have to have the same taste as them, which isn’t always the case.
If anything, the cacophony of opinion on the internet means there’s a dire need for authoritative voices in culture. The professional critic is more vital than ever.
Anna Baddeley is editor of The Omnivore, which rounds up book, film and theatre reviews from newspapers.
Comments