Adam Kirsch said it

The American critic Adam Kirsch wrote an interesting article, on the state of reviewing, in the New York Sun last week. I have been in a couple of conversations with fellow poets recently about the writing of reviews, and there is certainly plenty to discuss, so this piece pricked my interest. Good criticism is rare as gold-dust: reviews are so often these days nothing but anodyne descriptions of subject matter, with no context - often even of a poet's previous work - and no aesthetic discussion at all. Beyond the dichotomy of good and bad, it's as if we (as both writers and readers) have forgotten that there are other things that could even be said! And Kirsch is an important and prolific critic, so I was naturally keen to see what he'd say on the subject.

But he takes a sad little detour. Sad, because it has a knee-jerk feel about it, although ultimately I think he is right. And I suppose he can't help but venture, however briefly, down the road to Bloggersville for a quick look - it's only responsible*, after all the furore we've been having on the subject lately. He writes:

"In one sense, the democratization of discourse about books is a good thing, and should lead to a widening of our intellectual horizons. The more people there are out there reading, making discoveries, and advocating for their favorite books, the better. But book bloggers have also brought another, less salutary influence to bear on literary culture: a powerful resentment. Often isolated and inexperienced, usually longing to break into print themselves, bloggers — even the influential bloggers who are courted by publishers — tend to consider themselves disenfranchised. As a result, they are naturally ready to see ethical violations and conspiracies everywhere in the literary world. As anyone who reads literary blogs can attest, hell hath no fury like a blogger scorned. And the scorn is reciprocated: Professional writers usually assume that those who can, do, while those who can't, blog.

Well, I have to say I find Kirsch's varietal distinctions odd. I loathe this phrase everyone uses, the "democratisation" of literary discourse. As if anyone wasn't always free to say what they pleased! I always mention Daniel Defoe in this context; the only difference now is that it's free. This "professionalisation"of reviewers, along with its concomitant de-professionalisation of everyone else, leaves little room for artist-practitioners. Maybe where he perceives disenfranchisement and resentment, he's seeing writers who are annoyed at simply not being seen.

Plenty of published writers have blogs.

He does, however, concede:

"Still, it is important to distinguish between the blog as a genre and the Internet as a medium. It is not just possible but likely that, one day, serious criticism will find its primary home on the Web. The advantages — ease of access, low cost, potential audience — are too great to ignore, even if our habits and technology still make it hard to read long essays on the computer screen. Already there are some web publications — like Contemporary Poetry Review, to which I occasionally contribute — that match anything in print for seriousness of purpose. But there's no chance that literary culture will thrive on the Internet until we recognize that the ethical and intellectual crotchets of the bloggers represent a dead end."

So there you have the, or a, nexus of my interest: Adam Kirsch and I, one a professional and one a crotchet, both write for the same journal.**

The fact that it's an online journal rather puts paid to his earlier statement in the article, to wit, "People who write about books on the Internet, and they are surprisingly numerous, do not call themselves reviewers, but bloggers. " Kirsch's categorisation being based on the medium, rather than - as one might say - the message, contributes to the general confinement of the discussion to stereotype. James Marcus, for example, has had some interesting things to say from his vantage point as erstwhile editor at amazon.com, one of which was that things haven't really changed all that much.

Anyway, aside from all the squabbling (and it would be refreshing to read an article that didn't squabble about this; surely every newspaper or magazine review, and every blog, can stand or fall on its merits?), Kirsch makes some valuable observations about the limitations of form:

"In fact, despite what the bloggers themselves believe, the future of literary culture does not lie with blogs — or at least, it shouldn't. The blog form, that miscellany of observations, opinions, and links, is not well-suited to writing about literature, and it is no coincidence that there is no literary blogger with the audience and influence of the top political bloggers. For one thing, literature is not news the way politics is news — it doesn't offer multiple events every day for the blogger to comment on. For another, bitesized commentary, which is all the blog form allows, is next to useless when it comes to talking about books. Literary criticism is only worth having if it at least strives to be literary in its own right, with a scope, complexity, and authority that no blogger I know even wants to achieve. The only useful part of most book blogs, in fact, are the links to long-form essays and articles by professional writers, usually from print journals."

This paragraph does irk, with its unsubstantiated generalisations about what bloggers believe, and what bloggers want. I also think Kirsch is wrong about the nature of the difference between political and literary blogs: I think that it's a market-driven issue (by which I don't mean money, I mean what people perceive that they want, and whether there are punters). It's worth noting, too, that his assertion that political blogging enjoys much greater influence, fails to take note of the constant debate that rages about whether blogging can ever "be proper journalism." (Sound familiar?) He doesn't mention scientific blogs at all, though I believe blogs are important in scientific communities. And that content is different again.

I've often specifically thought that there don't seem to be that many really interesting literary blogs, of the kind I once imagined would be two-a-penny. I mean trenchant analysis, fresh thinking, informed blogs that would satisfy a certain thirst I have for criticism.*** I see no reason why bite-sized chunks couldn't be as informative and even influential in the literary sphere as they are in the political. After all, politics is certainly no less complicated and tricky than literature; it may be more a matter of utilising one's metier.

As it happens, I've learned a lot in my one year (so far) of writing a blog. When I started I sort of imagined myself writing the kind of thing Kirsch describes, and quickly found that for some reason it is almost impossible. It is simply a different form. So, yes, the links to "proper" articles are invaluable. Space, or more properly time, is certainly an issue, especially if you're envisaging a TLS-style in-depth consideration of a writer. Blogs just aren't designed to be used that way. I should also think that most people who feel inclined to write in-depth criticism do have other outlets for it, and probably place it with a friendly editor - for money, for a wider readership, and not least because it will get taken a lot more seriously if it isn't on their blog!

Certainly a lot of bloggers post cursory paragraphs about their subject, linking to a longer published piece, and fool themselves into thinking they've actually written something. I read one last week where someone referred to "what I wrote about so-&-so" - and in fact he'd written four rather dull lines, and then linked to a very entertaining article. I've probably done that myself. I like to think if I do it that at least I'm adding some small thing to the mix with my cursory paragraph; sometimes it can be a hitherto-unseen link between two linked things. Blogs impose a pressure to post - every day, every two days.

Blogs are more personality-driven than straight literary criticism: I think of them as more analagous to a weekly newspaper column. And a lot of them are consistently better, funnier, fresher, more zeitgeist-feeling than anything in the newspapers (the sainted Michael Bywater excepted, of course; his bitter rants are indispensible; but then, he also has a blog).*** The paragraphs are shorter I think, which mitigates against long, carefully-reasoned arguments.

I've found in practice that the blog format works best for these linky pieces (and, time-consumingly, for sort of "conference call" pieces, where you can almost conduct - in the musical sense - a conversation between different articles or writers by linking to them within your argument - the links being shorthand, of course, with its own danger of shorthand thinking). It's good for personal reflections on things I've read, for anecdote, for quick reactions to news, statements, events. It works for trying out ideas, really as if it were a notebook (one that can give you feedback); it works for ideas you want to illustrate with pictures. It can develop into a sort of letter to your readers, which might - who knows! - have possibilities, as we are otherwise losing our epistolary forms. It's also good for the good old writer's diary. There are a few poets who write about their creative processes, ideas, daily writing life - and who sometimes post up draft versions of poems in progress. All this is not the same as criticism, but it could conceivably be of future interest to critics (or even biographers) - as well as current interest to other writers, students, etc - and as such is a resource.

This is all in addition to the main thing that blogs are good for, of course: short bits of information. Blog format is great for listings, news flashes, little round-ups. Interactive content, like polls or questions.

What it just doesn't seem to lend itself to is the long, carefully researched & reasoned, meticulously argued piece, with quotations and possibly footnotes, that might establish you as a serious critic. The software itself simply isn't built for it. I've certainly found all this to be true, and Baroque in Hackney has duly taken shape around these possibilities and limitations. Crucially - or shall I say critically - it has also taken its shape firmly within blog culture, rather than literary-journal culture.

In other words, I'm a writer: I (hope I) know what I'm doing.

Instead of taking the reader's (passive) vantage point, casting an ungenerous eye on blogs because they aren't doing the same thing as the LRB, it might be more useful - in the context of a shared concern for the future of serious literature and critical thought - to look at them from the vantage point of a writer. A blog is a thing to write. What is it? What is it good for? What will it throw into the mix that you, as the writer, hadn't thought of doing before? How can you use it to enrich your own ability to write about literature? How could the literary world best use blogs to enrich its culture?

Equally, what isn't it? What is it not succeeding in doing? What do we still need, even when we have blogging?

Of course many blogs are barely literate. Many more are fine, but most don't stretch their critical wings very much. These serve a purpose, for sure, but it is not the same as the purpose served by serious criticism. It can't possibly be, and never was intended to be.**** The real danger to our literary culture probably lies in forgetting to make this distinction - in fact, in failing to cast a critical eye on what is really happening.

In short, I think we agree. As with most family arguments - it not being only perfect happiness that's always the same - it turns out that this may not even be an argument at all, but a case of saying the same thing in different ways. Now it's going to be all about what we do with it...

* After all, as Kirsch says, it's wrong to review a book without reading it.

** and I'm a fan - both of CPR and of Kirsch.

*** sorry if this seems harsh! The two best things I have read recently on blogs, in this regard, are George Szirtes' gripping account of Yevtushenko at a poetry conference last week - which I wrote about, but got no comments at all on - and Jane Holland's incisive and honest reading of Annie Freud's new book. In both cases, check out also their following days' posts. Another thing you can do with a blog is have more, or second, thoughts and continue the discussion as you go.

****a swift bit of research on Wikipedia turns up the fact that he also has a pair of crocodile shoes: can the man do no wrong??

***** and if mainstream papers are worried that no one will be able to tell the difference, maybe they should raise their game a little and publish more challenging reviews.