the death of the reader of criticism

"In McDonald’s deft polemic, The Death of the Critic" - writes John Mullan in the TLS - "it seems just right; for there has been something comical about the eagerness of academics to scorn the notion that some books are better than others. The analogy is characteristic of McDonald’s tone, a kind of humorous exasperation that runs through his book. 'The critic' has never had a good name, and McDonald admits that when he told people what his book was to be called, 'they immediately assumed I was writing a celebration' of the critic’s demise. But this is a polemic in favour of the critic as a 'knowledgeable arbiter'. In McDonald’s account, it is a reason for sharp regret that no one cares any more about 'the critic', that no one outside universities reads books of literary criticism."

Er - [sic].

Or is it that the critics - and their critics - are so blinded by the light emanating from their ivory towers that they can't even see us, their readers?

Anyway, Mullan continues: " Nowadays, there are more critical responses than ever, but critical authority has been devolved from the experts. McDonald surveys the rise of blogs and readers’ reviews, of television and newspaper polls and reading groups, under the heading “We Are All Critics Now”. He argues that the demise of critical expertise brings not a liberating democracy of taste, but conservatism and repetition."

I think this is a potentially fair point. But most critics have historically also been conservative and repetitive, because very few have been great. You can't create greatness; all you can do is let it happen, and hope you recognise it when it does.

There's a post about this on Alfred Corn's very interesting weblog which, if anything, points up indirectly the ways in which blogging has probably not changed the critical climate all that much; it has just created another arena.

Anyway, the bones of this post were drafted last night after I got in from reading, and I think I was a bit tired. I'll go back and reread that TLS piece. Not sure what to do if this post subseqwuently makes no sense, because I'm rather fond of my picture-searching effort.