the role of the critic

I am a slow and fitful reader of poetry and nonfiction and voracious reader of novels. I am also curious about—sometimes even suspicious of—my enthusiastic novel reading. What does reading all these long, fictional stories do for me, or for anyone?

Additionally, I am curious and suspicious about my curiosity and suspicion. Why all the fuss? Has a Puritan prejudice against fiction seeped into my unconscious?

This habit of turning such questions over and over in my mind is intrinsic to my work as a critic. And, of course, among the questions that I ask myself are: What is criticism? What is criticism for?

These two sentences from an article in Britannica on literary criticism by Frederick C. Crews serve well as a general answer to these questions: “Justification for [the critic’s] role rests on the premise that literary works are not in fact self-explanatory. A critic is socially useful to the extent that society wants, and receives, a fuller understanding of literature than it could have achieved without him [sic].” To be clear, I do not subscribe to the Easter Egg Hunt theory of literature, by which students are instructed to “read between the lines” in order to understand a poem (usually) or other work of literature. In other words, the reason literary works are not self-explanatory is not because meaning in literature is hidden. Rather, it is because meaning in literature is excessive. Texts do not stand on their own. They speak among themselves, as Adso of Melk realizes in The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, and are also embedded in particular social, cultural, and historical conditions—reflecting those conditions, responding to them, and even sometimes affecting them.

In recent weeks I’ve encountered arguments defining the role of the critic as doing more than considering the aesthetic qualities of artistic works. The first was in an episode of Unclear and Present Danger by Jamelle Bouie and John Ganz on (of all things) the Michael Bay movie The Rock. I have never seen nor will ever see many of the movies that Bouie and Ganz discuss on the podcast, which does not diminish my enjoyment of their show; more often than not, the movie is an occasion for them to discuss some related topic or theme of the 1990s—the malaise of life after (what some believed to be) the end of history, the emergence of the Internet, the then prevailing optimism regarding technology and its seemingly wondrous possibilities, the preconditions for the so-called War on Terror, and so on. Their discussion of The Rock, for example, begins with observations on the stupidity of the case for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which, according to the 2016 Chilcot report, may have been based in part on the depiction of chemical weapons in the movie, and builds toward Bouie’s not-quite-tongue-in-cheek question whether, given how they influence our perceptions of ourselves and the world, movies should exist at all.

“It is a little scary to consider the power of art to shape things for ill,” says Ganz, citing as an example the role of aesthetics in fascism, but neither he nor Bouie—nor, of course, I—wishes to live as in Plato’s republic, from which poetry, which “feeds and waters the passions instead of drying them up,” has been banished. Ruminating on art and criticism, Ganz sees the passions that art awakens and feeds as tempered by thought. In distinguishing between propoganda and art, he says, “I believe that propoganda brings you away from the work of art with a really specific view of action, and a work of art leaves you in a state of uncertainty, or more of an openness and thoughtful position about what the world is about and should be done in politics.” And in rejecting Plato’s stance, he says, “I’m unwilling to impose a regime of censorship beyond the critic, I suppose. . . . And I wish people paid more attention to criticism because it permits you to consume things that are ‘problematic’ without reacting to it. . . . There’s a way to relate to these things in a thoughtful way (which I guess is what we’re trying to do?) that’s not reactive.”

This thoughtfulness is not that of the logician. Open, uncertain, it is itself a kind of a feeling—a feeling I enjoy. I like asking questions I can’t quite answer, questions whose answers generate more questions, questions I have questions about. I like hearing someone like John Ganz think out loud about the questions he’s wrestling with; in fact, thinking out loud is a pedagogical tool I use all the time as a librarian, especially in reference chat. I want students to know it’s OK not to know and to show them what fumbling toward a solution or answer looks like. I once wrote about my fear “that being asked questions will lead to a revelation of my ignorance—or worse, that I will lead a student to a dead end”; the antidote to this fear was my realization that I could bear this anxiety, especially on behalf of a student who does not have my years of practice and training in research. I had to show myself, too, that it’s OK to fumble my way through uncertainty—even slowly, while someone is waiting.

Can I hold my own views lightly—in uncertainty—while also counting myself a critic? I don’t know how else to proceed. And anyway, I don’t think that complete understanding is possible. There’s always something getting away.