Yes, it's some more blathering from me about criticism and
review writing. I'm _not_ going to give up on this one, kids. I'm
pushing myself hard and I'm encouraging you all to do likewise. This
list is only as valuable as the level of discourse it presents, which
as of late has been disappointingly low (with, of course, occasional,
heartening exceptions). I'm going to be writing a lot of reviews this
summer and I hope you all are going to help keep me up to my own
standards.
As far as the following quotes go, just substitute "techno"
for "science fiction" and it all will make sense, I promise...
"From here I turn to the buzz behind me: critics, scholars,
and even some writers, asking among themselves in concerned voices
whether the advent of serious criticism will 'corrupt' science
fiction. To me this sounds like critical megalomania. The tidal wave
of well-being that sweeps from the avid fourteen-year-old who has read
and re-read one lovingly and helplessly -- I recall one girl who had
memorized (!) a short story of mine and quoted half of it back to me
till I made her stop -- is more corrupting than any possible scholarly
examination. (I assume 'corrupting' for the writer is synonymous with
'distracting.')
"I assume the critics are in far greater danger of corruption
than we are: I have run across a fair number of 'corrupt' critics --
that is, critics who praise worthless writers for non-existent
reasons. The amount of wordage writers of science fiction (or poetry
[or techno]) spend praising _any_ kind of critic is negligible."
-- Samuel R. Delany, "Letter to an Editor," 1972
"'You science fiction writers always criticise each other in
print as if the person you were criticising were reading over your
shoulder,' someone said to me at the Bristol Con last week -- meaning,
I'm afraid, that the majority of criticism that originates within the
field has either a 'let-me-pat-your-back-so-you-can-pat-mine' air, or,
even more frequently, a sort of catty, wheedling tone implying much
more is being criticized than the work nominally under discussion.
"No, the science fiction community is not large.
"Perhaps it's because I've spent just over a decade making my
living with it, but I feel _all_ criticism should be written as if the
author being criticised were -- not reading over your shoulder; but
written as though you could stand face to face with him and read it
out loud, without embarrassment.
"I think this should hold whether you are trying to fix the
most rarefied of metaphysical imports in some Shakespearean tragedy,
or writing a two-hundred word review of the latest thriller. Wheedling
or flattery have nothing to do with it.
"Among the many informations we try to get from any critical
model is the original maker's (the artists's) view of the original
work modelled. If the critics do not include, in their model, an overt
assessment of it, we construct it from hints, suggestions, and
whatever. But _we_ are at three removes from the author; and the
critic is at two (as the critic is one from the work): in deference to
that distance, I feel the critics must make such assessments
humbly. They can always be wrong.
"But only after they, and we, have made them (wrong or right),
can we follow the critic's exploration of the work's method, success,
or relevance. The critic can only judge these things by her own
responses; in a very real way, the only thing the critic is ever
really criticising -- and this must be done humbly if it is to be done
at all -- is the response of her own critical instrument.
"_All_ criticism is personal.
"The best is rigorously so."
-- Samuel R. Delany, "Shadows," 1974
Just a couple briquets to toss in the ongoing fire of debate
about these things.
yrz,
ozy
ozymandias G desiderata
personal info :
http://www.mbc.umt.edu/ogd/
discographies :
http://www.mbc.umt.edu/ogd/aaxz/discogs
Missoula raves:
http://www.mbc.umt.edu/ogd/raves/