ZEVE@RED.RUTGERS.EDU (09/12/85)
From: Steven J. Zeve <ZEVE@RED.RUTGERS.EDU> Although I have no great love for the majority of critics, who to me seem to be critics mostly because they are incapable of doing anything more creative than downgrading other peoples work. I am somewhat disturbed by the virulence I see in the "anti-critic" side of this debate. I wonder where people picked up such hardened and harsh points of view (I'll come back to this later). I suppose I should be as disturbed by the harshness of some the "pro-critic" debaters also, but I have come to expect it of that side of the argument. I have met far too many supposedly educated, liberal people who were totally incapable of admitting that there might be any viewpoint but their own. My experience has been that these people argue like Mr Tucker. It is arguments like his that provoke my own dislike of "Art" and those who espouse it; in politics it is people who argue the way he does that push me away from the "liberal" side of issues and towards the conservative side. As the old line goes, "I may not know Art, but I know what I like"; and I'll be damned if I'm going to let someone else deny me the right to make my own choices. Even when my preferences changes from year to year and even day to day. I would rather be an ignorant barbarian (but not a philistene since I am of the wrong religion for it) than one of the elite who deny others the right to an opinion. I don't know about anyone else, but for me one of the great turn-offs on "Art" and "Literature" was the English classes at all levels that made reading and writing into chores. It seemed as if their intent was to deny me the right to have a personal interpretation of a work different from the teacher's approved interpretation. Poetry wasn't read for the sake of poetry, but instead to determine the meter, count the alliterations, pull it apart and label the onomatopaeia (sp?). I had one teacher that had us searching in Hamlet to find all the "famous" quotes (there are a surprising number of them by the way), and she gave out work sheets with busy work of finding particular lines in the play, no particular reason for the lines, just busy work so she could give us grades. I think if she had had her way, we would simply have wandered back and forth in the text without ever seeing a performance of Hamlet (and let's face it Shakespeare wrote his plays to be performed not to be read out of a book), fortunately she had been ill for quite a stretch and another teacher standing in for her took us to see a video-tape of a very good production of Hamlet and worked us most of the way through Hamlet AS A PLAY so that we did get some appreciation for the skill and beauty that went into Shakespeare's works. Hmm, that last paragraph went on a bit didn't it? Well, at any rate these experiences in high school and junior high pretty much soured me on "Art" and "Literature". It's taken years to recover from the damage done by some of those "teachers"; I must also admit that being one of the social outcasts of the school system peer groups tended to harden my attitudes a lot by driving me deeply into escapist literature. I wonder how many of the other "anti-critic" faction have suffered from similar ways of being force fed culture, art, and literature in the wrong way or at the wrong time. Or in other ways denied the right to have their own opinions and interpretations. Each work speaks to each of us in a different way, depending on the other things we have seen and done in our lives. To deny someone the validity of their vision, or belief simply because it is not the same as yours is, in some ways, to deny that person's very humanity; the very same spark of humanity you claim to be promoting by trying to forcefeed your opinions on "Art" and "Literature". I read SF primarily to be entertained; I always have. I don't want to have to work too hard at it; I have to read too many computer manuals and other technical things at work and for school. But I must admit, it is nice to know that there is a Gene Wolfe out there in the field (even if I don't understand everything in the Book of the New Sun), and a Harlan Ellison, and others writing something besides the purely entertainment things. And maybe I'll understand all of it one day, but I don't see why it HAS to be TODAY that I understand it all, or even tomorrow; there are so many things out there waiting to be seen and understood that if I rush out and throw myself into all of them I might easily overload and not enjoy any of them because I am woking so hard at it. After all of this, I also want to say that it is nice to be able to pick a critical analysis written by someone that doesn't have an axe to grind; or at least tells you in advance that they are grinding an axe instead of being reasonably objective. It can really provide new light on a work when you are able to find out how someone else interpreted it, when you are really getting criticism of the work itself instead of watching the work be used as a soapbox by the critic to present a lecture on some favored topic of its. Hmm, my watch says it's way past my bdetime, so I think I will just send this semi-coherent ramble and toddle off to sleep ... Happy Flaming, Steve Z. -------
jagardner@watmath.UUCP (Jim Gardner) (09/16/85)
[...] I see an important point in Steve Zeve's comments about the anti-critic bias. FOR THE MOST PART, those with no formal training in literature (say, those who have taken few university level courses) have only been exposed to "backyard" critics: high school teachers, peers, and that mouthy Arts major down the hall in residence. FOR THE MOST PART, those same people have only been exposed to national or international writers: those who have managed to interest a major publisher. Is it any wonder that the writers come out looking better than the critics? I mean no disrespect to high school teachers and the like -- in my five years of high school (we go to grade 13 in Ontario), I had two good English teachers (and three mediocre ones) which is a pretty good average. But the writers we read have gone through a more extensive culling process than the critics we listen to...unless we happen to find ourselves in advanced literature classes where we can read the work of national or international level critics. Given the basic high school introduction to literature, we are hardly likely to pick up a book of good criticism. The only other place we could possibly see high level criticism would be in newspaper and magazine book reviews. I will certainly concede there may be book reviews that treat SF in a competent way -- the New York Times Review of Books has been mentioned several times on the Net as one such publication. However, the Times is hard to find in Southern Ontario. I can choose one of the local papers (which are just as bush league as many high school teachers) or some newspaper/magazine which has more national coverage. Unfortunately, the newspapers/magazines that I can get my hands on do not pay any sort of attention to SF. As an example: the Toronto Globe and Mail (which is as close to a national newspaper as Canada has) published a review a few months ago of a new line of quality paperbacks that Penguin was bringing out, featuring Canadian short story writers. The writers were W.P.Kinsella, Leon Rooke, Audrey Thomas, and Spider Robinson. The Globe assumed that any literate person would have heard of the first three (highly unlikely outside Canada, and not so likely inside) but felt they had to go to great lengths to explain who Spider Robinson was. To them, SF was some little-read literary ghetto that needed an explanation. Conclusion: the critics with which we have the most experience are not in the major leagues; the writers are. Of course many of the writers are bad, but they are bad by major league standards (not to mention that they have been edited by major league editors). Is it any wonder that some people develop a knee-jerk response against critics? Jim Gardner, University of Waterloo