Opinions vs. Criticism

In response to the NY Times article on the decreasing amount of newspaper column space going to book reviews and the suggestion that bloggers can fill the void, Richard Schickel reacts strongly to the contention that having bloggers replace professional reviewers is “an inevitable transition toward a new, more democratic literary landscape where anyone can comment on books.”

“Criticism — and its humble cousin, reviewing — is not a democratic activity,” Schickel writes. “It is, or should be, an elite enterprise, ideally undertaken by individuals who bring something to the party beyond their hasty, instinctive opinions of a book (or any other cultural object). It is work that requires disciplined taste, historical and theoretical knowledge and a fairly deep sense of the author’s (or filmmaker’s or painter’s) entire body of work, among other qualities.”

Schickel goes on to note: “The act of writing for print, with its implication of permanence, concentrates the mind most wonderfully. It imposes on writer and reader a sense of responsibility that mere yammering does not. It is the difference between cocktail-party chat and logically reasoned discourse that sits still on a page, inviting serious engagement.”

“Maybe most reviewing, whatever its venue, fails that ideal,” he concludes. “But a purely ‘democratic literary landscape’ is truly a wasteland, without standards, without maps, without oases of intelligence or delight.”

In other words, we all have opinions. But criticism is supposed to encompass more than giving an opinion.