I’ve been stewing about this for several months, but perhaps my problem could be alleviated by not hanging out on litrachoor blogs, where it’s the nature of the beast to say what you don’t like about a particular work.
Anyway, at one niche blog I hang out on a lot (but don’t post much because I have nothing constructive to add, whether positive or negative), there are a couple of posters who comment on each and every literary offering (whether they’ve read the work or not) with a *sniff* and variations on a theme of “I don’t like this.” Usually for weird X reason.
I get that. I don’t like everything I read, either. Whether I say so is a function of A) how lazy I am that day (I can’t be arsed to sign in and comment a negative), B) how confident I am in my own scholarship (as in, I’m not a litrachoor type nor an intellectual nor even a pseudo intellectual), C) whether I actually liked the work or not (I can be arsed to sign in to make a positive comment or to take a counter position to the negative poster if I feel strongly enough about the negative comment).
Aside: Oh, I forgot. Good litrachoor criticism means you are not allowed to A) like it and B) say anything positive about it.
However, what I don’t get is the constant not liking of everything that’s posted and feeling a need to say so. And! Worse! When the commenter enumerates how the work lacks everything s/he thinks it should have, that it isn’t what s/he thought the work would/should be, i.e., “Why don’t you people write what I want to read?” while yet not actually writing anything him/herself. Especially in a niche that has precious little to offer the world to begin with. If you don’t like what’s there, write it your owndamnself.
Another aside: Why am I stuck on having been instructed in novel-writing techniques by someone who’s never written a novel (nor, as far as I know, a novella, or a short story)? And teaches an adult extended education class on the subject?
The latest offering was a poem. I liked it, and while I’ve not traditionally been a fan of poetry, Th. and Tyler (and Tyler again and Th.’s posting of May Swenson) and some dude named Danny Nelson are all seducing me to the dark side.
This was not a constructive post. I realize this. I try to offer some solution to whatever I think is a problem if I start to bitch, which is why I’ve kept a lid on this for so long. But, look, not every work that’s posted or linked is a piece of crap.
And if you think every work actually is a piece of crap, do something about it instead of hanging out on litrachoor blogs and trashing everything that walks by.
.
are all seducing me to the dark side.
Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha! *Tyler attempts an evil laugh but gets a moth stuck in his throat*
* * * *
One of my biggest issues with academic literary criticism is exactly what you say in your first aside: Good litrachoor criticism means you are not allowed to A) like it and B) say anything positive about it. But I’m learning to say to hell with the pedantry and pretension of it all. I like talking about how a work influences me, about how it works on the world rhetorically. But a lot of people don’t. They just get all high-fa-lootin and high culture on the rest of us and nothing is good enough for their refined (read: canonized) standards. So they tear it down because no contemporary writing will ever live up to what all those dead white guys have already writ. (Probably why they don’t write anything themselves…)
This probably isn’t a very productive comment, but I just wanted to weigh in with my two cents.
That and I got the chills when I read my name on someone else’s blog.
See.
There they are again.
I try to avoid posting too much of what I think is wrong with a given work. It’s partly because I’m not sure I’m qualified to publically diss something and partly because there are so many works out there that I’d rather lead people to stuff I like than try to steer them away from stuff I don’t like (but they might love).
I make a special exception for Twilight though. I paid good money for that book, and mocking it online was the whole reason. 😉
Chanson, I see what you do more in line with what a reviewer does, which is an entirely different mindset, skillset, discipline, whatever. Sometimes a reviewer gets confused into thinking s/he is a literary critic, but those people are now unemployed (helloooooo NYT and LAT and KCStar).
I probably should have differentiated here a wee bit on reviewer versus academic critic.
Tyler: “Canonized.” Thank you.
Jessica over at Racy Romance Reviews had a really thought-provoking post on Teach Me Tonight‘s efforts to bring genre romance to academia as a legitimate subject. Until I read her article, I didn’t know how courageous you really have to be in academia if you want to do something different.
Oh, and lookie here. I’m not the only one in a fash over this:
A Reader’s Manifesto
Granted, the article’s way old, but nothing’s changed, apparently.
Somehow “literary” has been twisted to mean non-emotional. Citing how a work “affects” you is anecdotal, invalid, and seen as gauche and perhaps even immature.
And yet these “literary” “writers” think they are the descendants of Dickens, Poe, Hawthorne, et al — who wrote precisely to *evoke* emotions.
.
I see this in my high school students and here’s what I think it comes down to:
Liking something makes you vulnerable.
Disliking something just allows you to stay closed off.
Liking something puts you at the mercy of the haters.
Disliking something gives you the power.
Likers have to explain why they like each work.
Dislikers can dislike everything in the same, lazy way.
And dislikers who aren’t creators are a waste of everbody’s time. Why in the world should anyone care what they say?
Ah…I suggest reading as much of Danny Nelson’s poetry as possible. He makes the “dark side” incredibly beautiful.
Oh–and if you don’t have access to it, let me know. Which Danny’s permission, I’ll give you all I have.
Hee…that would be “with” Danny’s permission. I must stop reading blogs while doing my taxes.
LOL Samantha. Think of the damage to your taxes!
On this particular blog, I don’t know who has or hasn’t written something, much less put it out for public consumption.
I do know that I’ve read some of the stuff put out for public consumption (on a semi-related niche blog) and gone, “WTF? That’s good lit?” but haven’t felt the need to post the sentiment.
But if you like it, then you can’t sniff with derision and that’s what makes people think you’re superior!
Duh!
Well. True. But is that ALL it is?