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PARTISAN REVIEW
time." Such critics read, pencil in hand, the books that they have to
read for an article, have
to
read for basic literary conversation–
although most of these last, they are glad to think, they got through
long ago. Readers, real readers, are almost as wild a species as writers;
most critics are so domesticated as to seem institutions--as they stand
there between reader and writer, so different from either, they remind
one of the Wall standing between Pyramus and Thisbe. And some of
their
constant readers are so serious, responsible and timid about
reading a great work that they start out on it with a white hunter,
native bearers, and a $10,000 policy they bought from the insurance–
machine at the airport. The critics got back, but who knows whether
they will be able to?
To the question "Have you read
Gerontion?"
--or some other
poem that may seem difficult to people-I've several times heard
people reply: "Well, not really-I've
read
it, but I've never read a
thorough analysis of it, or really gone through it systematically." And
one critic will say of another critic's analysis of a book like
Moby-Dick:
"Mr. Something has given us the first thorough (or
systematic)
read–
ing of
Moby-Dick
that we have had." After people had leafed through
it for so long, it's at last been read! Yet, often, how plain and actual
the poem or story itself seems, compared to those shifting and con–
tradictory and all-too-systematic "readings" that veil it as clouds veil
the rocks of a mountain. Luckily, we can always seek refuge from the
analyses in the poem
itself-if
we like poems better than we like
analyses.
But poems, stories, new-made works of art, are coming to
seem rather less congenial and important than they once did,
both
to
literary and not-so-literary readers. So far as the last are concerned,
look at the lists of best-sellers, the contents of popular magazines-–
notice how cheerful and beefy
Time
is when it's reviewing a biography,
how grumpy and demanding it gets as soon as it's reviewing a serious
novel. And look at the literary quarterlies, listen to the conversation
of literary people: how much of it is criticism of criticism, talk about
talk about books!
People realize that almost all fiction or poetry is bad or mediocre–
it's the nature of things. Almost all criticism is bad or mediocre too, but
it's harder for people to tell; and even commonplace criticism can seem
interesting or important simply because of its subject matter. An English
statesman said that he liked the Garter because there wasnc
damned
merit involved;
there is no damned inspiration involved in the writing
of criticism, generally, and that is what the literary magazines like
