Re: skip the critic
Malcolm Lawrence (malcolm@wolfenet.com)
Wed, 08 Apr 1998 14:51:38 -0700
Brendan McKennedy wrote:
> >Bob Dylan said, "to live outside the law you must be honest"--dissing
> >criticism without showing real knowledge of it seems less valid to me
> than
> >it could be...will
>
> I think this is in response to what I wrote, about skipping the critics
> and just going for the text itself...I didn't mean to "dis" *any*body,
> critic or otherwise. I freely admit that I have little to nil knowledge
> or experience with the critics; I was simply saying that my brief
> experiences with criticisms have done very little for me personally. If
> I offended you, Will, I didn't mean to, but I don't think you had any
> reason to be offended in the first place.
>
> Am I reading this all wrong?
I think what will meant to say was what my old Humanities teacher told me
once in high school: "Accepting the boundaries allows you to swim through
them." That whole notion of resistance being futile/best learn the ways of
the Borg so you can defeat it at it's own game/yada yada yada. I agree with
you, Brendan. I've read so many bad critics that I stopped reading
criticism. Reminds me of that old Woody Allen line. "Those who can, do.
Those who can't, teach. And those who can't teach, teach PE." It's the rare
critic, methinks, who can write a decent criticism without drawing any
attention to themselves, just like it's the rare author who can write a
decent story without drawing any attention to themselves.