"Did you know that today's literary criticism is submerged in a flood of niceness? Me neither. Yet that is the opinion of Jacob Silverman, a contributor to Slate, who complained of it earlier this month, and of my former Salon colleague Dwight Garner, who seconds Silverman's emotion in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine. Silverman claims that "cloying niceness and blind enthusiasm are the dominant sentiments" in book reviews and blames this namby-pamby development on Twitter and Tumblr. Garner maintains that we are "drowning" in "yes-saying critics." Silverman calls for more "blistering critiques" to "make our culture more interesting," and Garner worries that eschewing harsh reviews will lead to a "zombie culture."
The idea that book reviewers have gone soft is a very popular one, and as Jane Hu recently and amusingly demonstrated in a history of the decline of book reviews for the Awl, it's been popular for a long time. The deplorable state of literary criticism is something somebody complains about every decade or so; most notably, Elizabeth Hardwick fulminated on the subject in Harper's magazine back in 1959 (which suggests we can let Twitter off the hook). The too-nice argument alternates, roughly, with the slightly less prevalent "too-nasty" essay, in which someone asserts that reviewers have become gratuitously vicious. (Presumably, the readers who find book reviews to be "just right" curl up, Goldilocks-style, for a nap.)"
The idea that book reviewers have gone soft is a very popular one, and as Jane Hu recently and amusingly demonstrated in a history of the decline of book reviews for the Awl, it's been popular for a long time. The deplorable state of literary criticism is something somebody complains about every decade or so; most notably, Elizabeth Hardwick fulminated on the subject in Harper's magazine back in 1959 (which suggests we can let Twitter off the hook). The too-nice argument alternates, roughly, with the slightly less prevalent "too-nasty" essay, in which someone asserts that reviewers have become gratuitously vicious. (Presumably, the readers who find book reviews to be "just right" curl up, Goldilocks-style, for a nap.)"
Laura Miller
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