Marjorie has some typically insightful observations on her blog, here.
Sean blames critics and the academy for perpetuating this queer line of thinking. I agree that such folks shoulder their fair share of the responsibility here. But I also tend to think an artist or two, over the years, just might have been a little complicit in tacking a frill or five onto our culture’s insistence that the tortured artist is the only kind of artist for whom it has any patience.
Here’s the thing, though: one wonders how many of these artistic types are producing anything worthwhile? How many worthwhile artists do you run into who are even comfortable talking about the fact that they create? It’s certainly a generalization, but in my experience, those who talk much, do little (that’s actually true of just about any endeavor, but it seems almost axiomatic when it comes to artistic inclination). It would be amusing to make a documentary entitled “The writer at work”, and the camera pans in on some dude in his boxers and dirty t-shirt, sitting on the floor with a legal pad, rubbing his cheeks and shaking his head, staring at a blank legal pad. Moments pass…silence. WAIT! He is writing….he stops. Rubs his cheek; shakes his head. Crosses out what he wrote. Moments pass. Silence. After 90 minutes the words “To be continued” flash on the screen. It would be the most insufferably boring, but true documentary ever created–and it would disabuse countless dreamers and posers of the notion that being a writer is something you can cultivate or assume, the way you can learn a foreign language by being immersed in another culture.
But lest you think–understandably–that I wish to put the bulk of the blame on critics and article writing assistant professors, let’s acknowledge an immutable fact: these prurient tell-all tomes would not continue to be written if they did not consistently sell. So the onus is…on us. Seriously. The collective “we” are increasingly more familiar with the lives of the writers than the words they wrote. And this distressing tendency is at its apex (or nadir) right now, with the reality TV bonanza. Lest that sound like whining, or tilting at the inexorable windmills of commerce, I recognize it, I accept it, and I try not to worry about it. It’s not like America has suddenly retarded its collective ability (or desire) to think and read and engage. Or, if it has, it’s a very slow erosion and each generation has predictably lamented the idiocy of the age it currently suffers through. Same as it ever was.
But to some of your excellent points, Marjorie, I’d say that with some notable exceptions, I tend to be most fully satisfied reading criticism of writing done by writers (particularly fiction writers) and while it’s more rare, reading about music by people who make music tends to maintain the balance between insight and expertise. Put more cynically, everyone puts pen to paper with an agenda. No artist worth a damn would begrudge any honest reader their right to interpret the work as they see (and experience) it. Some critics mean well and just can’t manage to convince; some critics mean ill but can’t help being brilliant. Ultimately, it’s only when someone comes to the table with an agenda, but happens to be ignorant, that a disservice is done to the art being commented upon.
