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From: reiher@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: critics
Message-ID: <3383@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Thu, 22-Aug-85 02:58:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: topaz.3383
Posted: Thu Aug 22 02:58:30 1985
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Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
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From: Peter Reiher 


Ken Moreau writes:

>But I won't depend on some pompous critic
>(or even you, Mr. Tucker) to tell me that some piece of sh** is art
>simply because I don't immediately like or understand it.  If it is
>art (and to me that is a very select, very praiseworthy term), then
>it will be immediately obvious to everyone. If it is not, then it
>fails the test, and no critic can sneer at my taste enough to make
>me admit it is art.

I hope that you don't mean that, once you've decided that it doesn't
meet your qualifications for art, then you cannot be persuaded.  If you
do, then you are being rather narrowminded.  Good critics persuade, they
do not browbeat.

I disagree that great art is immediately obvious to everyone.  You yourself
said earlier that you don't believe that there are absolutes in art, so how
can you be sure that anyone else will agree with you when you say something
is great art?  If it's only great art if everyone agrees, then I imagine that
nothing is great art.

What I find most disturbing is your contention that, if one doesn't immediately
recognize the value of a work, or if a book isn't a good read, then it is
not a great work of art.  The reason I find it disturbing is because I know,
from my own experience, that this isn't true (for me, at least).  Therefore,
I suspect that you are denying yourself some of the deeper pleasures of reading
in favor of shallower and more transitory pleasures.  (I could, of course, be
wrong.  Perhaps you have read books like "The Sound and the Fury" and "Ulysses"
and been immediately blown away by what good reads they were.  I had to work
at understanding and appreciating them, but I don't regret a moment of that
labor.)  If, of course, you really don't care about such books, if you only
are interested in reading works which appeal to you from the moment you
pick them up, that's your prerogative.  My objection is that, despite your
claims that you don't believe in absolute standards, you impugn those who
disagree with you, by suggesting that they are pretentious, that they have
less understanding of art than you, that they don't really like what they
say they like, etc.  If you are secure in your beliefs, than perhaps a less
emphatic and sneering tone would be better.


And Power.wbst@Xerox.ARPA writes:

>Finally, as you can see by my definition, it doesn't include
>reviewers, archivists, or SF-librarians.  

A close examination of his entire posting suggests to me that Mr. Powers'
definition of Critic (his idea of a insulting term) is any person making
comments on a work of art whose comments he consistently dislikes.  I, for
one, do not agree with his article, nor with his veiled suggestion that
Critics have caused writers in the mainstream of fiction to lose their
inventiveness.  True, there is little enough originality on he bestseller
list, but if one looks, one can find interesting, stimulating, original
writing outside science fiction.  For those who haven't tried looking,
I suggest doing so, and will be happy to provide a list of authors to
start with.

        			Peter Reiher
				reiher@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU
        			{...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiher