A RANT
EVERY TIME I begin to read a standard 7,000-word essay of literary criticism, I recall something Bret Easton Ellis once said at a bookstore appearance in Philadelphia: “Now I’m going to bore you for twenty minutes.” (Then he did, by reading from his work.)
Boredom, among the established literary set, is a given.
For instance, however well, or mildly provocative, the standard New York Review of Books, London Review of Books, New Left Review, Granta, etc. tome starts, it quickly enough becomes a snooze. A bore. An effort one must slog through, like wading through a three-foot puddle of mud. Or sometimes, sludge.
The essays have no hook. None. Any point they have to make is made in the first three paragraphs– inevitably, very long paragraphs. The essays build no momentum. They aim toward nothing. At best, they offer a wry bon mot in the last sentence. Why would anyone who is not a Phd student or hard-core literary critic read them?
THE QUESTION is whether we have or are going to have an organic, from-the-people American literature– the voice of We the People– or a distorted Frankenstein monster imposed by the MIC (Military-Industrial-Complex) and tax-shelter plutocrats care of Washington D.C. and the Imperial City of New York. (I say MIC, mindful of where funding for some prestigious literary journals and the first important writing program came from: a direction imposed many decades ago.)
THE CHIEF TASK of those involved in creating and promoting literature– according to the actions and writings of our literary intellectuals– is maintenance of the status quo. Some of us believe more is required.
I ask myself, when reading well-hyped, much-awarded critical essays: Who’s the target audience? What’s the profile of the presumed reader?
Whoever is targeted, it can’t be a very large demographic.
I’m being optimistic. Most likely it’s only the close-reading crowd, where the review or opinion itself isn’t the point, but how it’s been worded: well-wrought sentences to gush over. The more over-wrought– the craftsman relentlessly pounding the piece over an anvil until it’s been flattened obliterated insensibly into one inscrutable mass of verbiage– the better.
CRITICISM IN CRISIS?
That’s the premise of this 6,000-word essay by Colin Vanderburg in the Spring 2025 issue of New York-based literary journal n+1. Pretentious blather, for the most part, from its French title on down, but at least Vanderburg acknowledges most critics live in the hermetically sealed world of academia and are speaking solely to themselves. At that, he doesn’t seem to realize the full extent of the crisis as it concerns the university world he’s recently entered. Nowhere is a mention of AI chatbots and the effect they’re already having on entering students. What happens if all academic papers are written by an electronic device? What purpose will be left for the university– and critics like Vanderburg– if all ideas are contained in said device, available with a ten-second prompt? Will students continue to pay $60,000 a year to attend such places, and submit AI papers for AI perusal and grading? What steps are necessary to preempt that dystopia? Vanderburg doesn’t know, or isn’t saying.
NEEDED: EXCITEMENT
Literary change is coming. Change is necessary to combat top-down tech control of every aspect of human culture. Change is inevitable. The question is whether writers and intellectuals will decide to become part of that change, or dwindle into irrelevance. Critics have a role to play, not solely within obsolete institutions, but as part of society and culture as a whole. Not just a role. A responsibility. Which is to GET THE WORD OUT about new writers and new art.
Which is why we plan to use this site, Fast Pop Lit, as a platform for short criticism that rocks. That grabs unwary readers from behind laptops or smartphones, by the collar, and gives them a hard shake to say, “WAKE UP!”
(Send concise and opinionated criticism to newpoplit@gmail.com. 400 words max suggested but not required.)
-K. Wenclas
