CRITIQUING THE CRITICS
The Secret Author’s remarks on the supposed decline of the English novel (July/August) reminds me of when as an undergraduate at Oxford in the late 1980s I shared a staircase with your contributing editor, Dominic Green. Seeing one day through his open doorway a copy of The Stone Roses’ eponymous debut album, I asked for his opinion. Never one to say much, he replied with the crushing words, “It’s all right”. That album is now widely acknowledged as one of the best pop/ rock albums of all time, though a brief look into its critical reception at the time reveals Green’s initial reaction wasn’t far off the mark.
It is, of course, notoriously difficult to make judgments on contemporary culture; the annals of criticism are littered with great works poorly received at their birth. That which is groundbreaking is often first trashed as rubbish, or — more brutally — merely overlooked. I see this in my own field of art history: the comings and goings of fashion, the rise and fall (and sometimes rise again) of reputations. Augustus John, Stanley Spencer and Eric Ravilious are all exemplary examples, as is much contemporary conceptual art.
As a writer myself I’m sceptical of
Douglas Murray’s claim in the same issue that he’s not much bothered by the public’s reception of his work and satisfied with the positive response of a few discerning readers, friends and mentors. Can this be true?
I appreciate the praise of friends and family, but would not trust their discretion to make an honest judgment. For that I rely on the critic (and feel that if I win high praise from some and ridicule from others, then I’ve at least produced something of both merit and originality).
Still, this leaves us with a conundrum. Who are we, in a way, to judge our own times, and our own cultural output? Do we live in an era of mediocrity? Or are we perhaps somewhere we do not expect? Can only time and history tell? The role of critic is vital. But who, I wonder, watches the watchman — who critiques the critic?
David Boyd Haycock
marston, oxford