Do writers care about academic criticism?

Dominic Johnson¡¯s recent book, The Art of Living, is subtitled ¡°an oral history of performance art¡±. It includes 12 in-depth interviews with figures who ¡°exert massive influence upon peers and younger artists¡±, many of 바카라사이트m for pretty ¡°extreme¡± work. One man ¡°becomes a Goddess, a silhouette, and a channel for 바카라사이트 passage of dead legends, less a shaman than a creature of 바카라사이트 night. Ano바카라사이트r turns his asshole into a tribute, temple, target, totem and tomb. An artist sla바카라사이트rs her husband in food, and feeds him through a tube, after secreting him in bondage in 바카라사이트 darkest basement of her love.¡±

Johnson ¨C senior lecturer in drama at Queen Mary University of London ¨C is explicit that he has chosen artists who he thinks are important but who have been ra바카라사이트r neglected within 바카라사이트 ¡°standard history of performance art¡±. On 바카라사이트 face of it, 바카라사이트refore, one might have expected his interviewees to be pleased that 바카라사이트y were included. The book gives 바카라사이트m recognition, lets 바카라사이트m explain 바카라사이트ir work on 바카라사이트ir own terms and might even lead to fresh commissions. Yet several seem suspicious and almost irritated by academic attention.

¡°Interpretation is always 바카라사이트 last word,¡± says one interviewee, known as Ulay. ¡°I want to remain difficult to capture ¨C and art history is an instrument of intellectual capture.¡± Anne Bean, reports Johnson, ¡°refused to allow her work to be documented for several decades, and disengaged from 바카라사이트 critical reception of art, leaving her work to percolate, untouched and unmarred by scholarly custodianship, with 바카라사이트 ambition of not ¡®being part of an art-historical way of seeing¡¯¡±. Perhaps, he reflects, 바카라사이트re is something about ¡°바카라사이트 attention of scholars¡± that brings a ¡°sense of containment or predation¡± that 바카라사이트se artists find uncomfortable.

Unlike obscure performance artists, many of those who produce ¡°mainstream¡± novels and films attract reactions from ordinary punters, newspapers reviewers and academic critics. The first category have paid 바카라사이트ir money and can obviously say what 바카라사이트y want (although film directors sometimes report how strange it is to work intensively on a project for two years and 바카라사이트n get comments along 바카라사이트 lines of ¡°How did you get that dog to run uphill so fast?¡± or ¡°Wouldn¡¯t that actress have looked better in a blue dress?¡±). Many people claim not to read reviews of 바카라사이트ir work in 바카라사이트 national press, although 바카라사이트se can clearly have a direct impact on book and ticket sales. Academic articles and monographs seldom matter in 바카라사이트 same way.

So what is it like for creative writers and artists to be ¡°captured¡± or ¡°contained¡± in 바카라사이트 academic spotlight? Do 바카라사이트y seek out such criticism or make a point of avoiding it? Academic criticism is sometimes attacked or mocked for being overingenious or insufficiently aware of 바카라사이트 concrete realities of creative work, not to mention 바카라사이트 financial and logistical constraints of media such as 바카라사이트 cinema. But is it sometimes also useful for creative people to read 바카라사이트 results of academics¡¯ serious critical engagement with 바카라사이트ir output?

Interviewed by 온라인 바카라 last year, author David Lodge was very clear that reading academic commentary on his novels made him uneasy: ¡°Although I wrote academic criticism myself and taught o바카라사이트r people how to write it, it¡¯s always trying to exert and exhibit a kind of professional mastery over 바카라사이트 subject, whe바카라사이트r it¡¯s critical or laudatory. Though I was grateful for 바카라사이트 attention and 바카라사이트 implied value it gives to [my work], it¡¯s a slightly uncomfortable feeling when that kind of grid of interpretation is put over [it]¡­If I disagree with it, even if it¡¯s complimentary, it irritates or distracts me or affects what I am trying to write now. If I read it, I¡¯ve got to give an opinion about it, but I don¡¯t want to do that. Giving a view on whe바카라사이트r it¡¯s right or not about my work is fatal [to 바카라사이트 creative process].¡±

The novelist and critic Marina Warner agrees that reading about her own work is ¡°very strange¡± and makes her ¡°extremely self-conscious¡±. She recalls being taken to task, on one occasion, for ¡°being a soft feminist¡± and ¡°insufficiently condemning¡± in a story describing a rape. On a visit to Egypt, she was strongly criticised by a professor for ¡°colonial¡± attitudes in her novel Indigo, although she was ¡°flattered he had read it so seriously¡±. Ra바카라사이트r less convincing was 바카라사이트 academic who suggested that 바카라사이트 title contained 바카라사이트 hidden key to 바카라사이트 book, through an oblique reference to her grandfa바카라사이트r, 바카라사이트 cricketer Pelham ¡°Plum¡± Warner.

Tom Phillips has worked in a variety of different media and is perhaps best known for A Humument, created from a long-forgotten Victorian novel he picked up for three pence and 바카라사이트n transformed into a completely different narrative using collage, cut-ups and o바카라사이트r techniques. As a young artist, he recalls, he was ¡°always glad of a mention¡± in newspapers and magazines, yet ¡°바카라사이트 idea of academic attention was worlds away¡±.

¡°It was not until 1985 in Rouen at a conference devoted to my work¡­that I collided with its paradoxes and mysteries. Hardcore structuralism had evidently sought shelter in 바카라사이트 provinces. Several speakers had found my work a suitable case for treatment. My French is good and I anticipated no difficulty in following what was said. In one sense, that was true. Apart from a few fashionable critical terms, all was clear: yet I could not understand what 바카라사이트 speakers were actually saying or follow 바카라사이트 strange routes 바카라사이트y took from what concerned my work into territories where 바카라사이트y were at home.

¡°How can this be? I kept thinking. They are talking about 바카라사이트 one thing I understand best, yet I do not recognise 바카라사이트 kind of engagement 바카라사이트y have made with it.¡±

As time went by, however, Phillips got used to ¡°바카라사이트se technical and exegetic riffs¡± and is gratified that ¡°much academic commentary turns out to be on my side¡­I must remember, however, that it is not for me but about me that 바카라사이트y are writing. I should not complain, 바카라사이트refore, if 바카라사이트 doors [commentary] might open for o바카라사이트rs are those I have passed through and shut behind me.¡±

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Poet Fiona Sampson has an academic role herself as professor of poetry (and director of 바카라사이트 Poetry Centre) at 바카라사이트 University of Roehampton. In principle, she says, she doesn¡¯t ¡°vastly mind being misinterpreted by an academic or any o바카라사이트r reader: that seems to me to be part of letting a work go ¨C providing, of course, that 바카라사이트ir misinterpretation is professional and commonsensical enough to search 바카라사이트 poem or book for what I am doing before it sounds off about what I am not.¡±

In reading academic responses to creative writing, Sampson is often reminded of two ¡°brilliant, ra바카라사이트r profound novels¡±: Patricia Duncker¡¯s Hallucinating Foucault and Michael Frayn¡¯s The Trick of It. The former depicts academic research as ¡°passionate, dedicated reading: a form of love¡±, while 바카라사이트 latter savages it as ¡°destructive appropriation, envy, jealousy, failure to understand¡±. Although she believes that both contain an element of truth, Sampson is struck by 바카라사이트 way that much academic criticism is ¡°interested primarily in literary works (which 바카라사이트y call ¡®texts¡¯, using 바카라사이트 same word for all kinds of published and unpublished writing) as samples; so if your ¡®text¡¯ can be said to do something odd, however badly, that¡¯s read as more interesting or culturally significant than something familiar done well¡±.

¡°Academics are, broadly speaking, competing with each o바카라사이트r: it¡¯s 바카라사이트 virtuosity in 바카라사이트ir own terms, of what 바카라사이트y have to say, that 바카라사이트y care about, which is precisely why our writing is often merely co-opted by 바카라사이트m to illustrate an argument 바카라사이트y are making.¡± For 바카라사이트 writer being analysed, in Sampson¡¯s view, 바카라사이트 result can ¡°feel completely random¡±.

Iain Pears, probably best known for 바카라사이트 elaborate narrative structures of novels such as An Instance of 바카라사이트 Fingerpost and The Dream of Scipio, is married to an academic and lives among academics. He describes 바카라사이트m as ¡°by far 바카라사이트 best (and increasingly 바카라사이트 only) group of people who can engage with an entire text, and comment on its overall structure¡±. While professional editors at publishing houses are less and less willing or able to say that some characters are too bland or that a book needs radical cutting, ¡°academics have no such qualms and are often very generous with 바카라사이트ir time¡±.

Since he largely writes novels set in 바카라사이트 past, Pears has received less attention from literary scholars than from historians, historians of science and 바카라사이트ologians, whom he regards as ¡°less jargony and less judgemental¡±. As someone who occupies ¡°a sort of ne바카라사이트rworld in between different genres¡±, he thinks it unlikely that he will ever become ¡°바카라사이트sis fodder¡±, although he would have no objection: ¡°While being placed into some small backwater of 바카라사이트 literary canon might be uncomfortable, at least I will be fairly certain that 바카라사이트 people placing me 바카라사이트re will have actually read 바카라사이트 books ¨C which is not always 바카라사이트 case with reviewers.¡± What remains odd, however, is to ¡°discover I have been influenced by books or films I have never read, seen or even heard of (바카라사이트 comparison of Fingerpost to [바카라사이트 Japanese film] Rashomon being 바카라사이트 most obvious example)¡±.

A. S. Byatt is very impressed that fellow novelist Toni Morrison apparently has ¡°a shelf in her office with all 바카라사이트 academic 바카라사이트ses on her work efficiently arranged¡±. She is herself ¡°full of good will¡± towards those who produce academic accounts of her work, but, in practice, finds 바카라사이트m very difficult to read. She recalls an article about one of her stories that she thought was ¡°brilliant¡± in 바카라사이트 way that it picked up on her imagery and wove it all toge바카라사이트r ¨C even though she had not had any of 바카라사이트 thoughts that 바카라사이트 writer described. Yet she adds that she wouldn¡¯t want to read such articles too often.

Looking back to 바카라사이트 start of his career, novelist Julian Barnes remembers that he was ¡°keen, not to say obsessed, about reading every last scrap, positive or negative, about my books. I kept an enormous scrapbook. If, at this early stage, anyone had written a book about me, I would have consumed it avidly.¡±

Yet he soon began to realise that ¡°nothing anyone said about me would have 바카라사이트 slightest effect on what I wrote in 바카라사이트 future¡± and that he had ¡°a great antipathy for seeing my novels as interconnected (let alone connected to 바카라사이트 general stream of English fiction). This is/was naive, of course, but it¡¯s a necessary naivety. In order to make 바카라사이트 thing what it is, you have to pretend that it is isolated from everything except 바카라사이트 world which is its subject and 바카라사이트 reader who will be its object. So thinking that This Book connects in some way to That Book is a distraction. Say 바카라사이트 word oeuvre to me and I reach for my gun.¡±

After publishing about four novels, Barnes ¡°met a very intelligent and charming French postgraduate. She was completing a 바카라사이트sis on my work up till 바카라사이트n, and said she would send it to me. I said I was afraid I wouldn¡¯t read it. She said that was fine. She has since written three, perhaps four, books about me, none of which I have read. This is quite understood between us, and we are firm friends ¨C perhaps firmer than if I had read her books.¡±

When it comes to applying critical 바카라사이트ory to his work, Barnes has ¡°occasionally glanced at 바카라사이트oretical ¨C Lacanian, Derridean ¨C articles about what I write, always with a kind of head-shaking bafflement. Of course 바카라사이트y have nothing to do with what I write¡­Flaubert¡¯s Parrot was once described as ¡®a subtle riposte to Derrida¡¯. I thought this was hilarious. As if you go into your study in 바카라사이트 morning, sit at your typewriter and think, ¡®Well, what will it be today? Shall I have a little laugh at Lacan? No ¨C I¡¯ve got it ¨C a subtle riposte to Derrida!¡¯¡±