Criticism, as She is Done

Criticism, whether of literature or music or visual arts (though I never know what they are talking about) can be a delightful thing. All the really good criticism I have ever read has been based on personal taste informed by a thorough knowledge of the artwork. In music I take particular delight in the criticism of Charles Rosen. His books on Classical style might seem to be primarily analysis, but to my mind they are simply informed criticism. Richard Taruskin's writings, on the other hand, downplay the element of criticism in favor of historical context and more power to them.

I am writing this post because I just ran across a beautiful example of literary criticism from David Mamet in the Wall Street Journal. The title is Charles Dickens Makes Me Want to Throw Up:

Dickens’s characters are cardboard cutouts, even in their names: Inspector Bucket, the Brothers Cheeryble, Jerry Cruncher. They are mechanicals. His prose is turgid and, less forgivable, tortured. Here’s his rendition, in “Dombey and Son,” of a sea-captain’s dialect: “It’s an almighty element. There’s wonders in the deep, my pretty. Think on it when the winds is roaring and the waves is rowling.”

What a load of bosh. The public devotion to Dickens’s work is sententious and perhaps even self-congratulatory—like that affection of New York theatergoers between the wars for the lugubrious plays of Eugene O’Neill.

I find Dickens’s gloomy view of London stinking of the lamp: that sputtering meager lamp which hardly brightens the overpowering darkness of the cold garret room, where, huddled in the corner, poverty has moored a guiltless ragamuffin, who, et cetera.

Yep! Mamet reserves his particular praise for Anthony Trollope, whom I greatly loved as I read all of his Palliser novels many years ago.

I’ve read Anthony Trollope’s entire work several times, not because I am schooled, educated or right-thinking—I don’t believe I am more afflicted in these than most—but because I like to read. Trollope’s 47 novels, nonfiction and incidental work are a delight. His prose is clear, perfectly rhythmic, concise and, at turns, trenchant and profoundly funny.

His plotting is stunning. How does one write a three-decker novel, which will appear in installments over a year and a half, and have the equation resolve magnificently—although making it up as one goes along? Compound this, if you will, with his work habits: Trollope rose every morning at 5:30 and wrote 2,500 words. If he completed one novel before meeting his daily goal, he began another. All while running various departments of the British General Post Office.

I can hardly wait to make a start on the Barchester novels. Mamet has a delightful denouement to his essay:

I loathed Henry James and counted myself boorish until I read the opinion of his best friend, Edith Wharton, who pronounced him unreadable. As per Marley’s Ghost, we each wear the chains we forged in life; if fortunate, the various spirits come to induce us to shed them. I’m not chutzpadik enough to think I rank among those shades, but if I have relieved one reader of the burden of a factitious and oppressive affection for Chuck Dickens I will rest evermore content.

Amen. And let's raise our glasses in toast to a bit of literary criticism that is delightful, humorous, engaging and inspiring without once exhorting us on the basis of resentful, smug, identity politics!