A million years ago or, you know, 1991, I read a review of the movie Billy Bathgate, in a Houston newspaper, (when we had more than one). The story of a Prohibition-era teen who jumps head-first into organized crime in service to his hero, crime boss Dutch Schultz, the movie was based on a historical novel of the same name.
The newspaper critic claimed that the movie lacked the visceral impact of the novel. For reference he cites a scene between the fifteen-year-old protagonist, Billy, and his childhood sweetheart Becky. The critic states that in the book, Billy gives Becky a dollar to have sex with him but in the movie, they “just talk.”
Did they not teach “nuance” in film-critic school?
At the time of reading the review, I had already seen the movie, mostly because I had read E.L. Doctorow’s book. I wondered if the critic had actually seen the movie or read the book. While we never see Billy and Becky bumping uglies, we do see Billy flash a dollar bill to entice Becky to the roof. The next scene is Becky, buttoning her blouse as they both smoke a cigarette and, yes, talk. Then Becky inspects Billy’s dollar bill.
Subtle.
For the record, Robert Benton’s film, (from a script by Tom Stoppard) improves upon Doctorow’s overly-sentimental book. Benton drops the cut-and-dried-happily-ever-after ending. While Stopard cut Doctorow’s subplots that served neither character nor story.
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| Remember: it's supposed to be fun. |
At the end, (of the movie) Billy is fundamentally changed. WAY beyond hero-worship he no longer harbors delusions about that gangster life. Best of all, Billy is untethered to Dutch Schultz and to crime. The open-ended fresh start is the best happy ending a Bronx boy can get. In his comparison to the book, the movie critic missed all of that.
As I’ve written before, the critics are prone to be wrong and not just, “I didn’t catch that,” wrong. Too-often, they are ambition-wrong. In instances that resemble larceny, they may be “agenda” wrong.
Ambition-Wrong
A few years after reading the Bathgate review I began a composition and rhetoric class at community college. The professor was a published short story author, book critic, and aspiring novelist. In the ramp up to our big finale, (an essay of any book) the professor introduced us to critical analysis, Aristotelian Syllogism, and most importantly (to him) politics.
See, the prevailing logic is critics “can’t create” so they criticize. The truth, more often, is that critics are themselves creators of one form or another. Criticism is not only used to analyze and develop writing skills but to also to advance careers, build clout, and align allies.
Dervia Murphy wrote about the AIDs crisis in Africa. Toni Morrison wrote of gender and race in politics. Our comp and rhetoric professor wrote to advance his job prospects.
He walked us through a critical review of a novel by a prominent writer and member of the new guard. African-American, tenured at a prestigious uni and prominent on a lit-award panel, the man had achieved everything our professor could only aspire to. The professor outlined his argument: the man’s book, a revisionist western, was highly political and the professor objected to the commentary. True, he had taught us literary composition using Cormac McCarthy’s revisionist westerns, (with highly political commentary) but the late-great McCarthy was a white man.
The professor reasoned he wasn’t likely to win one of those spiffy literary awards. So, why not tear-down the man’s book? That kind of controversy could get him noticed, might even get him into a PhD program with his hero, the literary critic of the day, Harold Bloom.
If you can’t beat them, write a hit piece on their book…
Our professor did publish his review and he did get into his PhD program. The last I read, his novel achieved middling success and he now teaches at a college in Elvis country. Oh, Bloom died in ignobility as a serial sexual harasser. The review made not even a dent in the man’s book or career.
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| An objective, unbiased fellow, no-doubt... |
Agenda-Wrong
Then there is the true believer AKA the critic with an agenda. Harrold Bloom (the previously mentioned professor’s hero) championed the literary tradition with xenophobic zealotry. Never mind that there wasn’t/isn’t a threat to said tradition. Shakespeare is still taught in English lit. Plato is still taught in political theory. Hemingway is still (Yoda help us all) the darling of the American lit textbook.
Still, Bloom called writers of color, feminists, and new critics “inspired historicists” and “deconstructors.” while he embraced Cormac McCarthy’s use of literary license and historical revisionism. In his critique of Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, Bloom called the African American experience—the root of her work—“unimportant.” But he cited McCarthy’s southwestern roots as infusing the author’s understanding of the borderlands. McCarthy was born in Rhode Island and raised in Tennessee.
Of Children’s author J.K. Rowling, Bloom said her books were little more than gateway drugs to Stephen King’s books. He also criticized her repetitive phrasing—when his bloated essays (dude loved to read his own copy) recycled the same five or six phrases in three or four arrangements with sprinklings of “strong” or “weak” descriptives but little to back up his opinion-as-fact assertions.
This is the same Bloom who wrote:
“Imaginative literature is otherness, and as such alleviates loneliness. We read not only because we cannot know enough people, but because friendship is so vulnerable, so likely to diminish or disappear, overcome by space, time, imperfect sympathies, and all the sorrows of familial and passional life.”
Apparently certain exclusions do apply.
The net effect of Bloom’s assertion that only the work matters, not the author’s ethnicity/gender/politics—WHILE DENYING THE RICH STORIES AND INSIGHTS OF AUTHORS BASED ON THEIR ETHNICITY, GENDER, AND/OR POLITICS is not simply hypocritical, it is artistic malpractice.
That is the malpractice that led to the New York Times publish a 1973 review of CBS’ The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, in which Stephanie Harrington stated not only did she not read the Ernest Gaines novel but she hadn’t even really watched the show, “I found myself not minding when the children called me away from the set for a glass of water or another goodnight kiss.” Further stating that the teledrama taught her, a white woman, “nothing she didn’t already know about history.”
I can’t even with this. Thankfully, I didn’t have to, (especially since I was all of four at the time).
In her counterpoint to Mrs. Harrington, Nikki Giovanni reminded the New York Times of its place as “an opinion making body.” Just as Ms. Giovanni reminded Mrs. Harrington of the reviewer’s duty: to study, to analyze, to report. Yes, exercise ambition. By all means, execute an agenda. But only after you’ve done the first part of the job: read/view/listen.
When the critic puts agenda/ambition ahead of their work, they fail in the appearance of objectivity.
As sensational as the JT LeRoy and the James Frey failures were for American opinion makers, (the NYT wasn’t duped, btw) those were honest mistakes, victims of stories that resonated with select reviewers. The professor, Bloom, Stephanie Harrington—they all got it wrong.
So shall so many more. The question is, will you allow critics, honest, ambitious, or zealot to impact your writing? Will you write for—critics, audiences, social, economic—interests? Or will you write for yourself?
West, like her contemporaries, wrote her story. As must we all. Publication, success even, by gimmick doesn’t last. Nor does writing by committee endure. Follow your story where it leads. That’s the business of the writer. The business of the critic…well, that’s the critic’s business.
I own none of the images above. All are used for instructional/educational purposes, as covered by the Fair Use Doctrine.
