Not so much an answer to a question, David, as an answer in the nobly
fusted sense, that is, Here's my loudmouthery, quieten it. Which in part
you do, I do see why you might want to produce an article based around the
desire to inspect mainstream productions of value, but:
Mainstream is a word which, when used polemically or even in the
hope of an objective evaluation, rather short-circuits its sentence and the
probable impact of an argument; it's just too blasé, just too much part of
what it fidgets to address, bypasses the possibility of an effective
beginning. But this is a pretty hoary sentiment, particularly in these
parts, and there are plenty of hackles on auto-raise that'll show so; more
important I think is the question of your argument's locatedness, its
implied vantage, the parameters of criticism incurred by that attitude
which can imagine it pertinent to devote tracts of interpretive effort to a
commodity-output which is already over-indulged to the point where
journalistic platitudinising already leaks its way into (eg) university
courses -- there are plenty of English faculties teaching scribblers of
SA's ilk. What a pernicious, shameful waste of money. Your essay, whilst
fairly detached, does seem to presume the relevance of such a detachment,
without asking why it is that you ought to consider it worth your while to
cite Sean O'Brien's remarks on Armitage -- and to do so without any
expository criticism, arrogating to those supremely irrelevant remarks the
privilege of citation almost as if any old mention of the bigger names in
poetry sales is automatically worthy of critical discussion. Is it really
fascinating, to a group of people of a declaredly literary (rather than
literary-journalistic) bent, what anyone has to say in any effort to
promote Glynn Maxwell? Well, in a certain sense, yes is it: but what is
this sense? Given that your essay is entirely to do with 'mainstream' (as
you say) goings on, really to do with marketing, and has no place for any
mention of less marketed, more talented writers, it does seem imperative
that it should proceed from a more resolutely social-scientific premise,
and not be content simply to issue a rather remote description of some
generic overall circumstance. As a critical effort working within a
subject area or investigative ambit of drastically uncritical immanence,
where money attracts comment inevitably and represses the availability of
commentary into friendly oversight and professional surveyance, I just
don't think your piece does enough to justify its attraction to the usual
discussions or even to explain how those discussions entered your awareness
and appeared worthy of recitation. Basically -- why write about this, why
use your energy this way, why deploy the most advertisedly deployable
names, why not mention how it is that these sources would be unapproachably
irrelevant were it not for money alone -- why add to the campaign by
elevating it to the level of subject material capable of a significant
illumination? Is it that, really? Should not the approach and interest
you exhibit not itself have been the proper object of your essay?
Maybe, anyhow: good to talk,
Keston (George is my father, this is his machine)
ps you mention the bourgeois argument re: culture. BOURGEOIS does not
exist any more. It's convenient to the point of paralysis to use this tag
- I did so only jokingly in my reply - which conjures a world of upwardly
industrious attitude-creators, consolidating political advantage
irrespressibly through economic innovation: these people are no more.
Economic innovation is something entirely different now. A trip to NY
would clear this up sharpish. We are not a nation of shopkeepers any more,
sadly, and neither are we Dickenses and Flauberts; the left needs a new
mantra. Anyone?
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