Accessibility �ber Alles Three articles in thre…
Accessibility �ber Alles
Three articles in three days by three different people saying the same thing. The first, by the British-based American author Douglas Kennedy, attacks the snobbery of critics who reject �accessibility�. The second, by Michael Lind, claims that American poetry was ruined by two fascists (Eliot and Pound) who wanted to exclude the masses. The third, which I can�t find now, is by a woman who says people only buy �serious� fiction to impress their friends.
This is serious cultural stormtrooping.
Recently I was in Germany. Standing by old buildings, I tried to imagine what it must have been like during the Nazi years when irrational, wrong-headed ideas became normal, incontrovertible, and opposition was shouted down. Reading the above articles, I don�t need to imagine.
While using Eliot�s Conservatism as a stick to beat his poetry, Lind approves Hillary Clinton’s citation of a popular poet, claiming this was one in the eye for the snobs. That she was First Lady to a President who bombed civilians in Waco and Sudan, in Serbia and Iraq, to deflect attention from his lies is an irony that doesn’t register with him. TS Eliot’s use of one or two Sanskrit words in �The Wasteland� is evidently more offensive.
In the other article, Douglas Kennedy puts forward Dickens as the ideal: loved by �masses and critics� alike. But the masses in those days were illiterate. It was only the educated classes who read his books. Kennedy cites Dickens� descendants (Hornby, Faulks, the usual suspects) as examples of popular �literary� fiction. He should be told that they are also purveyors of sentimental kitsch.
Did Samuel Beckett�s famous �inaccessibility� make him a critical success? Tonight Channel 4 begins a season of his plays. No doubt people will switch over in disgust to watch �Eastenders� instead. Beckett would probably encourage it. He preferred an under-populated theatre anyway, so that the laughter could echo in the emptiness.
Other Splinters posts of interest:
- The Idea of Poetry
- Accessibility �ber Alles, noch einmal He is a l…
- File under: Journalists who don�t understand literature, vol 94
- Twin sets of turgid lips A few days ago, I rece…
- The Gutenberg Bible 3AM magazine has a new interv…
