Splinters

The Literary Saloon has found an advance review of James Wood's first novel. William Skidelsky says Wood is "the most influential critic of his generation". Can't disagree with that, I suppose. But I want to know, how is he influential? How is it measured? Skidelsky points to Woods' definition of the trend for "irrelevant intensity" in contemporary fiction; that is, that it is "becoming overburdened with information; cultural reference - the accumulation of stuff". Can't disagree with that, either. You can see this explained by the Great Man himself in his amusing pastiche of the trend at the beginning of a review of Zadie Smith's latest.

So is that it? Is criticism now merely an arbiter of fashion; telling us what's cool and what isn't? What is the alternative? (Well, one alternative is the late Maurice Blanchot. It might be problem though; him being dead and all). James Wood is one of the few modern critics allowed the space nowadays (in commerically printed paper magazines and papers) to discuss a new novel with relevant intensity. If he needs competition, I'm available (weddings, bar mitzvahs... funerals a speciality)!