Read a critic this morning and began missing two old Melvillean friends, Ed the Doctor of Death who always said, "Fuck 'em and Feed 'em Grasshoppers" and Maurice who called them, at his most decorous, "Ticks and Lice." Every genius left is mealy-mouthed except the much younger Jonathan Lethem, who writes relentlessly about James Wood better than anyone else and does it without saying a single dirty word.
Addendum: On Bad Faith
My original letter to Wood included the suggestion that he was “in bad faith.” This, the confidant who vetted the letter wanted to challenge. He knew Wood and didn’t believe that was “the explanation” (though he couldn’t propose an alternative). But maybe it was a bridge too far. Reading the above, written eight years after, I see I’ve reached for the same term. What does it mean to me?
I’m not actually trying to read James Wood’s mind, or to change it now. Whether Wood consciously or unconsciously betrayed a standard he consciously recognizes, or could be made to recognize, doesn’t interest me. His piece is in bad faith. The instant it was published, with its blanketing tone of ruminative mastery, and yet with all it elides or mischaracterizes, it was so — period. It was in bad faith with my novel, and, I’d say, with novels, an enterprise to which Wood believes himself devoted, a belief I’d have no basis for challenging. So let’s call this “resultant bad faith,” a term which spares us the tedium and rage of guessing at the interior lives of those with whom we more than disagree.
- See more at: http://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/post/12467824780/my-disappointment-critic#sthash.CTNVzjvp.dpuf
Addendum: On Bad Faith
My original letter to Wood included the suggestion that he was “in bad faith.” This, the confidant who vetted the letter wanted to challenge. He knew Wood and didn’t believe that was “the explanation” (though he couldn’t propose an alternative). But maybe it was a bridge too far. Reading the above, written eight years after, I see I’ve reached for the same term. What does it mean to me?
I’m not actually trying to read James Wood’s mind, or to change it now. Whether Wood consciously or unconsciously betrayed a standard he consciously recognizes, or could be made to recognize, doesn’t interest me. His piece is in bad faith. The instant it was published, with its blanketing tone of ruminative mastery, and yet with all it elides or mischaracterizes, it was so — period. It was in bad faith with my novel, and, I’d say, with novels, an enterprise to which Wood believes himself devoted, a belief I’d have no basis for challenging. So let’s call this “resultant bad faith,” a term which spares us the tedium and rage of guessing at the interior lives of those with whom we more than disagree.
- See more at: http://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/post/12467824780/my-disappointment-critic#sthash.CTNVzjvp.dpuf
Addendum: On Bad Faith
My original letter to Wood included the suggestion that he was “in bad faith.” This, the confidant who vetted the letter wanted to challenge. He knew Wood and didn’t believe that was “the explanation” (though he couldn’t propose an alternative). But maybe it was a bridge too far. Reading the above, written eight years after, I see I’ve reached for the same term. What does it mean to me?
I’m not actually trying to read James Wood’s mind, or to change it now. Whether Wood consciously or unconsciously betrayed a standard he consciously recognizes, or could be made to recognize, doesn’t interest me. His piece is in bad faith. The instant it was published, with its blanketing tone of ruminative mastery, and yet with all it elides or mischaracterizes, it was so — period. It was in bad faith with my novel, and, I’d say, with novels, an enterprise to which Wood believes himself devoted, a belief I’d have no basis for challenging. So let’s call this “resultant bad faith,” a term which spares us the tedium and rage of guessing at the interior lives of those with whom we more than disagree.
- See more at: http://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/post/12467824780/my-disappointment-critic#sthash.CTNVzjvp.dpuf
Addendum: On Bad Faith
My original letter to Wood included the suggestion that he was “in bad faith.” This, the confidant who vetted the letter wanted to challenge. He knew Wood and didn’t believe that was “the explanation” (though he couldn’t propose an alternative). But maybe it was a bridge too far. Reading the above, written eight years after, I see I’ve reached for the same term. What does it mean to me?
I’m not actually trying to read James Wood’s mind, or to change it now. Whether Wood consciously or unconsciously betrayed a standard he consciously recognizes, or could be made to recognize, doesn’t interest me. His piece is in bad faith. The instant it was published, with its blanketing tone of ruminative mastery, and yet with all it elides or mischaracterizes, it was so — period. It was in bad faith with my novel, and, I’d say, with novels, an enterprise to which Wood believes himself devoted, a belief I’d have no basis for challenging. So let’s call this “resultant bad faith,” a term which spares us the tedium and rage of guessing at the interior lives of those with whom we more than disagree.
- See more at: http://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/post/12467824780/my-disappointment-critic#sthash.CTNVzjvp.dpuf
http://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/post/12467824780/my-disappointment-critic
My original letter to Wood included the suggestion that he was “in bad faith.” This, the confidant who vetted the letter wanted to challenge. He knew Wood and didn’t believe that was “the explanation” (though he couldn’t propose an alternative). But maybe it was a bridge too far. Reading the above, written eight years after, I see I’ve reached for the same term. What does it mean to me?
I’m not actually trying to read James Wood’s mind, or to change it now. Whether Wood consciously or unconsciously betrayed a standard he consciously recognizes, or could be made to recognize, doesn’t interest me. His piece is in bad faith. The instant it was published, with its blanketing tone of ruminative mastery, and yet with all it elides or mischaracterizes, it was so — period. It was in bad faith with my novel, and, I’d say, with novels, an enterprise to which Wood believes himself devoted, a belief I’d have no basis for challenging. So let’s call this “resultant bad faith,” a term which spares us the tedium and rage of guessing at the interior lives of those with whom we more than disagree.
My original letter to Wood included the suggestion that he was “in bad faith.” This, the confidant who vetted the letter wanted to challenge. He knew Wood and didn’t believe that was “the explanation” (though he couldn’t propose an alternative). But maybe it was a bridge too far. Reading the above, written eight years after, I see I’ve reached for the same term. What does it mean to me?
I’m not actually trying to read James Wood’s mind, or to change it now. Whether Wood consciously or unconsciously betrayed a standard he consciously recognizes, or could be made to recognize, doesn’t interest me. His piece is in bad faith. The instant it was published, with its blanketing tone of ruminative mastery, and yet with all it elides or mischaracterizes, it was so — period. It was in bad faith with my novel, and, I’d say, with novels, an enterprise to which Wood believes himself devoted, a belief I’d have no basis for challenging. So let’s call this “resultant bad faith,” a term which spares us the tedium and rage of guessing at the interior lives of those with whom we more than disagree.
My original letter to Wood included the suggestion that he was “in bad faith.” This, the confidant who vetted the letter wanted to challenge. He knew Wood and didn’t believe that was “the explanation” (though he couldn’t propose an alternative). But maybe it was a bridge too far. Reading the above, written eight years after, I see I’ve reached for the same term. What does it mean to me?
I’m not actually trying to read James Wood’s mind, or to change it now. Whether Wood consciously or unconsciously betrayed a standard he consciously recognizes, or could be made to recognize, doesn’t interest me. His piece is in bad faith. The instant it was published, with its blanketing tone of ruminative mastery, and yet with all it elides or mischaracterizes, it was so — period. It was in bad faith with my novel, and, I’d say, with novels, an enterprise to which Wood believes himself devoted, a belief I’d have no basis for challenging. So let’s call this “resultant bad faith,” a term which spares us the tedium and rage of guessing at the interior lives of those with whom we more than disagree.
My original letter to Wood included the suggestion that he was “in bad faith.” This, the confidant who vetted the letter wanted to challenge. He knew Wood and didn’t believe that was “the explanation” (though he couldn’t propose an alternative). But maybe it was a bridge too far. Reading the above, written eight years after, I see I’ve reached for the same term. What does it mean to me?
I’m not actually trying to read James Wood’s mind, or to change it now. Whether Wood consciously or unconsciously betrayed a standard he consciously recognizes, or could be made to recognize, doesn’t interest me. His piece is in bad faith. The instant it was published, with its blanketing tone of ruminative mastery, and yet with all it elides or mischaracterizes, it was so — period. It was in bad faith with my novel, and, I’d say, with novels, an enterprise to which Wood believes himself devoted, a belief I’d have no basis for challenging. So let’s call this “resultant bad faith,” a term which spares us the tedium and rage of guessing at the interior lives of those with whom we more than disagree.
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