A thought suddenly flashed in my subconscious. A random flash, a sudden spark, a caprice of brilliance… it left me astonished. And there are reasons, now that I think in retrospect, why I was left stunned by a thought that was very much mine. So, after all, what did I think of? What was that thought? What left me struck with a meticulous moment of careful consideration?
Are you not interested already? Aren’t you anxious what that thought might be? Aren’t you getting impatient with every word you read? Isn’t a rush of rage commanding your increasing reading speed to reach the conclusion and learn more about that one thought?
This is what a skilled author does. He piques your curiosity. And then, he constantly pricks you with well-timed pins of motivation and crumbs, luring you to the destined conclusion. What does an author have, after all? Sword of words, shield of words, and an armer forged with the skills of using this sword against this shield and making sure nothing breaks, nothing stops, nothing happens, nothing appears like nothing is happening, and everything going on to the distance he wants, till the time he desires and to the extent he wishes. In other words, the skilled author has the art of hiding his motifs behind the words and leading readers to the same by keeping them misled as far as he wills! Well, is the author merely hiding behind his words? Or, is the author camouflaging his bias, ideals, beliefs and motifs with the magic that he weilds with words? This debate can drag on intermittently, given the competence of those who indulge in it. However, one thing may be ascertained that if we consider the author an artist, his art is crafted by words, and words only!
Well, if an author takes the circle leaving no pie, what is a literary critic? What does a literary critic do? Who is a literary critic, then? Doesn’t a person who indulges in interpreting words, well beyond the peripheries of ordinary readers who extract pleasure and leave other aspects behind, call himself a critic? Extending the ambit of the argument made earlier, I can offer a symmetrical analogy. If an author weilds his magic by joining words, does a literary critic break that spell by fragmenting words? Some examples and arguments from both sides may clarify this complex scenario.
I have seen authors argue vehemently against critics and even label them destructive. If an ego-hurt author is made the jury, a literary critic might not stand the scrutiny of objectivity. For such an author, a literary critic is nothing more than an insecure person hiding his biases, beliefs, innuendos, ideology, and propaganda behind the mask of meticulously crafted, pedantic words, worth no more than the face value suggests – shallow criticism lacking substantial depth. Is it true, however? Does a literary critic only have a destructive mindset? Can he not comprehend the beauty lying in the wholeness of the body? Does he always need to deconstruct the body, taking it out bone by bone, to investigate the nuances? Or, a more suitable question might be, does a literary critic need to revel in fragments rather than marvel at completeness?
Arguing from the critic’s side, as I live like one, may make things even more interesting. If a critic observes things, besides observing as a whole, in fragments, it is for the purpose of seeing something from different perspectives. A second floor may serve as a gym, the third floor may be the kitchen, and the first floor might be the bedroom, drawing room, and the study, while the ground floor serves as a hall and parking… all these floors, mind you, are part of the same house! Therefore, there must be a different yardstick for each floor to fully assess the house’s pros and cons. The bedroom cannot, and must not, be surveyed for the purpose of sleeping well! The kitchen cannot be examined as a hall for guests. Likewise, a work of literature, when a critic assesses it, has to be observed as a whole, in fragments, in contrasts and in vivid perspectives rather than judged a monolithic pile of papers! In other words, and to be precise, a literary critic has to deconstruct a literary work only to understand its construction better. A simple reading with a few occasions of tears and others of laughter can never be an adequate measure for an accountable critique.
Now that I have discussed why a critic does what he does, the question of who a literary critic is remains untouched. Answering it, moreover, is not a task one should suppose to be easy. A literary critic, before anything else and most importantly, is someone who is immensely skilled in using words, constructing effective arguments and weaving a terrain of thoughts in a persuasive and logically sequenced manner. Other than reading not only between the sentences but also the words, a literary critic also knows the art of perfectly positing a literary work in the spaces best fitted for it to coincide, contrast and collide. Let me simplify it for my young friends. A work of literature can only be best critiqued, beyond the scope of a book reviewer who looks for pros and cons, characters and narrative, themes and broader social reflection, when synthesised and juxtaposed with and against other works of literature. Therefore, a literary critic is the person who not only reads a book, but also reads it in the broader context playing out in his subconscious. To put it in the scientific lexicon, a literary critic tolerates the friction generated between what he reads and what he already knows and somehow comes out victorious with fresh perspectives extracted from this intellectual churning.
However, the possibility of a literary critic being biased cannot be ignored. If what a critic already knows obfuscates the interpretation of what he is reading, there will seldom be an objective analysis. As a result, the criticism will be marred by various kinds of biased assumptions and conclusions. While the art of literary criticism is noble and valuable to society, being an objective literary critic is a difficult job. One should only assume it if there is a readiness to come out of the shallow shells of biases that impede the free flow of intellect.
Ultimately, before I turn off the RGB lights on my keyboard, let me convey one final thought. The true measure of one’s wisdom is the choice of words to express anything. The author and the literary critic, these two distant poles, often wrestle to outsmart each other in the arena of overly philosophised intellectual thuggery, at the end of the day. I am counting those who know how to mask their minimalistic thoughts behind the veils of heavyweight expressions. An ordinary reader will be left bewildered, looking for the one-word substitution when he reads about a cosmic urn that lets itself reduce the weight of its mortality perenially… while letting others dream of immortality in the mortal world! Can you, please?
Dr Alok Mishra
Professor of English Literature, Nava Nalanda Mahavihara
Literary Critic & Poet