Writers and critics…

Excellent column by Jon Carroll in the August 10 San Francisco Chronicle.

I still read criticism of books I will never read. I suspect lots of people do. Part of it is to get a gloss on the culture — ah, Bret Easton Ellis, looks like I won’t have to crack the latest novel either — but also to listen to the sound of thinking. It’s not about agreeing or disagreeing — opinion isn’t really the point of criticism, although that’s what everybody takes away from it — it’s about watching a thesis being developed, about watching an idea being defended.

I read reviews of books I’ll never read, too. The New Yorker‘s book reviews are long and thoughtful and informative. Jon again:

Writers have a reason for writing what they do and how they do. Good critics can unearth the reasons, or perhaps even find reasons the writer had not thought of. (An accomplished critic can always make a good book better; a good critic is part of the chain of meaning).

One of the many things I learned from the late Jerry Garcia was that being interviewed is an opportunity to learn something about yourself. There are things you know and do but you don’t really think about them until you have to put them into words for someone else.
One of my complaints as a musician trying to become more visible in the world is that it’s hard to find writers and journalists who will engage my work critically; I guess that will come as I become more well-known. It is always interesting and almost always illuminating to learn what someone else thinks I’m trying to say. Of course, sometimes it’s annoying, but what the fock.
My newest song, “Who Will Save Us from the Saved”, doesn’t need much interpretation. But there are other songs in my canon that don’t yield up all their meaning on the first listen, nor the first ten.

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