How to Read Nick Hornby--and Why

LONG BEFORE THE advent of Twitter, Rebecca West railed against the “vice of amiability” in literary criticism and bemoaned the mealy-mouthed regurgitation that often follows it. Writing in 1914, in The New Republic, on “the duty of harsh criticism,” West called contemporary literary criticism “a chorus of weak cheers.” One hundred years have done little to quell those weak cheers. In a smart essay earlier this month, Jacob Silverman lamented the sugar-coated vacuity of literary criticism in the age of social media. “Twitter and Tumblr form the superstructure of today’s literary world,” he said, creating a “mutual admiration society,” in which reviewers have become mere “recommendation machines.” Praise, with either attitude or overzealous Facebook thumbs, is “a critical dead-end, a conversation nonstarter. It’s opinion without evidence—or, really, posture without opinion.” Last week, in The New York Times, Dwight Garner published a riff that echoed Silverman’s (and Orwell’s masterful essay “In Defense of the Novel”) and declared that what we need now are “excellent and authoritative and punishing critics.” Ironically, Twitterers responded to both pieces with laudatory remarks and much retweeting.