WHEN CRITICISM BECOMES A HATCHET JOB

BY BISWADEEP GHOSH

Criticise since you must. Criticise if you should. The line of demarcation between the two is so very thin that it becomes impossible to segregate them. I am, of course, talking about the media’s analysis of films, music and literature. Our quintessential critic tends to forget that a creative artiste is human too. Humanness being a reality common to all, it is understandable that one might err while working on a product, be it a film, a music album or a novel. The critic’s task is to say what the flaw is and this, I believe, should be done in a tone of soft understatement. But what most do, and I wonder why, is that they murder the creative product with sustained malice. That’s inexplicable. They are doing their jobs, they might affirm in unison. That they are finishing off sincere people with great potential and pertinacity is the way I see it.

There is this film critic I really admire, for instance. Why I do so is not because of his reviews, since I believe that he fills his quill with a viper’s venom before his day begins. What I admire is the way he uses the language: his choice of words, his sentence structures and, most importantly, his fabulous command over punctuation marks, which make his reviews very readable. Not that his knowledge about films is any less admirable. He has been studying world cinema for years now, and that explains why he can identify acts of plagiarism like few others.

But what I do not understand is why he indulges in destructive criticism when a little bit of magnanimity can help a sincerely made product. For, when the average reader approaches a review, there are occasions during which he gets influenced by what the reviewer has to say. And when the reviewer enjoys the sort of stature that the film critic I am talking about does, his voice can have a serious impact on the readers. Overwhelmed by the language, stumped by the vicious perspective, quite a few might choose to avoid the film the reviewer butchers without any qualms. That is not the function of criticism, or am I getting it all wrong?

One rather famous book reviewer I had to endure for quite sometime would walk up to me and ask, “Hey man, you’ve got any book that you want me to massacre? If so, I am right here.” A little apprehensive about this approach even when I was very young -- that age when aspiring critics rubbish anything and everything -- I remember giving him a couple of sad bestsellers to check out what he meant. He was funny, enjoyable, and his vitriolic tongue seemed to be just right for those books.

But then I made the serious error of giving him a quality literary work. When he sent his review to me, I, to my horror, discovered that the article had the same sarcastic tone that he had used to guillotine Harold Robbins-like gibberish earlier. Years later, that would have been unacceptable to me. But not then. I could not have asked this fellow to rework his article.

Such critics are forced to genuflect when a Salman Rushdie comes along. After having started out with a less-than-ordinary novel Grimus, Rushdie went on to write the path-breaking Midnight’s Children. Grimus had -- what most had preferred to ignore -- a few stunning passages that showed what Rushdie was capable of. With Midnight’s Children, Rushdie managed to silence all those who chose to believe that he was a terribly inconsistent writer.

But the question is: what if a debut-making novelist is good without having the talent to become a Rushdie? Does one have the right to cause serious damage to those who might have had a decent future if critics had been kinder? One must not forget that even publishers are influenced by such criticism, and that this might dictate their decision on the writer’s next work. But the critic goes on till he decides to submit his own manuscript to a publisher. His voice becomes gentle. Suddenly, he becomes aware of human follies and foibles as he awaits the verdict of the media. This time, for the many crimes he might have committed himself.

(The copyright of this column rests with The Maharashtra Herald)