Ah, yes. The call to action. So many Sunday at 11:40 AM came down to this. It used to be satisfying to walk out with a mission for the week, until you started to realize that the call to action this week more than half conflicted with the call to action from the week before. Hopefully, I've managed to get through one sermon without this level of self-contradiction.
"With a discipline, it isn’t necessary for us to be in a completely perfect mindset before we start. The point of a discipline is to do it, and in the process, the right mindset will sometimes come."
Buddhism says very similar things to the Quakers on this.
I barely consider myself qualified to speak about Protestant culture, so I know I ought to remain silent on Buddhism, but what you've said matches my Buddhism 101 understanding of things.
May 18, 2023·edited May 18, 2023Liked by Jacob R Weber
I’m a writer of art criticism (in fact just spent the last few weeks flinging myself against the Warhol Writer’s Grant application which is the writer’s equivalent of deep sea diving, maybe? I’m tired…anyway…). I really appreciate much about this piece. I’ve never put it in these terms but it was instantly recognizable, the faith component. I definitely traded by family’s backwater southern zealotry for art, literature, and critical thinking. There’s some analogy brewing now about them being dirt farmers at some point and scratching around in the literary dirt feels similar, so maybe I’m not so different in the end. I’ll work on it. All this to say I really appreciated this piece and insight. I will be sharing with my fellow critical writers. I agree it’s a call to action, as Leslie P. said below. Thanks for this.
It's strange that the Internet era seems to have less of a critical pulse than the pre-Internet age did. Maybe that's because in 1970, there were only a few outlets for critical responses, and an equally limited number of places in which to respond in turn to those critical pieces. It meant that what energy there was got funneled into fewer places, which held preserve their force. Now, maybe things are too diffuse. But still, it seems like with all the people with MFAs and all the self-made MFA equivalents out there, we ought to be swimming in a deluge of responses to art. I'm glad you're writing in your area of expertise.
I think similar thoughts. Having just completed an MFA program (in art) I can tell you I observed much navel gazing and a real lack of intelligent (informed) criticism. There was a lot of “I WIN!” behavior. I expected more than this, but I’m not sure why—this is the culture now. And everyone is clamoring for fame. This is not conjecture, all but 2 of us in my graduating class stated “fame” as their goal. In the arts, pissing off the wrong people won’t get you famous until you are already famous and rich. There’s a passage in the text where you list something about being friendly to avoid being ignored. There’s that for sure. There’s also a lot of people who equate criticism with evisceration and don’t know the difference.
This is the first time I've read anything by you, Jacob, (honestly, I've never spent much time with short stories). This essay is like being served a full, delicious meal. As a poet and painter, I'm always, in all ways, comparing and contrasting writing and painting processes. This essay hits me in the gut and heart and mind, as its content parallels the artist's process. Inspired by you, I'm going to re-read this, then write from it through an artist's eyes. Maybe into my next blog at celestialartworks.com And I have you to thank for many delightful hours to come of reflection and contemplation and writing and painting.
You're the second visual artist to reply to this. I wonder if there's something similar in visual art, a reticence to critique because most of the would-be critics are also artists. My brother is a painter, and we've often found interesting parallels when discussing literary and art cultures. So it wouldn't surprise me.
As a self-taught artist, I have been living with the assumption that I don't know enough to critique art (including my own). Plus most art critics use words like "bad" and "good", which I don't believe are art words. Perhaps I will write more about art that affects me, and learn how to write that much well. I could begin by reading your critiques and the stories you write about to learn how it's done!
I feel like literary criticism for readers should be closer to what you practice, whereas literary criticism for writers is somewhat, but not completely, closer to the academic stuff. The academic stuff seems derived initially from an attempt to see how literature operates and what it can do and what writers' responsibilities, ethics, and social roles are for and all that kind of stuff -- a form of philosophy, really -- but the publish-or-perish culture and demands of having something new to say provided perverse incentives toward that keep-the-discourse-going situation you complain about.
Meanwhile readers don't have much literary criticism available to them. They mostly just have reviews. It's a hard sell with people's preconceptions of criticism plus the fact that the preconceptions aren't necessarily inaccurate to open up the field for readers to pleasurably indulge in the same way they would reading the original texts themselves.
I occasionally encountered criticism or theory that I found as pleasant as the stories they were writing about. I've referred countless times to "The Comedy of Survival" by Joseph Meeker. I like a lot of mid-20th century critics. But once the "French Foreign Legion" appeared, talking about everything except what interested me about literature, and once theory became more part of the show than the literature, I wasn't interested in academia anymore. It seemed like it was entirely people trying to prove how smart they were by pretending Derrida interested them rather than people who cared about helping others to form a deep connection to the work.
This is one of the most amazing essays about writing that I've read - and I read widely and daily. I had a spiritual experience just reading it. Thank you Jacob R. Weber! Part of what made it amazing was that I'm compiling my stories and essays published in literary magazines. Yesterday I tried to find one from 2010, and the magazine that published it barely exists, with no accessible archives. My work files showed countless drafts. In other words, if anyone ever read that story at all, it doesn't exactly "exist" anywhere. I'd just been reflecting on that with a hmmmm, interesting "hobby" I've devoted part of my life to, when this essay popped up and urged me to read it. That's part of what I mean by spiritual. Thanks, Becky, too, for providing this venue. And by the way, I have a long-standing habit of tracking down writers I read in literary magazines to tell them how much a particular work means to me. This has resulted in a few wonderful on-line literary friendships for my isolated writer-in-the-forest self.
Jacob, I'm glad to have found your blog. I was lucky enough to teach a class on the short story form this spring, and I wanted to have fun, so I assigned four anthologies: Best American Short Stories 2022, The Best Short Stories 2022: The O'Henry Prize Winners, Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022, and Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022. I designed the course like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" novel with the backstory of crashing on Short Story Island on the planet Fictionia. It was one of the best teaching experiences I've had in a long time; I'm sorry the semester is over, as it turns out, I loved my fictional island for many of the same reasons you describe in your Lit Mag News editorial). I wish I'd discovered your blog earlier, so I could have shared it with students and perhaps even invited you to visit the island (on Zoom or something). If you'd like to be in touch, either to see my syllabus (can you tell that I'm proud of it?), discuss short stories and the state of the publishing world or to perhaps to collaborate on some literature/spirituality thing in the future, send me an email at dent@susqu.edu.
Your story reminds me just a little of Herman Wouk’s decision to become a novelist while reading on board a minesweeper in the South Pacific during WWII. In his case, I believe the book was Don Quixote, but Moby-Dick would work too: something to immerse yourself in (sorry, water pun). Although Wouk remained religious throughout his life.
I’ve never heard anyone compare poems to prayers. There’s Yeats’s “A Prayer for My Daughter,” but no, in general, they’re not.
Your site looks fine, very efficient layout. You might try playing around with Substack if you haven’t already — it apparently supports “seamless” import from Blogspot.
Thank you, Jacob, for this thoughtful and beautiful reflection. In me, art (namely poetry/literature) and spirituality come from the same “fire in the belly” and I love how you’ve shared the way they’re united for you. Thank you, Sari, for sharing this. I’ve just tried my hand at re-stacking--hope it works.
And my apologies, Becky, for getting your name mixed up. Sari Botton publishes Oldster which I also read avidly, and perhaps that title could suffice to explain my brain fart?
I got this to say in my essay some years back on the intersection of literary criticism and faith: "If not for the uncouth manner the sociology school seeks to rework art to make it say what they want, the entire enterprise would have been funny; funny in its compensation. Here are anti-religionists who would not be preached to seeking redemption in a work of art. Or perhaps it is because they resent the faith-based homily that makes them seek out its poor imitation. Nature, indeed abhors a vacuum, even a homiletic one, and, be careful what you don’t wish, for you may get it." You may access the full works here: https://www.creativewritingnews.com/literary-treatise-lionizing-the-feline-the-quest-for-social-commentary/
This is so beautiful. Ok I will do it.
I find this piece downright inspiring and important in wide ways
Wow! I love this...your practice and the call to action.
Ah, yes. The call to action. So many Sunday at 11:40 AM came down to this. It used to be satisfying to walk out with a mission for the week, until you started to realize that the call to action this week more than half conflicted with the call to action from the week before. Hopefully, I've managed to get through one sermon without this level of self-contradiction.
Haha...sounds to me like you're doing great!
"With a discipline, it isn’t necessary for us to be in a completely perfect mindset before we start. The point of a discipline is to do it, and in the process, the right mindset will sometimes come."
Buddhism says very similar things to the Quakers on this.
I barely consider myself qualified to speak about Protestant culture, so I know I ought to remain silent on Buddhism, but what you've said matches my Buddhism 101 understanding of things.
This was a pleasure to read.
I’m a writer of art criticism (in fact just spent the last few weeks flinging myself against the Warhol Writer’s Grant application which is the writer’s equivalent of deep sea diving, maybe? I’m tired…anyway…). I really appreciate much about this piece. I’ve never put it in these terms but it was instantly recognizable, the faith component. I definitely traded by family’s backwater southern zealotry for art, literature, and critical thinking. There’s some analogy brewing now about them being dirt farmers at some point and scratching around in the literary dirt feels similar, so maybe I’m not so different in the end. I’ll work on it. All this to say I really appreciated this piece and insight. I will be sharing with my fellow critical writers. I agree it’s a call to action, as Leslie P. said below. Thanks for this.
It's strange that the Internet era seems to have less of a critical pulse than the pre-Internet age did. Maybe that's because in 1970, there were only a few outlets for critical responses, and an equally limited number of places in which to respond in turn to those critical pieces. It meant that what energy there was got funneled into fewer places, which held preserve their force. Now, maybe things are too diffuse. But still, it seems like with all the people with MFAs and all the self-made MFA equivalents out there, we ought to be swimming in a deluge of responses to art. I'm glad you're writing in your area of expertise.
I think similar thoughts. Having just completed an MFA program (in art) I can tell you I observed much navel gazing and a real lack of intelligent (informed) criticism. There was a lot of “I WIN!” behavior. I expected more than this, but I’m not sure why—this is the culture now. And everyone is clamoring for fame. This is not conjecture, all but 2 of us in my graduating class stated “fame” as their goal. In the arts, pissing off the wrong people won’t get you famous until you are already famous and rich. There’s a passage in the text where you list something about being friendly to avoid being ignored. There’s that for sure. There’s also a lot of people who equate criticism with evisceration and don’t know the difference.
Great piece.
This is the first time I've read anything by you, Jacob, (honestly, I've never spent much time with short stories). This essay is like being served a full, delicious meal. As a poet and painter, I'm always, in all ways, comparing and contrasting writing and painting processes. This essay hits me in the gut and heart and mind, as its content parallels the artist's process. Inspired by you, I'm going to re-read this, then write from it through an artist's eyes. Maybe into my next blog at celestialartworks.com And I have you to thank for many delightful hours to come of reflection and contemplation and writing and painting.
You're the second visual artist to reply to this. I wonder if there's something similar in visual art, a reticence to critique because most of the would-be critics are also artists. My brother is a painter, and we've often found interesting parallels when discussing literary and art cultures. So it wouldn't surprise me.
As a self-taught artist, I have been living with the assumption that I don't know enough to critique art (including my own). Plus most art critics use words like "bad" and "good", which I don't believe are art words. Perhaps I will write more about art that affects me, and learn how to write that much well. I could begin by reading your critiques and the stories you write about to learn how it's done!
I feel like literary criticism for readers should be closer to what you practice, whereas literary criticism for writers is somewhat, but not completely, closer to the academic stuff. The academic stuff seems derived initially from an attempt to see how literature operates and what it can do and what writers' responsibilities, ethics, and social roles are for and all that kind of stuff -- a form of philosophy, really -- but the publish-or-perish culture and demands of having something new to say provided perverse incentives toward that keep-the-discourse-going situation you complain about.
Meanwhile readers don't have much literary criticism available to them. They mostly just have reviews. It's a hard sell with people's preconceptions of criticism plus the fact that the preconceptions aren't necessarily inaccurate to open up the field for readers to pleasurably indulge in the same way they would reading the original texts themselves.
I occasionally encountered criticism or theory that I found as pleasant as the stories they were writing about. I've referred countless times to "The Comedy of Survival" by Joseph Meeker. I like a lot of mid-20th century critics. But once the "French Foreign Legion" appeared, talking about everything except what interested me about literature, and once theory became more part of the show than the literature, I wasn't interested in academia anymore. It seemed like it was entirely people trying to prove how smart they were by pretending Derrida interested them rather than people who cared about helping others to form a deep connection to the work.
This is one of the most amazing essays about writing that I've read - and I read widely and daily. I had a spiritual experience just reading it. Thank you Jacob R. Weber! Part of what made it amazing was that I'm compiling my stories and essays published in literary magazines. Yesterday I tried to find one from 2010, and the magazine that published it barely exists, with no accessible archives. My work files showed countless drafts. In other words, if anyone ever read that story at all, it doesn't exactly "exist" anywhere. I'd just been reflecting on that with a hmmmm, interesting "hobby" I've devoted part of my life to, when this essay popped up and urged me to read it. That's part of what I mean by spiritual. Thanks, Becky, too, for providing this venue. And by the way, I have a long-standing habit of tracking down writers I read in literary magazines to tell them how much a particular work means to me. This has resulted in a few wonderful on-line literary friendships for my isolated writer-in-the-forest self.
Thanks for this very honest contribution to Lit mag news. Really appreciate it. Seems there is an absence of forums for criticism - I read a piece -
a critique of the shortage of critiques - in The New Yorker Jan 23, 2023, "Everyone's a Critic" by Merve Emre.
Jacob, I'm glad to have found your blog. I was lucky enough to teach a class on the short story form this spring, and I wanted to have fun, so I assigned four anthologies: Best American Short Stories 2022, The Best Short Stories 2022: The O'Henry Prize Winners, Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022, and Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022. I designed the course like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" novel with the backstory of crashing on Short Story Island on the planet Fictionia. It was one of the best teaching experiences I've had in a long time; I'm sorry the semester is over, as it turns out, I loved my fictional island for many of the same reasons you describe in your Lit Mag News editorial). I wish I'd discovered your blog earlier, so I could have shared it with students and perhaps even invited you to visit the island (on Zoom or something). If you'd like to be in touch, either to see my syllabus (can you tell that I'm proud of it?), discuss short stories and the state of the publishing world or to perhaps to collaborate on some literature/spirituality thing in the future, send me an email at dent@susqu.edu.
This is absolutely awesome. Thanks to Becky for sharing Jacob's piece.
"I’m literally asking stories questions like, Why should anyone not immediately end their existence in a world that seems to make no sense?" Exactly.
Your story reminds me just a little of Herman Wouk’s decision to become a novelist while reading on board a minesweeper in the South Pacific during WWII. In his case, I believe the book was Don Quixote, but Moby-Dick would work too: something to immerse yourself in (sorry, water pun). Although Wouk remained religious throughout his life.
I’ve never heard anyone compare poems to prayers. There’s Yeats’s “A Prayer for My Daughter,” but no, in general, they’re not.
Your site looks fine, very efficient layout. You might try playing around with Substack if you haven’t already — it apparently supports “seamless” import from Blogspot.
Thank you, Jacob, for this thoughtful and beautiful reflection. In me, art (namely poetry/literature) and spirituality come from the same “fire in the belly” and I love how you’ve shared the way they’re united for you. Thank you, Sari, for sharing this. I’ve just tried my hand at re-stacking--hope it works.
And my apologies, Becky, for getting your name mixed up. Sari Botton publishes Oldster which I also read avidly, and perhaps that title could suffice to explain my brain fart?
No worries, Kelly. I knew you meant to refer to me, and I knew the Sari you were referring to. :)
I got this to say in my essay some years back on the intersection of literary criticism and faith: "If not for the uncouth manner the sociology school seeks to rework art to make it say what they want, the entire enterprise would have been funny; funny in its compensation. Here are anti-religionists who would not be preached to seeking redemption in a work of art. Or perhaps it is because they resent the faith-based homily that makes them seek out its poor imitation. Nature, indeed abhors a vacuum, even a homiletic one, and, be careful what you don’t wish, for you may get it." You may access the full works here: https://www.creativewritingnews.com/literary-treatise-lionizing-the-feline-the-quest-for-social-commentary/