A zealous and well-considered work of advocacy for an art too often unappreciated and misunderstood.
An exploration of criticism, which “is not an enemy from which art must be defended, but rather another name—the proper name—for the defense of art itself.”
New York Times film critic Scott delivers an impassioned and deeply thoughtful defense of his vocation in this unusual tome—“unusual” in the sense that the author offers not a history of arts criticism, an account of his own evolution as a critic, or practical advice for aspiring critics, but rather an examination of the sources and functions of criticism itself. It’s perhaps a bit abstract and theoretical for the general film fan looking for pithy insights into the film reviewing game, but Scott is after something more rarified here. His position from the outset is defensive, as he acknowledges the antipathy many seem to feel toward critics, an attitude built on assumptions that critics hate pleasure, are motivated by artistic jealousy, and bring intellectual faculties to bear on material that doesn’t warrant such fussy academic attention. Criticism is often seen as an essentially parasitic endeavor, a vulturelike scavenging on the remains of someone else’s talent and effort. Scott argues—persuasively, bolstered by rigorous logic and observations about the work of such titanic figures as Aeschylus, Rilke, Kant, and Keats—that criticism not only works symbiotically with art, but is necessary for art to even exist and have meaning in the first place. Scott lays out a taxonomy of meaningful thought (and the meaning of thought itself), and if he occasionally ventures too far into dense theoretical thickets or indulges borderline-irritating gimmicks—e.g., a series of interviews conducted with himself is an overdone trope and too cute by half—his disciplined reasoning, impressive erudition, and deep commitment to his art (as he defines it) are never less than provocative and elegantly articulated.
A zealous and well-considered work of advocacy for an art too often unappreciated and misunderstood.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-59420-483-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
PROFILES
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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