Crit Criterea

[Henry M]

A conventional good read is usually a bad read, a relaxing bath in
what we know already. A true good read is surely an act of innovative
creation in which we, the readers, become conspirators. 
Malcolm Bradbury (b. 1932), British author, critic. Sunday Times 
(London, 29 Nov. 1987).

The only obligation to which in advance we may hold a novel, without
incurring the accusation of being arbitrary, is that it be 
interesting. 
Henry James (1843-1916), U.S. author. The 
Art of Fiction (1884; repr. in Partial Portraits, 1888).

With one day's reading a man may have the key in his hands.
Ezra Pound (1885-1972), U.S. poet, critic. Pisan Cantos, cto. 74
(1948). In contrast, Pound had once confided to William Carlos
Williams that, "It is not necessary to read everything in a book in
order to speak intelligently of it," adding, "Don't tell everybody I
said so." Quoted in: Williams, Kora in Hell, p. 13 (1920).

A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly
exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it. 
William Styron (b. 1925), U.S. novelist. Interview in Writers at Work 
(First Series, ed. by George Plimpton, 1958).


There are books so alive that you're always afraid that while you
weren't reading, the book has gone and changed, has shifted like a
river; while you went on living, it went on living too, and like a
river moved on and moved away. No one has stepped twice into the same
river. But did anyone ever step twice into the same book? 
Marina Tsvetaeva (1892-1941), Russian poet. Pushkin and Pugachev 
(1937; repr. in A Captive Spirit: Selected Prose, ed. and tr. by J. 
Marin King, 1980).

A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to 
say. 
Italo Calvino (1923-85), Italian author, critic. "Why Read the 
Classics?," in L'Espresso (Rome, 28 June 1981; repr. in The 
Literature Machine, 1987). This is one of a series of definitions of 
"a classic" in Calvino's essay.

There are books . . . which take rank in your life with parents and
lovers and passionate experiences, so medicinal, so stringent, so
revolutionary, so authoritative. 
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. 
Society and Solitude, "Books" (1870).

A classic is classic not because it conforms to certain structural
rules, or fits certain definitions (of which its author had quite
probably never heard). It is classic because of a certain eternal and
irrepressible freshness. 
Ezra Pound (1885-1972), U.S. poet, critic. ABC of Reading, prefatory 
"Warning" (1934).

A classic is a book that doesn't have to be written again.
Carl Van Doren (1885-1950), U.S. man of letters. Quoted by James
Thurber in: Bermudian (Nov. 1950).

Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly
remembered. 
W. H. Auden (1907-73), Anglo-American poet. The Dyer's
Hand, pt. 1, "Reading" (1962).

If I had my way books would not be written in English, but in an
exceedingly difficult secret language that only skilled professional
readers and story-tellers could interpret.  Then people like you would
have to go to public halls and pay good prices to hear the
professionals decode and read the books aloud for you.  This plan
would have the advantage of scaring off all amateur authors, retired
politicians, country doctors and I-Married-a-Midget writers who would
not have the patience to learn the secret language. 
Robertson Davies(b. 1913), Canadian novelist, journalist. "A Chat 
with a Great Reader," in Saturday Night (Toronto, 11 Sept. 1954; 
repr. in The Enthusiasms of Robertson Davies, 1990).

his is not a book.  This is libel, slander, defamation of character. 
This is not a book, in the ordinary sense of the word.  No, this is a
prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of Art, a kick in the
pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty . . .  what you will. 
I am going to sing for you, a little off key perhaps, but I will sing.
Henry Miller (1891-1980), U.S. author. Tropic of Cancer (1934). The
book was banned in the United States on grounds of obscenity until
1961, when it became a bestseller.

What I like best is a book that's at least funny once in a while .... 
What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done 
reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend 
of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt 
like it.  That doesn't happen much, though. J.d. Salinger (b. 1919), 
U.S. author. The narrator (Holden Caulfield), in The Catcher in the 
Rye, ch. 3 (1951).

Ideally a book would have no order to it, and the reader would have to
discover his own. 
Raoul Vaneigem (b. 1934), Belgian Situationist philosopher. The 
Revolution of Everyday Life, Introduction (1967; tr. 1983).

AsB4
Keep cool, but care. -- TRP
Moderation in moderation. -- Husky Mariner
m1,ru12? - HDM, d1