There’s a young-ish critic whose work I’ve enjoyed reading for many years, but lately I’ve been realizing that some of this critic’s pride and biting wit seems to be symptomatic of a quagmire in early adulthood that most writers pass through and some get stuck in.
It’s the quagmire of too much confidence, too much certainty, the quagmire of having a long list of things you believe disqualify a text from being worth reading. Of course we need our confidence, we need some certainty, we need our limits and our taste, but at times some writers transform those necessities into righteous rage.
Last night I had a dream about this young-ish critic. They’d shrunk to fist-size, and now slept outside in a take out container; they wanted to write a memoir now, but had long foreclosed on all writing about such weakness or pain.