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There’s a chasm between title and book. The title, which is clearly meant to play on the Dupont motto turned recreational drug user motto that substitutes the word “chemistry” in place of “criticism,” suggests a book that will be directed toward a reader, teaching said individual how to hone his or her skills of art criticism. This book, on the other hand, reads more like a review of the criticism industry that is meant to be received by an audience. In other words, it feels more like you’re in a Ted Talk than that you’re having a private lesson or conversation. It’s a fine book, witty, thought-provoking, and insightful by turns, but not the book one would expect from the title, subtitle, and blurb.

This essay (or collection of six shorter essays – if you prefer) exams the life and livelihood of art critics and how the endeavor has ebbed and flowed over the years. While the author is a film critic, he adeptly uses examples and stories from across the arts: poetry, paintings, music, theater, etc. In addition to the six chapters, there are three dialogues that are presumably meant to be reminiscent of Oscar Wilde’s essay / dialogue “The Critic as Artist,” a piece that is referenced and quoted in the book.

While the book is generally readable, it would probably benefit from more clarity of message while dialing down attempts to be witty and interesting. It seems like the author may have aimed to do what the films that film critics tend to love do, leave one walking away wondering what it is that one just consumed.

If you want to know more about the criticism “business,” i.e. who does it and how the job has changed (and continues to change,) you’ll enjoy this book. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a book that (as this book’s subtitle suggests) will help you better understand “how to think about art, pleasure, beauty, and truth,” then this might not be the book for which you’re looking.

Isaac M.

Insightful, Interesting Take

Avaliado nos Estados Unidos em 3 de agosto de 2023

Unsurprisingly, I loved A. O. Scott’s writing as it was entertaining and insightful. His references deepened my understanding of his arguments and gave me some additional reading to do in the future. Sometimes, some of the additions felt superfluous, but overall I thought this was a good read.

Roy Murry, Author

Review of Better Living

Avaliado nos Estados Unidos em 21 de maio de 2016

BETTER LIVING
Through Criticism

A. O. SCOTT

Reviewed by Author Roy Murry

“Who but a lunatic or an idiot would critique a rose or a mountain or a sunset, or for that matter an earthquake or a thunderstorm?” is a line from Mr. Scott’s inviting titled dissertation. I hope he got his doctor’s degree.

I am the lunatic that is reviewing a book about criticism written by a prominent critic. What a way to start a Sunday morning with coffee.

Kidding aside, I have been reviewing books since college and have as recent as three years ago been writing them for my blog to help promote my novels. If I wasn’t an avid reader with an eclectic background and a college education, I would have been lost in Mr. Scott’s historical interpretation of criticism.

From the allegories of Titian or Rubens to Kant in the 1790s to Keats and then to the present century’s anointed, Scott gives the reader an education – information for the inquisitive mind. If you are in this reader category or a college student studying World, English, or American Literature, this may be what you need to expand your mind.

His study into the psychological reasons humans criticize one another whether it be for poetry, writing, movies, theater or whatever, was an enjoyable read. I wasn’t surprised at the immense connecting content, after reading the Index and Acknowledgement sections while reading the core explanations.

As they say, “It takes a village to bring up a child,” I say about this book, “It took an army of critics, professors, and writers to put BETTER LIVING Through Criticism into print.” Mr. A.O. Scott spent his time wisely to get this thesis into print, but I don’t feel it was written for the general public, where I normally don’t fit.

A.O. Scott's discourse leads to what I already knew – The right way to do criticism, in other words, is not to do it. It's another line from his book. But we are all consumers and all consumers critise, as I just did, the lunatic I am for starting this read.

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SAUGATA DASGUPTA

A Magesterial Work

Avaliado na Índia em 19 de novembro de 2020

A critical bent of mind, not allowing anything to pass off unscathed, is the hallmark of criticism. And, this book in question, written by someone - considered sui generis in his own right - quite appropriately attests to its integrity and most rightfully lives up to its title.

Scott, with his unmissable esotericism and an indomitable penchant for dishing out things laced with unmatched scholasticism, has now gone whole hog with this magesterial work which simply goads us into seeing things in right perspective.

Every page of this tome exudes Scott's erudition; and the literary dexterity with which this is scribed, is just a paean to criticism. Moreover, the preternaturalness, which, we often ruefully miss now a days, is back on track by this critic's incisive observation.

Without beguiling the readers into believing in outlandish rationality, Scott's narration punches in a string of notes harping on poised happenstances that paradoxically encapsulate critical exigencies and an immaculate precision to take the art of criticism to a whole new level.

Any critic worth his or her salt must foster a greater degree of resoluteness to put the underpinnings of factuality to test before donning the 'sub fusc' of a critic; and Scott with this 'magnum opus' has unequivocally proved the subsumption of criticism that never does falter in its delineation on a linear scale thereby allowing the blue ribbon of his mortarboard to flutter in the direction of a new fangled 'zeitgeist'.

ThreeScorePlus

A critic's guide to understanding the value of criticism

Avaliado nos Estados Unidos em 4 de junho de 2018

This was a different book than I expected. It was more personal and more abstract, almost philosophical in it's approach to criticism. It wasn't at all didactic or dogmatic. It was more an argument for the usefulness of criticism of almost any variety. He makes a strong case for the inevitability of criticism as a feature of any society that values thinking of any kind. In the process he provides some interesting history of criticism of various types. If I have any complaints it is that his measure of good criticism is almost too relative, too hard to nail down. It is a function of his laudable unwillingness to try to characterize what is good art or good literature given the variability of all forms of both and the tendency for many arbiters to see "quality" through a Western lens. But I would have preferred that he was a little more prescriptive about the principals behind what makes for good criticism which you would think is distinct from what is being critiqued. Overall a very informative and well-written book.

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