Postscript 1911: Fanny’s First Play

Abstract

How important is the critic? Enormously important and enormously contemptible, if the reactions of literary artists - of all artists, for that matter - are anything to go by. John Steinbeck’s advice is a counsel of perfection: ‘Unless the bastards have the courage to give you unqualified praise, I say ignore them.’¹ The problem is the bastards are impossible to ignore when they fail to give unqualified praise, which is always. Passing judgment on the children of one’s brain as they are, their every word of adverse criticism is a gratuitous insult to one’s offspring, like a whiplash across the face. Yet, masochistically, the author will return time and again to be whipped while hating the critic for what he deals out. Literature is strewn with exclamations of contempt, disgust, loathing and good old-fashioned curses, all directed at those who dared find fault.