D. W. White

In the sky last night there was nothing remarkable to see. There had been rumors, all throughout the day, of the northern lights, timed off by some routine cataclysm of the solar system and creeping beyond its usual range. I went to the lake and found nothing, only a dozen people emerging from the darkness with their phones, lined up along the shore with their backs to the skyline as it shimmered off the water, taking solemn photos of nothing. In there, someplace, must be a metaphor.

Lately I’ve been thinking about criticism. About what it is and, more interestingly, what its not. Or, what is not to be counted as such. Last week I read Rachel Cusk’s new novel, Parade, which I’ll be covering for Chicago Review of Books. It’s a remarkable work, perhaps her best in twenty years, a radical re-orientation of the form (yet again). As anyone reading this probably knows, I spend a great of time writing, reading, and teaching Cusk. What has always struck me about her work is the belief she has in the power of art to do philosophical work, in the conviction that criticism need not trace convention.

In this issue, our fourth, we’ve another eclectic range of writing. Alongside several great stories, there’s both criticism and translation, something we hope to continue to find. We’re very excited to feature an original translation of Paul Verlaine’s nonfiction piece Du parnasse contemporain, done by Robert Boucheron, from the French. We also have two debuts, Scarlet and Red, Amber, each being the first published piece by their respective authors. And we’re honored to have Jaclyn Gilbert as the Issue Four Featured Writer, with an extract of her new novel, Pauline, accompanied by a conversation.

We launched Issue Four a few weeks ago with another virtual reading, and also had a second in-person event at Madison Street Books in Chicago, partnered with the UIC Program for Writers and Chicago Review of Books. It was great to see Issue Three contributor Taylor Thornburg and Issue Four contributor Rebecca Fishow, and hear their excellent work. We hope to do more such events, both in Chicago and New York, in the near future.

Issue Four also sees the inauguration of the anticipated treatise by Editor Jessica Denzer, How Not To Write: On Authorial Identity, Creative Morality, and the Female Narrative. This series, which will be released in (approximately) four parts, starts off with her essay to close I4, In the Garden Where the Bones are Buried: Barthes, Foucault, Eliot, and ‘I’. As we have done since the beginning, L’Esprit seeks to add to the compendium of literary thought by both words and deeds, in curating, publishing, and promoting, the best fiction, nonfiction, and criticism and we find. Happily, of late, it seems that last is making itself somewhat more heard.

And it is that critical work that always seems to be the most contentious. I’ve begun to work on my PhD preliminary exam lists, as well as preparing papers for upcoming academic conferences; work that is, for the most part, centered around Cusk. Accordingly I’ve been thinking more about the type of critical work we hope to feature at the journal, and that I try to write myself. We might return to the metaphorical. Much of the academic criticism I read, the peer-reviewed scholarship, is, it seems to me, like a fortress. It sits on its own ground, steady and secure, nearly impossible to dislodge or even to challenge on its own terms. It does not, however, move: it stays where it is, among what it knows, and endures. 

We need this work, of course, as we need laws, and rules, and routine. The criticism I find myself drawn to, however—that of Woolf, or Cusk, or Zadie Smith—is more like a raiding party. It moves from place to place, quickly and perhaps at random, striking here and there against ideas or thoughts, worrying little about fixity or surety or sense. It covers ground and upends order, living on chaos and following its own direction. The academics, it is known, do not like this type of criticism. It is the criticism of the novelists; the truth found in the experience rather than the end.

In Paris next month, when Parade launches, Cusk will be giving a talk, and I’ll be there, thinking about criticism. About what it means to think about art, and what it says about ourselves and our institutions that we have so many rules on how to do so. About what might happen if we break them, and the things we could see if we look the other way.

Consciously, 

L’Esprit
 

D. W. White, 12 May 2024