Thank you for this. It reminded me that Philip Roth was interviewed for the New Yorker by David Remnick in 2000. Remnick asked Roth about various questions that had been posed to him at a literary festival in Aix. These were very much based in French theory, emanating from university students. Roth answered with an analogy to a baseball game, which amuses me and has always stuck in my mind, having been a post-grad in an English Department the late ‘90s.
“Later, when I asked Roth about such readings, he laughed, and said, “It’s like baseball. Suppose you and I went up to the ballpark together, and there’s a guy next to us with his kid. And he was saying, ‘Now, what I want you to do is watch the scoreboard. Stop watching the field. Just watch what happens when the numbers change on the scoreboard. Isn’t that great? Now, do you see what just happened up there? Did you see what happened? Why did that happen?’ And you say, ‘That guy is crazy.’ But the kid imbibes it and he goes home and he’s asked, ‘How was the game?’ And he says, ‘Great! The scoreboard changed thirty-two times and Daddy said last game it changed only fourteen times and the home team last time changed more times than the other team. It was really great! We had hot dogs and we stood up at one point to stretch and we went home.’ Is that politicizing the baseball game? Is that theorizing the baseball game? No, it’s having not the foggiest idea in the world what baseball is.””
Very much enjoyed reading this. As someone who strives to start with that “disinterestedness” when they read and write, I ought to know more about Kermode. You’ve mentioned several of his works here, Jonathan. Is there a best place to begin with him?
Stevens, a trained lawyer, was indeed a surety bond specialist, and his expertise in that highly technical area of the law was apparently the basis of his job security at The Hartford.
A lawyer poet is very plausible. It’s fascinating to imagine an actuary poet. I know a few actuaries, having grown up in Hartford. If asked to write a poem, none of them would know where to begin.
Sorry—this is a sideshow to an intriguing post about one of the greats.
Google's AI manages to find 5 actuaries who published poetry. The surety policies that Stevens' firm underwrote must have been priced by actuaries, and presumably he knew something about how this was done. But as you say, he was a lawyer, whose job was assessing whether or not claims were covered by the Hartford's policies.
I'm skeptical that we can blame Kermode for the flood of French theory. The article mentions that he hosted a single seminar. Is that really all it took? Harold Bloom contributed one essay to the book "Deconstruction and Criticism," but no one would claim the he unleashed deconstruction upon the USA.
The seminars lasted from 1967 until the early 1970s and I do think they were the first to introduce French critical theory into the UK. Different story in USA, of course. But wasn’t even the “Yale school” more of a late 70s phenomenon?
Standpoint was a terrific magazine. Its demise was a shame, as was the probably necessary end of Encounter. But each left a hole which had not been filled, and I dip into many saved copies with pleasure from time to time. Thank you for reminding us with this great piece of what needs to be kept alive, and said.
Theory didnt kill academic literary criticism and Kermode was only a minor player in its success, such as it was, anyway. You have to be very particularly positioned to think like this. Transport yourself to Yale or Melbourne or Chicago or Cardiff and it all looks very different.
Agreed that Yale, Melbourne, Cardiff and Sussex were the hubs, but I still think that the UCL seminar was a key entry point in the UK. Once Derrida et al. arrived, Foucault would soon follow …
Was Kermode truly that welcoming of theory? There seems to be too blame placed on "French theory" for the style of Forster criticism you describe. There is good criticism and bad, good use of theory and bad. I see Kermode's Art of Telling (unsure of the English title) an example of making use of the good and trying to parse out that bad. Neither a wholesome embrace, criticism, or dismissal. I personally find the central word in his corpus "continuities," something that links the Yeats book to others. The search for continuity within discontinuity as a modus operandi?
And to what extent did he teach after 1982? Didn't he relocate to the US?
Agreed - though my point was that the late 1960s UCL seminar was a bridgehead for theory and that this was ironic because after theory came Foucault and then came the denial of the idea of the “classic”, something JFK was wholly committed to (as per the title of one of his best books).
Thank you for this. It reminded me that Philip Roth was interviewed for the New Yorker by David Remnick in 2000. Remnick asked Roth about various questions that had been posed to him at a literary festival in Aix. These were very much based in French theory, emanating from university students. Roth answered with an analogy to a baseball game, which amuses me and has always stuck in my mind, having been a post-grad in an English Department the late ‘90s.
“Later, when I asked Roth about such readings, he laughed, and said, “It’s like baseball. Suppose you and I went up to the ballpark together, and there’s a guy next to us with his kid. And he was saying, ‘Now, what I want you to do is watch the scoreboard. Stop watching the field. Just watch what happens when the numbers change on the scoreboard. Isn’t that great? Now, do you see what just happened up there? Did you see what happened? Why did that happen?’ And you say, ‘That guy is crazy.’ But the kid imbibes it and he goes home and he’s asked, ‘How was the game?’ And he says, ‘Great! The scoreboard changed thirty-two times and Daddy said last game it changed only fourteen times and the home team last time changed more times than the other team. It was really great! We had hot dogs and we stood up at one point to stretch and we went home.’ Is that politicizing the baseball game? Is that theorizing the baseball game? No, it’s having not the foggiest idea in the world what baseball is.””
Very much enjoyed reading this. As someone who strives to start with that “disinterestedness” when they read and write, I ought to know more about Kermode. You’ve mentioned several of his works here, Jonathan. Is there a best place to begin with him?
I’d begin with The Classic, then go on to *The Sense of an Ending”.
Great - thank you 🙏😃
I don’t think it’s strictly accurate to call Stevens an actuary — wasn’t he a surety bond lawyer.
Stevens, a trained lawyer, was indeed a surety bond specialist, and his expertise in that highly technical area of the law was apparently the basis of his job security at The Hartford.
A lawyer poet is very plausible. It’s fascinating to imagine an actuary poet. I know a few actuaries, having grown up in Hartford. If asked to write a poem, none of them would know where to begin.
Sorry—this is a sideshow to an intriguing post about one of the greats.
Google's AI manages to find 5 actuaries who published poetry. The surety policies that Stevens' firm underwrote must have been priced by actuaries, and presumably he knew something about how this was done. But as you say, he was a lawyer, whose job was assessing whether or not claims were covered by the Hartford's policies.
What are the chances?!
I'm skeptical that we can blame Kermode for the flood of French theory. The article mentions that he hosted a single seminar. Is that really all it took? Harold Bloom contributed one essay to the book "Deconstruction and Criticism," but no one would claim the he unleashed deconstruction upon the USA.
The seminars lasted from 1967 until the early 1970s and I do think they were the first to introduce French critical theory into the UK. Different story in USA, of course. But wasn’t even the “Yale school” more of a late 70s phenomenon?
Standpoint was a terrific magazine. Its demise was a shame, as was the probably necessary end of Encounter. But each left a hole which had not been filled, and I dip into many saved copies with pleasure from time to time. Thank you for reminding us with this great piece of what needs to be kept alive, and said.
Theory didnt kill academic literary criticism and Kermode was only a minor player in its success, such as it was, anyway. You have to be very particularly positioned to think like this. Transport yourself to Yale or Melbourne or Chicago or Cardiff and it all looks very different.
Agreed that Yale, Melbourne, Cardiff and Sussex were the hubs, but I still think that the UCL seminar was a key entry point in the UK. Once Derrida et al. arrived, Foucault would soon follow …
Was Kermode truly that welcoming of theory? There seems to be too blame placed on "French theory" for the style of Forster criticism you describe. There is good criticism and bad, good use of theory and bad. I see Kermode's Art of Telling (unsure of the English title) an example of making use of the good and trying to parse out that bad. Neither a wholesome embrace, criticism, or dismissal. I personally find the central word in his corpus "continuities," something that links the Yeats book to others. The search for continuity within discontinuity as a modus operandi?
And to what extent did he teach after 1982? Didn't he relocate to the US?
Agreed - though my point was that the late 1960s UCL seminar was a bridgehead for theory and that this was ironic because after theory came Foucault and then came the denial of the idea of the “classic”, something JFK was wholly committed to (as per the title of one of his best books).
An interesting article. What comes across is the the inability of boomer disinterested to defend its own notion of objectivity