An Essay on Criticism

The boy, smart for his age, walks to the office of the local newspaper and offers his services as a book reviewer. By way of qualifications, he asserts that he has received a gold star on his latest book report, along with some very encouraging feedback from his teacher. The old editor is charmed by his precociousness, and eager to get rid of the pile of books by local authors in the corner of his office. The books are nothing interesting to the editor: tomes of academic nonsense or self-published poetry pamphlets or the novels of young men and women, long moved away, who hope for a sliver of recognition in the only newspaper their parents still read. So the boy returns with a shiny red wagon and hauls the books home, promising to review them in time for next week’s edition. The books, in truth, are too much for him. He can’t make heads or tails of the scholarly jargon of the academic books or the finicky prose of the novels. And the poetry, he doesn’t understand at all. But the next week he returns with his reviews. They are short and pointed: This book is heavier than my sister when she was born. Or: This book made me remember that my dog died. Or: I spilled soda on this book, then I cleaned it up. The editor likes these appraisals. They’re honest, more honest than anything he’s written lately. Of course he can’t run them, and he tells the boy as much. But he adds that the boy should come back in a month with his wagon, to take the new books away. The books will belong to the boy now.