The Pulpit or the Barnyard: On Serving Two Masters

“No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” — Luke 16: 13 (King James Bible)

As the editor of a book review journal, I consider myself a servant with many masters. Without being servile in the callow sense of the word, I serve those authors whose work is under review; I do my best to serve well the writers who carefully pen our essays; and I serve you readers, trying to produce something of quality and trying to provide a rough guide to the perplexing forest of titles, authors, and publishers. For the most part, each of these responsibilities share fundamental common principles. We would do a disservice to author and reader alike if the strengths and failings of a work were not illustrated in their measure, as much as some authors might prefer basking in praise. It would only harm the reputation of our writers, and disappoint our readers, if I allowed an essay to be published before it was well developed and crafted. And a well-written, thoughtful review of a well-chosen book will, generally speaking, greatly benefit our small, slowly expanding gallery of readers. It seems very simple, doesn’t it?

Yet, despite our high-minded intentions (I had not hoped to earn a fortune in books), there is always that nefarious other master: Mammon, the medieval personification of avarice and greed. I’ll make no exceptionalist claim for myself or for this journal; we all serve Mammon in some regard. I have been lucky to encounter many generous, supportive editors and critics since we launched two months ago — there exists a remarkable community of letters, still, bound by a sense of collective purpose; it may well be a foolish purpose, but we traipse around the Republic like so many Don Quixotes. However, despite that good will, Mammon continues to reveal its muzzled face in the most unexpected situations, and the wealth for which it hungers is not monetary but social. As the critic Adam Kirsch wrote in Poetry Magazine not long ago, all writers strive essentially for recognition. “Beauty is the currency, as arbitrary as gold or paper, in which recognition is bought and sold,” Kirsch wrote. That essay was written either in a moment of extreme despair or inordinate clarity. In either case, it expresses an ugly if undeniable truth about people. We aren't all bad, but we are all flawed.

I think of Kirsch’s piece as I assemble each next issue (we’re now looking ahead to November) and choose from among the forthcoming titles for review, assign the reviews to writers, then select a book for myself to review. It is a minefield of egos and tastes, even at this early stage. Left to my own devices, I recently realized, I would serve only Mammon: read and review only the authors I like best, bang the drum for them, and never reach out beyond my personal tastes. That would be in the first place unethical and would also, frankly, be terribly boring. (Perhaps I should apologize now for the somewhat unnecessary length of my piece on Hill?)

Where, though, does the satisfaction of my personal tastes and judgments end? How far should I take this bully pulpit? On one hand, even the grandest figures of modern literature held and hold idiosyncratic opinions about other authors and poets (I've been reading Harold Bloom's book on Yeats, in which he claims that Eliot and Pound would be lost in the Irish poet's shadow) — and I am no grand figure by a long shot. No one comes here to read my sermons. On the other hand, to employ not enough critical acumen in the selection of titles for review is a disservice to the readers. It is my first and foremost responsibility to evaluate the field of titles and choose, by some measure of value, the books that we will eventually review here. We are not a commune or a museum, not a showcase without opinion. All books are not equal. Orwell’s egalitarian swine somehow come to mind: the animals should not run the barnyard.

So, how does a person serve so many masters? Writers, authors, publicists, and readers; my own critical opinions and the plethora opposing views: they all demand loyalty, and I grope for the balance. Without question, I expect to fail. If even the great minds in literature are fallible, I shudder to imagine how my views will be judged ten years from now. Those of a well-meaning fool, no doubt. The goal, though, is judicious selections and quality reviews from an array of worthy tastes. The editorial staff here are, very thankfully, not unquiet. I hope, if we seem to be veering off this golden mean, that a corrective will arrive in the form of letters from our many insightful readers. If all else fails, they will undoubtedly keep our boots clear of the muck and far, far from the pulpit.