Alive, Kicking, and Delivering Just Desserts

rick-moody.jpgIn April, Rick Moody fulfilled a fantasy that many artists surely have: He delivered a pie to the face of one of his critics. Moody is probably best known as the author of the 1994 novel from which director Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm was adapted. But he’s also famous in some circles for nine words written about him: “Rick Moody is the worst writer of his generation.”

Critiquing Critics

The New York Review of Books has an excellent piece in its July 15 issue on the nature of criticism. It deals specifically with Dale Peck’s already notorious Hatchet Jobs – which, of course, I haven’t read – and concerns itself primarily with the role of the critic. The author’s conclusion is that Peck is too busy “punishing” the authors he’s slamming to effectively “judge” them, and that Peck needs to offer an alternative to the books he loathes to be a good critic.