There is much to be argued in the assertions I make in the last post. It could be said, even demonstrated, that literary fiction is healthier now than it ever has been. More books are being written, and more are being read than was ever the case. There is very fine writing being achieved. One could argue that I'm captivated by an idea of a golden age of literary fiction, and that this never existed.
What I feel needs to kept in mind, however, is the forceful influence of the dominant ideology: marketing/PR. And how ideologies work.
If you look at the reasons some of the great modernist writers were rejected by publishers, you'd find a thread running through: a feeling that the work flew in the face of propriety. If one could encapsulate the prevailing mode of thinking among editors then, it would be precisely the societal preoccupation with propriety. Now, of course that's not the case at all. Quite the opposite - see how far you can go to what is quaintly referred to as pushing boundaries, and you'll find an editor jumping on top of the ms. dreaming of bestsellerdom. No, what has now seeped into everything, so much so that editors are barely aware even of how it works on them, is a marketing vapour. And as with all great ideologies, m ost of them are not even aware of how it has affected their capacity to read, to make judgements; of how it mediates their responses to all work.
People collude and create ideologies. They are not simply victims.
Last night's Nightwaves: Nigel Floyd, film critic and Lizzie Francke (UK Film Council) discuss whether it's justifiable, a good thing, that the Film Council has set aside funds for celebrated YBA, now middle-aged and looking for the Next Big Thing, to make films. The disingenuity with which Lizzie Francke, an intelligent, knowledgeable woman, answered Nigel Floyd's assertion that it was all, finally and essentially, about brand, was dispiriting. Of course it's about brand. Marketing. Why not just acknowledge it up front? Unless, she truly believes that what she's up to, what the film council is up to, is encouraging imaginative new approaches to the activity of making films. If she really lacks the critical distance to acknowledge that brand names in the world of the YBA, as in 90s New York with fading celeb artists like Julian Schnabel, drive these initiatives then, - well the ideology has triumphed. The conventional tends to supercede any interesting filmmaking (whatever Nigel Floyd might say about the absence of good 'narrative' - in itself a straightjacketing formula). Those who continue to make interesting films are those who clearly have a long relationship with the medium.

In this era of fragmentation and multimedia, does anyone care? Is it possible to oto make an argument for aesthetic judgement any longer. It requires the foundational basis of knowledge, of comparative and detailed analyses, of an ability to engage in close reading. To be able to think deeply, not simply on the surface. Taste is not a criteria. Opnion doesn't count. Theory is not an argument. Neither is the ability to achieve a finished, accomplished, piece of creative work evidence.

Who can write, nowadays, meaningful criticism?