AO Scott’s Better Living Through Criticism presents a problem for the reviewer. Any review is unlikely to live up to those written by the book’s author, a critic whose insights into cinema have graced the New York Times for two decades. Moreover, this review of a reviewer’s book about reviewing will only exemplify the “parasitism of criticism” that, Scott believes, brings his profession into disrepute. What’s the point of criticism when we have art itself, without which we couldn’t have criticism anyway?
Scott’s answer is that criticism is an art. It can be as creative, as thoughtful and as entertaining as its subjects. The clever thing about this book is that it makes this case not just by argument, but by example. Its breezy brio is engrossing. Its formal inventiveness—partly composed of dialogues—recalls Plato’s Symposium, didactic, but also funny. Scott is largely popularising the thoughts of weightier critics such as George Steiner, who contended that art itself is a form of criticism, and Matthew Arnold, who emphasised criticism’s elevating morality. But what Scott’s arguments lack in originality, they make up for in artistry.
This book has one advantage over other works by artists and critics: it is truly accessible, avoids obscurity and demonstrates learning without demanding it of the reader. Ignore the self-help style title. If we accept Scott’s own critical criteria, his book is nothing less than a work of art.
