LATELY I've begun re-reading the work of Orkney poet and writer George Mackay Brown. It's the first time I've re-visited his writings since initially acquainting myself with them back in the early 1990s during and following my early visits to the county. I recently came across a major critique of all his work and have had great pleasure becoming totally engrossed in it over the last week or so. I've also got the only biography ever written about him lying on my coffee table waiting to be read. He did write his own autobiography which he specified should only be published posthumously (which indeed it was), but I am somewhat surprised that there exists only one biography of him. It has had very good reviews so I look forward to reading it.
As well as poetry and journalism (early on in his career) George Mackay Brown wrote short stories, novels and plays. In fact GMB, as he was known to his friends and fans, is considered one of the most accomplished modern day short story writers not just in Scotland, but in literary circles globally, I believe. Reading them again I was struck once more by the strange concept, for want of a better term, of personal taste and/or opinion. Most agree that GMB's poetry is superlative, but opinion of his prose is fairly divided. Many pile on the praise, but there is a significant section of his readership who feels his characters are underdeveloped. To my own distress I lean towards the latter persuasion.
It's that devilish argument I so often have with myself all over again. Criticism: I know we all engage in it at some time or another, but is it ethically or morally justified? What right do I have to criticise the endeavours of others when I can't do what they do even half as well? And then there is the other aspect to this dilemma, or maybe it is actually the flip side of the same coin -- the ability (or not) to appreciate the qualities of something, wine or a work of art perhaps, even if one personally has no taste for it.
14/04/09
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