The Literary Man

Not long ago I was on a panel with a man who had written a book about criticism as a public act. In this book are six essays about six critics, from the eighteenth century to the present day. They’re all men. As I read this book I felt again, like a thick choking cloud, the privilege of the literary man. It’s the privilege of not even having to think about writing a survey about the critic as a public figure in which not one woman appears. It was reviewed under a headline that said: ‘The critics that really matter.’

This man was taken aback when he was challenged on this point. He is a pleasant and intelligent man. He had perfectly justifiable reasons for only writing about men. The whole of literary history supports this privilege. It is invisible, like God. It proves itself, like God. It is the innate merit of men. Why should he ignore the merit of men for some footling political point about feminism? You could see, even as he attempted to explain himself, that he thought that he had nothing to apologise for.

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