All criticism, by the way, is reverential; not with regard to specific books, necessarily, but reverential to each book’s potential aspiration toward literature

But a critic, Nguyen implies, is not the man in the Ivory Tower damning or sanctifying specific works of literature based on his own taste: instead, criticism “comes from a deep fascination with the medium (literature, art, fashion, design, architecture, &c) and an overwhelming urge to discuss it, as deeply and as rigorously as possible, in... See more