HAVE WE DECIDED yet on our review guidelines?

Not completely. We’re surveying the situation, and the competition, or lack thereof. Assess the literary game board and you’ll see openings on it everyplace.

FOR EXAMPLE: Recently a trendy young writer published, on a paywalled website owned by a billionaire, an article having something to do with Cormac McCarthy and David Foster Wallace. Acceptable novelists to discuss among the pseudo-intellectual set. The Insider crowd’s Usual Suspects raved about it. A 9,000-word article. 9,000!

Literature and its products are under assault, a general public has lost interest, fake AI-generated botbooks are everyplace, and our esteemed literary critics, including their newest Approved Member– stamped and certified (he appeared in Vanity Fair)– whose job is to announce the art to the world, truly believe they can do that with 9,000-word articles about two not-really-accessible writers.

As I said, gaping openings on today’s literary game board. Our philosophy at New Pop Lit: Whatever the literary mandarins– those whose cluelessness put the art into its present mess– are doing, we’ll do the opposite. Or try to. Meaning, if they’re publishing 9,000-word critical pieces, we’ll make our review word limit 900.

We have precedents. For myself, over the years I’ve been most heavily influenced by two forms of criticism.

1.) ROCK ALBUM LINER NOTES.

Often pretentious, but usually lively and concise, penned by now-legendary names relying for impact on their shrewd enthusiasm. A key factor in rock music becoming for a few decades the most important art form on the planet. A goal to strive for.

2.) PAULINE KAEL’S BOOK 5001 NIGHTS AT THE MOVIES.

“Abbreviated reviews”; “capsule critiques.” Every one of them punchy and exciting. Opinionated, condensed, entertaining and to the point. As a young guy I stumbled upon the book on a back shelf in a cluttered book store, and stood reading it for over an hour, hooked. I eventually bought a used copy at the gigantic John King Used Books store in downtown Detroit. I wish I still had it! I disagreed with half of what Kael said, which added to the mental stimulation.

Do we see pathways ahead?

Remarks, reactions and disagreement are welcomed.

-K. Wenclas