It wasn’t that these [critics] were Ph.D.s, that the expertise and authority evident on every page of their writing derived from a diploma hanging on an office wall … If anything, you felt that their immense knowledge derived above all from their great love for the subject. I was raised by a scientist and a schoolteacher, and it was salutary for me to be reminded that authority could derive from passion, not pieces of paper.
Daniel Mendelsohn, a passionate critic and a great one. Waiting for the Barbarians, his new collection of reviews and essays, is on sale today from NYRB.
(Source: newyorker.com)
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