The study of critics
Wednesday, 01 June, 2005 - 14:04
In a book-shop in Hay-on-Wye - in the Cinema bookshop - I pass an aisle and catch out of the corner of my eye a section sign reading 'critography'. Already lost and desperate to find the exit from this maze of aisles and dust, I duck into another aisle and find pointers to the exit.
Outside, I say, "there's a section in there called 'critography' - what the hell is that?" We don't know. "Perhaps it's the art of laying out a bookshop, a methodology of how to categorise books, which has become such a debated subject it has developed its own field of inquiry. Maybe there's even a related field of how to categorise the various schools of thought on how to categorise books. A meta-critography." My companions, however, are nowhere to be seen.
None of us has seen a critography section anywhere before, or even heard of it. Back home I look it up, only to find it doesn't actually exist. This has become an anti-meta-critography.
