Peter Mares, the chair of all four panels, began by asking why the premise was one of failure. Craven explained that critics were bound to fail, because criticism was an inherently ‘secondary exercise’. (Has he never heard of the erudite American theorist Geoffrey Hartman, who held that, at its best, criticism can and should be an art form as inspiring as creative writing?) McPhee lamented that there was not enough criticism in Australia of the calibre of the TLS or the LRB, although she kindly made an exception for Craven, before suggesting that this situation might be to do with the marketplace. Again, what could have initiated a fruitful discussion drew a blank.

Haigh began by admitting that his piece on the demise of good reviewing, published in the March 2010 issue of Kill Your Darlings, a new magazine which Starford edits, was less an essay than a ‘bilious fit’, but this did not stop him having another one, as he told us yet again about the ‘lack of imagination’ in the ‘not vibrant, not engaging, not original, not diverting’ book pages of the mainstream media. On his own admission, Haigh reads reviews rather than produces them these days, leading one to wonder whether his seat might not have been better occupied by a more engaged literary reviewer. Knowledgeable about finance, he usefully compared the advertising revenues of film and book reviewing – but again, no illustration, no follow-up.

Starford referred to the split in broadsheets between literary criticism and reviewing, suggesting that the former was not so much ‘failing as shrinking’. Her solution was to turn to non-traditional sources. Mares attempted to rescue traditional outlets with a discussion of the differing roles of the press, magazines, and journals, but the issue was lost in Craven’s confession of the difficulties these presented to someone reading through a Sunday morning hangover.

McPhee, reverting to the still unproven ‘failure’ assumption, asked bemusedly, ‘Why is the standard so poor?’ Craven explained that newspaper literary editors were not ‘literary people in the first place’, adding belatedly that ABR was ‘different’. A short-lived discussion began around the consideration of length, but was abandoned when Craven congratulated himself on ‘sitting pretty’. He could choose his own subjects and demand two thousand words, whether he chose to write about Richard III or Harry Potter. He deplored only profiles and puff pieces.

For a while things became slightly lively, if still unfocused. Mares suggested that the ‘writer as celebrity’ suits publishers; Haigh that the ABC’s Bookshow covers rather than reviews books. Starford came back to conversations on the Internet, which, she believes, are changing reading patterns. Haigh confessed to enjoying the enthusiasm of bloggers, since he preferred ‘feeling’ to ‘thinking’. Mares pointed to the absence of quality control on the Internet and asked whether more space should not be made for ‘serious’ reviewing. This led to further hand-wringing, McPhee claiming that there had never been a ‘golden age’ or ‘deep culture’ of reviewing in Australia, and Craven deploring the mediocrity of the actual books reviewed. Australian literature was still ‘discovering the wheel’. ‘Shouldn’t there be a basic Australian canon?’ asked Mares, alluding to the decline in Australian Literature courses in our universities. ‘That well is poisoned,’ replied Craven, moving right on to the ‘erosion of the distinction between high culture and high level trash’. Starford, who edits at a small press, asked whether quality should be measured by critical response or by sales. ‘Never the former,’ answered Craven. ‘Jonathan Franzen is packaged as pop culture.’ McPhee asked about the ‘ageing demographic’. Did only old people read the book pages? Young Starford felt that the kind of books ‘people’ wanted to read were not reviewed at all; Mares reminded us that neither is Bryce Courtenay. Haigh repeated his complaint about ‘the genuine lack of imagination’ in the book pages, now blaming their ‘incredible boringness’ for his decision to ‘leave the game’. Perhaps his repetitiveness provoked the first question to the panel, a small explosion of ‘Why are you all so incredibly boring?’ The audience clearly sided with the questioner. Someone else requested a definition of ‘a quality review’. Craven groaned, ‘Oh, style, enchantment – what do you want?’ Haigh wanted the hairs on the back of his neck to prickle, also mentioning understanding and ‘a hierarchy’. Another question raised the issue of the ‘reader as consumer’ and of the simplistic attitudes encouraged by online opinions. Starford said that ‘conversations’ have currency in marketing departments because of their effect on sales, plus some importance in ‘establishing community and creating culture’. The begged question, what kind of culture, might have been a basis for discussion, but wasn’t. The next questioner challenged Craven’s assertion of poisoned wells, premised on her own positive experience of the critical thinking taught in her university course. Craven told her that ‘as [she] got older’ she would discover the drift to relativisation. ‘How do we get past relativism?’ the student persisted. But again, the probe went nowhere, serving only to remind Haigh of ‘theory’, which he declared, with satisfaction, to be dead. (In fact it lives on as an indispensable tool, but not as an ideology.)

As the audience trooped out, the Wheeler Centre’s program manager extolled the excellent turn-out on a cold Melbourne night. Yes, the people had come, but they went empty away.

The contributions of that evening do not, thankfully, exhaust the topic. Other literary experts have recently offered inspiring articles that attest to the value and resilience of criticism. Geordie Williamson, in the September 2010 issue of the Australian Literary Review, produced some encouraging statistics and conclusions, both quantitative and qualitative. In one month, April 2010, he counted more than twenty thousand words of ‘subtle critical intelligence and clear, elegant, jargon-free prose’ in the major literary outlets, which persuaded him that Australia’s ‘critical culture is healthier than many would have us believe’. He did not dismiss theory, but set out an eminently sensible, informed list of criteria suggesting what to retain and what to discard, while his attitude to blogging was one of caution. ‘The web is no more than a medium: its content is not more virtuous, intelligent or correct for appearing in a novel space.’

Jane Sullivan, in The Age (4 September 2010), came out in favour of ‘the old-fashioned critic’, the ‘man or woman with a blazing passion for the art … who can communicate that passion with wit, style, and incisive observation’. I don’t think that either of these experienced literary journalists believes that such virtues are ubiquitous, but unlike the Wheeler Centre panel, their conviction that good criticism exists is convincing, even if the shift to a diversity of sites has democratised the way we do it. It has also made it harder for people to distinguish between sense and nonsense.

Remarks about ‘sheer dullness and inexpertise’, combined with a lack of informed, substantiated argument, do nothing to serve an enterprise of profound importance to our whole society. Criticism’s dual role – evaluation designed to inform consumers; and a body of work that interrogates and elaborates its own cultural products, aspirations and practices – is an appropriate response to the high and low cultures that all societies generate. Well-considered critical discourse, unmoved by either subjective protectionism or marketplace pressures, allows for and encourages all kinds of narratives to be held together in pluralistic tension; but its ability to discriminate is a vital function of its contribution to a flourishing culture. It is a pity when chopping down is seen as cleverer than building up.

Given that, I had been going to end by asking another question: ‘Why is the (handsomely endowed, government supported) Wheeler Centre failing us?’ But the next evening’s discussion on theatre criticism turned out to be worthwhile. Seems it was just the books panel that let us, and criticism, down.