The Critical Condition of Donna Seaman

Donna Seaman is a books critic for Booklist, WLUW’s “Open Books,” Chicago Public Radio’s “Eight-Forty-Eight,” and the Chicago Tribune. After reading several of her book reviews on her Blog, Under Cover, it is clear that she loves literature and takes her job very seriously. In TimeOut Chicago’s article Critical Condition, she is an advocate of passion, education, and professionalism in her field, but the latter almost to a fault. By the end of the article one begins to suspect that she views herself as much a reporter as an artist.

Donna begins the conversation with a plea that to be a critic, one needs “passion, first and foremost.” But before everyone can agree with her on this key aspect of good critical assessment, she immediately backtracks into the realm of journalism, stating that despite one’s passion, they should “sustain enough distance to see a work in context.”

So which is it, passion or distanced logic? Captain Kirk or Mr. Spock? Donna continues to walk this line as she explains that passion must “lead to discipline.” She sees integrity and trust as “crucial,” stating that a critic needs a “track record,” and that they must “stay with it… without compromising standards.”

But she doesn’t state what these standard are, leaving one to assume she’s speaking of a kind of journalistic objectivity. When pressed about this referenced objectivity (Anne Holub: “are you saying critics have to like everything?”), Ms. Seaman retracts, but points out that when slamming a work, one should be “sharp and precise.”

Clarity and precision are a theme throughout her responses in the interview. “Be clear about what it is that matters in a work of art,” she intones. In her reviews, Seaman is clear about what matters to her, however, one would be hard pressed to find a review of hers in which she “slammed” anything, or perhaps she only chooses to review books that she likes on her Blog.

Ms. Seaman struggles throughout the interview to define herself as a professional while making sure she is viewed as an artist. She bemoans the state of modern criticism, saying “creative, thoughtful work is undervalued,” but at the same time defending the merits of professional, published work which is subject to “constraints regarding form, length, [and] voice.”

Surely the job of a critic is to balance the two sides; part journalist, part poet, they must find a middle ground. In the end, Donna is revealed as the idealist she is, relishing the conversational tone of Blogs and user-generated reviews while lamenting the loss of professionalism and the paycheck that once came with it. She speaks of the artist’s need to express one’s opinion, but also the importance of advocating for work and “exposing the workings of the mind.”

Reading her reviews, one finds she is probably more of an artist then she would like to believe. Reveling in and advocating for the literature she loves and ignoring that which she does not, her education is clear while her critical eye and professionalism not so much.

TimeOut's Article Critical Condition can be found at http://chicago.timeout.com/articles/features/25801/critical-condition