What Nails It

Former Rolling Stone columnist Marcus (Folk Music) explores his relationship to criticism and analyzes some of his favorite albums and films in this illuminating installment of Yale’s “Why I Write” series. Marcus begins the account in 1968, at the start of his career, when he began freelancing for Rolling Stone even as he privately believed criticism to be “pompous and pretentious, as if it were a form of expertise.” It was only when he became an editor at the magazine the following year that he grew to respect the practice as “an analysis of one’s own response to something out there in the world,” and enthusiastically dove into evaluating albums by the likes of Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones. Though Marcus is best-known for his music writing, the most effective sections focus on film: he incisively describes the “uncanny sense that what was happening didn’t have to happen” evoked by The Manchurian Candidate, delivers a persuasive rejoinder to the notion that the opening of Blue Velvet is satirical, and recounts his conversations with Pauline Kael after he publicly criticized her writing. Through it all, Marcus remains lucid, erudite company. For music and film lovers and aspiring critics alike, this is a treat. Agent: Emily Forland, Brandt & Hochman Literary. (Aug.)