So Long, Jamie
Do we need to see ourselves in art? The question of relatability comes back in criticism again and again - repeats on me like tuna, to borrow from Celine. The tedious end-point of a culture where people need to relate personally to art, to glimpse a vestige of themselves in songs or films, is a kind of iTunesification of art where everything feeds into your own little personhood. This is my song for when I miss my mum; this is my comfort food movie. You tell your friends that such and such a show has you feeling seen. Criticism can then become commingled with standom, because the extent to which someone feels aligned with an artist or a work of art can blind them to their blemishes. And yet it seems true, too, that art must find some way to sink a hook in you; that the best of creations can wallop you with a single moment of such awesome truthfulness that you feel singled out. In a beautifully contrived scene in The History Boys that centres on the Thomas Hardy poem 'Drummer Hodg