Increasingly I wonder what literary criticism will evolve into. It seems the longer form essay has some oxygen left in it, but the shorter form review, customarily found, though in a much decreased quantity and breadth in newspapers, seems out of puff. Several I have read lately where so deeply uninspired it seems the requirement that a piece of criticism be an engaging piece of writing in its own right (aside from that which it refers to) has gone out the window.

If the writers of reviews are stumbling in the quest to arrive on the page effectively, it made me question how might more immediacy and pulse be possible? The idea that came to me was that of a multi media format. The writer could engage multiple digital platforms. An interloping style review that discusses the work, but draws in other reference points, immediate, vivid and visible to the reader. Something has to evolve, no? Inter relation? Inter essays? A review that becomes more like a tube map to other essays on ideas or what-have-you?