How a Film Critic Was Lured Back to Literature

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For more than 20 years, Ao Scott, who until recently was a copy critic for the New York Times, had a routine.

Look at the movies he had pointed to the legs to check during the week. Go to a projection. Present a review the next morning. Rinse. Repeat.

But now, since he pivated a role as a critic in general for the Times Book Review in 2023, Mr. Scott, 58, has been able to go back to the deadline and focus on his passions: relieving classic novels. Defend the bad start speeches. Demystifying poetry.

Since last November, Mr. Scott, who has a degree in Literature from Harvard University, has written a popular monthly column that analyzes a single Pum, examining it line byline. Recently he expanded the exercise to a one -week challenge, in which readers were asked to memorize a PUM as a way of calming their nerves or “granting a moment of simple happiness,” Scott wrote.

“I think it is something that people want, and in a way, something that we may help them discover what they want,” Scott said in a recent interview at the book review office, where Stephen King’s “Holly” and the “orbital” of Samantha Harvey feel in a bookstore.

In a one -hour conversation, Mr. Scott described his goals for his new rhythm and why he believes that readers enjoy that they ask to reduce speed and spend time with a writing. These are edited experiences of the conversation.

Have you ever thought you would write such a popular column about poetry?

When I moved to the review of the book, the idea was to make essays and reviews on various literary themes. I would never have guessed that poetry would have a large part of it. But when we began to make interactive thesis pieces about short poems that were letters but intensive, people responded with great enthusiasm. And they kept saying: “Can you do more than this?” It is an experimental approach to criticism. Girls or invented it as we advance.

Why did you want to write about books?

I always liked writing about literature, and I wanted to return to that. But I also wanted to see if there were formats and approaches that could work that is not a review. Most of what I did as a film critic was to check new movies, which was very funny, but it also felt like a running tape. There were hundreds and hundreds of pieces a year, and weekly deadlines.

How do you think one day for you now?

I spend a lot of time reading ponds, which is heaven. Much of the work involved in my poetry pieces is about finding the right ones. The ponds have to be short and thin enough, so you can read them on your phone. They cannot be too difficult, but they need some work or interpretation. In addition, now that my rhythm is books, I’m just trying to keep up and catch up, as I did with movies.

What are you reading right now?

I have many stacked books. There is a new gigantic biography of Mark Twain: it has more than 1,000 pages. And then I am following the “Great Gatsby” project with other 100 -year books. The next one I want to do is “Mrs. Dalloway” by Virginia Woolf, which was also published in 1925, so I have the leg to reread that and read pieces about the book.

How did the world’s literary change change since you left it?

It’s like entering your old neighborhood and seeing that it has not changed so much. Some of the windows are different, but the reference points are all there. And there is still too much to read. I mean, if I thought it was difficult to remain caught with films, with books, that have legs for thousands of more, and that they are published in much greater quantities, I give up the idea.

Did you always love poetry?

Like many people, I got into popular music: in my case, listening to Bob Dylan and Bee interested in what I was doing as a composer and lyricist. When I was a teenager, I began to read ponds and sometimes tried to write poems. Just when I was checking movies during all those years, I was reading poetry almost every day.

How did he influence his movie reviews?

As a writer, you are always looking for interesting language examples as a way to refresh your own relationship with the language. So I certainly read many other critics, but sometimes I feel that “I need another idea or what can be writing, the possibilities of the English language.” Poetry is a great source of that, because it is an approach to writing and language that is certainly different from journalism or criticism. You can remind you how much possibility, how much game is there when you are writing.

You are Gothic that America hooked poetry through your column. Why do you think such an analogous experience has resonated with so many people?

There is a desire to claim and remaster your own attention. I also believe that we are so conditioned to think that each new one must be productive or have an use or an application, that we cheat our selves with a certain amount of aesthetic experience. So I think that if people are invited to spend two minutes reading a Pum, and let it feel without worrying about how it is supposed to think about it, or how they will tell in their life, they will accept it.