With his hands in his pockets, posture relaxed, the air dusted with the slightly-sweet smell of ink, Mark Feeney looks though a window onto the Boston Globe’s slumbering, two-story printing press and says, “It’s cool to work somewhere that’s both an office and a factory.” The words resound with a sincerity that can only come from genuine fascination and enjoyment. After almost thirty years, Mark Feeney still loves his job.
At least one should hope so. This past may, he took home the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, the closest thing the profession of journalism has to the honor of knighthood or the Justice League. Yet even with the all the hoopla that comes with such an achievement, Feeney has stayed firmly grounded. Leaning back in his office chair, Feeney jokingly describes the professional perks of winning the prize. “I get asked to do interviews, talks. Not a ton…but no one was asking me before.”
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Though once nominated for the Pulitzer in Feature Writing in 1994, it was Feeney’s work in the arts that finally brought home the trophy. True to his varied nature, his ten pieces submitted for consideration touched on a variety of subjects such as photography, film and the paintings of Edward Hopper.
Though some might have let such an award spur their inner ego to heights of insanity, Feeney remains reserved, almost blasé when pressed to reveal the personal significance of his critical recognition. “I don’t know if this sounds egotistical, modest or both, but I don’t feel that I needed to be validated,” he says. The attitude comes not from hubris, but rather simple confidence in his work, as well as a keen historical understanding of the Pulitzer and its true context and meaning.
Such a prize begs the question: How can a single prize quantify the legitimacy of a single person’s opinion? “It can’t! It’s bullshit! It’s total bullshit,” is his answer. “It’s true of any prize.” Feeney learned this lesson some twenty years ago, when he sat on the Board of the National Book Critics Circle while serving as the book review editor of the Globe. A board of editors and writers from various major publications, it was their job to come up with, on the basis of the finalists, the best books of the year in categories like novels, biographies and poetry. “It was ludicrous,” Feeney recounts; having to judge groundbreaking academic books against “big, fat journalistic ones.” “It’s apples and oranges.”
Flowing from topic to topic, Feeney’s reflection expands into a detailed portrait of our culture and our proclivity for rankings and analysis. “It’s in the nature of our culture…We like superlatives, we love hierarchies,” he says, explaining our need for critical validation. “It’s nice to honor worth. The sad part is that people, understandably, think that the raising up of a given work or an individual somehow reflects ill on other works that are equally laudable.”
But regardless of the relative nature of an individual opinion, Feeney still respects the craft of its expression. “The enjoyment is a legitimate, but the expression of that enjoyment is not.” Describing his favorite film as a young child, John Wayne’s The Green Berets, he says, “If you had asked me to justify why it was such a great movie back then, I could have done it. It would have been a worthless justification, but I could have done it.” When it comes to good criticism, his recipe is simple: “Its good writing. You want clarity, you want flow, you want vividness, and you certainly want enthusiasm.” Joanna Schorr, a former student of Feeney's confirmed this analysis of his method, saying "Professor Feeney did alot for my confidence as a writer. I learned from him that you shouldn't worry about whether your opinion is correct, whether it will be agreed with and fit within the social norm. The argument is there, you just have to bring it to life."
When pressed about his future plans, including the possibility of another book, Feeney remained reserved, stressing his lack of time outside his day job as an arts writer. “If you’re a journalist you’re a sprinter. You’re used to doing things in short bursts…You need a different set of muscles if you’re an author. You need time.”
Looking back on his award, Feeney remains humble, acknowledging the politics that may have played a role in his victory. With the Washington Post having won six Pulitzer prizes, he suggests that his award may have been the result of a preference for evenhandedness. “I was not in the room at Columbia University when they took the votes…but I guarantee that if ‘Criticism’ was towards the end of the day, that person from the Washington Post, she had the deck stacked against her…One of the prejudices we have as people is we like fairness. We want everyone to get a fair shake,” he says “It’s a filthy business.”
