Commentary: John Simon, Clive James and the future of criticism in our culture

John Simon and Clive James died on the same day, Nov. 24 - Simon at 94, James at 80. Two prominent English-language critics of the modern era, they wielded enormous influence in their respective cultural spheres. But the reactions to their deaths could hardly have been more divergent.

While James, a critic, writer and television broadcaster who left his native Australia to find fame in the U.K., received encomiums for the catholicity of his taste, the splendor of his wit and his evangelical passion for the life of the mind, Simon, the Yugoslavian-born polymath who was long enthroned at New York Magazine as a theater and film critic, was remembered less for his razor-sharp prose than for his vitriolic glee, his attacks on actors' physical flaws, his sometimes shocking political insensitivity and his penchant for acidulous put-downs and puns.

Twitter wasn't exactly in a mournful mood when word of Simon's death broke. Artists recollected the artillery sent their way with the bemusement of veteran soldiers recalling the circumstances of their battlefield medals. Jokes about Barbra Streisand's