Chekhov’s Mistess

Being a lit-blogger can be a lot like being the bridge in the Mona Lisa

If you’ve never noticed the bridge in the Mona Lisa, then you know exactly what I mean.

The Guardian and New York Times seem to have embraced the niche created by literary blogs. Most recently, the Guardian has published their selection of “top 10 literary blogs,” which includes some familiar names like The Rake and TEV, and surprisingly lacks a few I would expect to see, like Maud and the Literary Saloon, or Moby Lives and so many others that could easily fit into the “top ten” – a list that I assure you should not obligatorily include a site that was “Updated only sporadically – once or twice a month, on average,” or one without original content.

Interestingly, some of the more popular sites, those “first tier” popular lit-blogs aren’t too happy about being left out. But the real problem is that the entire idea of a “top 10” list is so arbitrary and confined as to make it meaningless. The medium is too new to even know what the best is, what a lit-blog should be and what in the long-term will be valuable to readers. I have over 50 literary oriented sites on my Newsgator account and most every one of them, commercial or not, popular or not, brings something unique to what has become required daily reading.

However, there are only so many blog-entries one can read every day and there are a growing number of sites out there, now that blogs are becoming more popular and the barrier to entry remains practically nil. Some blogs will never get any traction because of the time commitment these endeavors require and others will miss the mark or their authors will find the limits of their enthusiasm. But there are many sites, many that I, an avid reader and writer, have even yet to discover, and I wonder how can we all be contributing something worthwhile?

click for larger image

One of the advantages of this world of democratic publishing is that we can fine tune our intake of information to what we find valuable. I tend to write about books by dead authors on this site and I am fairly unconstrained as to the length of my posts. That’s what I enjoy and so I’ve become comfortable with the fact that my site is not everyone’s cup o’ tea; I’m grateful for those that do read and comment. Conversely, I enjoy hearing about what’s going on in the publishing world and with the hot new books being released by living authors (things I have little first-hand knowledge of), so I often find myself reading the sites that are quite the opposite of mine. You should hear me telling friends about this or that book they should read, when I only know about it from reading blogs.

I don’t spend much time trying to find new blogs because I’ve invested a lot in finding and reading those that I already know. However, I’m always open to new voices and interested in seeing new ways writers find to express themselves and carry on the conversation – the Gaddis Drinking Club being an interesting attempt at bringing several people together to write on one topic (next time let’s not choose a thousand page book).

But the greatest challenge lies in the future. The landscape is changing such that some sites are growing in prominence, which may have yet-to-be known implications, new writers are getting involved and commercial enterprises are jumping into the pile of pick-up sticks.

Right now, the lit-blog world is a community of people settled by the commonality of their interests. But as has happened in the quaintest of hamlets, Wal-mart moves in and puts some of the locals out of business. The anecdotes about book deals influenced by blogs (one site has even published his blog posts as a book!), radio interviews and newspaper notices for the “best” bloggers can’t help but to change the way writers approach their blogs. As I quoted in an earlier post on lit-blogs (Most Things Underground Tend to Surface), the Economist magazine has said that blogging “also creates small, tight groups of readers that could make ideal target audiences for advertisers. Like search engines, once considered loss leaders, there is therefore an opportunity for ‘monetising something cool’…” We all know that when you start talking about money, things change.

Now, I can only extrapolate from my own experience, but we blogging early adaptors – early adaptors indeed, that status confirmed by the bemused or empty looks we receive when we tell non-bloggers about our blogging – do this because we enjoy writing and we are very enthusiastic about the subject we have chosen to write about five or six days a week. For many, though probably not all, this is the only forum in which we are given the opportunity to write in such a way as to express our thoughts on a whim to whatever degree of depth we wish. There are a lot of these sites out there, and one just wonders as our hamlet grows into a city, will the resulting sprawl crowd out some of these great voices?

Updates

Scott has some related comments at his site on the role of Weblogs in “Blogs and Literary Loneliness.”

Anne at Fernham has quite a thoughtful post on the role of blogs and literary criticism in “Top ten lists, literary criticism, and the pleasures of pointlessness.”

Oh, and no offense to anyone who didn’t continue reading The Recognitions.

Read widely, think well, and write often.

comments

Dear Bud,

Thanks for this: I love your site because it moves around in time (and that’s part of why I love the Guardian’s pick of Pepys’ diary, too). I don’t have much to add to the conversation here, but just to make some more encouraging noises in your direction and to add big thanks to you for visiting my little (bottom ten?) corner.

Cheers,

Anne

    – Anne (02/07  at  10:49 AM)

Bud,

Your post captured the essence of both the mystery of why we do this and the diversity of interests within the realm of lit blogs. Like you I’m constantly discovering new sites; yours in my top ten.

    – David Thayer (02/07  at  11:28 AM)

Thanks David and Anne - I hope I didn’t come off sounding like Eeyore or anything, but I’m just interested in the phenomenon that we are all a part.

    – Bud Parr (02/07  at  12:37 PM)

Hi Bud,

I’ve been trying to leave a comment on your most recent post (about lit bloggers) but I think my work computer is catching a cold and refuses to do the work that I ask.  Luckily, it doesn’t mind me logging on to my gmail account.

Anyway, I really liked your words about the lit blogosphere.  I’m one of those fringe members, seem to get a link on everyone’s page despite the fact that I have too short of an attention span to focus my blog

solely on the lit/book world. My educational and emotional background is literature, but it is but one of my true loves, the others include music and baseball, and I care about them too much not to write on them.  One day the meds might kick in and SoT will be bibliocentric, but for now, I think the blogosphere has enough quality out there (including your place) that one more voice rattling away (or not) would barely be noticed.

Enjoy your site.  And apologies for backing out of the Gaddis Drinking Club.  My two trips to Amsterdam and then Christmas did me in.

kind regards,

Jeff

--

www.syntaxofthings.com

    – Jeff Bryant (02/07  at  12:40 PM)

Nice post Bud. I’m also fascinated by how this medium is evolving (and to some extent, of course, we participating in evolving it). Lately I’ve been giving more and more thought to what a blog should be and how I want my concept of that reflected in my posts. I feel that even though I’m lit-focused on my blog, it is good to mull over the state of blogging every now and then. Of course, literature is not necessarily excluded from these mullings.

    – Scott (02/07  at  03:07 PM)

I like the idea of trying shorter group read/blogging experience. Maybe more people will stick with it.

    – derik (02/08  at  11:05 AM)

So I guess Musil’s “The Man Without Qualities Vol. 1 & Vol. 2” would not be a wise choice.

    – Bud Parr (02/08  at  04:21 PM)

Good thoughts. When I saw the Guardian article, I just sighed a little, thinking I would probably never write a strong lit blog like those. I’ve forgotten, if I ever noticed, the bridge too.

    – Phil W (02/08  at  07:50 PM)

I think, relevant to the attention this piece received, like poetry, the survival of blogs (poetry) will ultimately depend on the readership growing beyond other bloggers (poets).

    – Bud Parr (02/09  at  04:06 PM)

‘As our hamlet grows into a city, will the resulting sprawl crowd out some of these great voices?’ you sound like my kind of publisher, Bud - unfortunately there can never be too many books,and probably the same is true for the blogosphere.

Speaking of which, I read quite a few journalism/PR/business/techie blogs - has anyone in litblog land heard of the 100 bloggers project? I’ve posted briefly on it, find the website at

http://jstrande.typepad.com/100bloggers/

A book has been arranged between 100 bloggers in various subject areas - over just two months. Publisher found and all. Could the top litbloggers do this? And if not why not?

Genevieve

    – genevieve (02/12  at  08:10 AM)

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About this Post

• Posted by: Bud Parr
• Date: February 07, 2005
• Filed Under:
  Litbloggers & Blog Floggers

• Comments:10
• Links to this Post: Technorati

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