February 02, 2008

On Criticism and Blogs, Again

 

“A healthy literary culture is one where books can be publicly discussed in a serious and informed way. I don’t think the blogosphere comes close to providing such a space at present, largely because it is completely unregulated, but also because blogs are so bitty. What you get is little snippets of opinion and gossip—the virtual equivalent of a conversation in a pub. That is a valuable thing, of course. But sustained critical evaluation of books is different—and to my mind it is even more valuable.”

- William Skidelsky, in Prospect Magazine

Right and Wrong. Blogs do occupy the space of a pub and they do indeed spurt opinions and sometimes gossip all day – Isn’t that how people get along at a pub? Regulation comes in the form of oblivion; that is to say, from below instead of above. No editors, but if you don’t write well enough you won’t sustain an audience and will disappear (a great number of the oft quoted millions of blogs out there don’t actually exist for very long). Some of the blogs that become successful do so because there is and always will be a larger audience for wittily quick opinions over thoughtful discussion, but below the surface there are many fanatically informed and serious writers who devote their energies for little reward other than the potential for an audience that can’t be found in a pub (or I should say in a starbucks ) or via mainstream publications. However small they are, these writers have a readership most likely matching or exceeding what they might enjoy in a well-regarded journal with one difference being that the audience is theirs alone.

To amend your sentence: A healthy literary culture is one where [not just the books with the biggest marketing budget or buzz SHOULD] be publicly discussed. This, I believe is one of the greatest assets of the literary blogoshphere. It is here where translation is not a dirty word. It is here where the publicity schedule means little. It is here where literary authors from independent presses get equal or better attention than whatever hotty the New York Times is billowing about this week to accommodate the tastes of myriad general readers. This is where being bitty becomes an asset. It’s specific, it’s personal, it’s opinionated. Those traits aren’t mutually exclusive with being critical; in fact they are the very assets that gives criticism life and probably why so many professional writers are finding themselves writing online, inviting comments from their readers, discovering others who happen to share their interests, no matter how specific.

I watched in horror last year as a group of critics assembled by the Hudson Review to discuss “The Form and Function of Arts Criticism in Our Changing Cultural Landscape” demonstrated precisely why they are becoming irrelevant. Snobbishness and insularity are, it would seem from the behavior of these eminences, the true characteristics of a critic. I’ve also watched the unfolding debate over poetry (difficult poetry vs poetry for the people sort of thing) in the pages of Poetry and other journals where the exchanges were little more than embarrassingly tendentious and personal attacks, which, in and of themselves are truly a destructive force behind our critical ennui. Where shall wisdom be found? Probably not where we used to look.

So be skeptical about blogs. So am I. But don’t sit them out, stop paying attention to the “kerfuffles” and weed them out to find what’s serious. The verve and intellect to be found in the literary world online is there if you look for it and as a matter of fact it’s intimidatingly abundant.

Comments

Discuss this post.


Hello,

How did you put that nifty little Obama link on your blog?

Thanks!

    – Daniel (02/03 07:45 PM)



As a writer with a blog, I do love you for this post.

    – Natalia (02/04 07:51 AM)



Thanks, Natalia. The sad part is that I’ve been writing the same thing for years now and not too many people are willing to listen.

Daniel - the link is from Obama’s Website. It was a little hard to find, but did around - there are quite a few different buttons there.

    – Bud Parr (02/04 10:32 AM)



People will squabble about anything. It seems to be one of human nature’s most unsavoury traits, the need to put others down. We have a similar issue going on with the whole POD / self-publishing controversy. Sure there have been a lot of badly written, poorly edited books churned out because the technology allows them but there have also been real success stories. The same goes for blogs. There are a lot of bad sites out there but you soon recognise them and move on. It can be hard to find the decent ones because of all the crap but they are there and people congregate around these. They are more than virtual water coolers though.

How does one become a book-reviewer anyway? I don’t remember there being an O-Level in it when I was at school. What makes the guy-in-the-Guardian’s opinion on a book more valid than mine? I run a literary blog – and it’s a shame that I feel the need to qualify what kind of blog I write – and I do write the odd book review but I’d like to think that those reviews are judged on the basis of the other articles I write, i.e. this guy knows a bit about writing. It will never stop the review being my opinion and that is, after all, all a book review is no matter who writes it. The thing about my blog is that it is not a job, if I talk about anything then it’s something I care about; I regard that as a definite plus.

    – Jim Murdoch (02/04 11:27 AM)



Jim, we had that very conversation at a panel on book reviewing and blogging last year at BookExpo. The problem as I see it and as I think you do too, is that despite the fact that there is a range of quality in professional book reviewing and criticism (the two should be considered separately), the range is quite high online because the barriers to entry are lower.

I’m fine with that because audiences are selective on their own, but until there’s an established way to differentiate the good and bad without sifting through the bad first I’m afraid they will all be considered together. And, to attempt to differentiate quality on the Web is difficult because it leads to the very insularity that being online is against (I know, I’ve tried. I run MetaxuCafe, which became very populist without really trying).

Anyway - thanks for you comment - it’s good to talk about these issues, I think, although I’ve mostly felt that without anyone listening it’s best to just keep trying to write well and be engaged.

    – Bud Parr (02/04 12:57 PM)



Well said, in particular, that the medium/format of a blog is not mutually exclusive to good critiquing.

As a blogger (and lord how I wish there were another word some days), I’m certainly aware how much garbage there is out there in the blogging world, but it’s to be expected when a medium isn’t enclaved by merit alone. There are diamonds - more than many traditional media folk would concede - and they certainly validate the work that I attempt to bring to those who are interested.

    – Matt Cahill (02/04 01:32 PM)



Well said, Bud. thanks.

how is the blogosphere supposed to be ‘regulated’ anyway?

    – Steve Pollak (02/04 01:37 PM)



Bud, the answer already exists and it is a rating system.

There’s a site I registered with a while back called BritLitBlogs and they make a point of manually reviewing a site before it gets granted entry and they check up on you to make sure you’re keeping within your remit. I know that every other site listed is of a certain standard.

There are also awards but a lot of these are arbitrary. I saw one where, once you get this award, you can immediately pass on the award to someone else. What I would like to see is something like the Michelin Guide where people-who-know-about-these-things get to pass out the awards.

    – Jim Murdoch (02/04 01:43 PM)



Bud,

“This is where being bitty becomes an asset. It’s specific, it’s personal, it’s opinionated. Those traits aren’t mutually exclusive with being critical; in fact they are the very assets that gives criticism life and probably why so many professional writers are finding themselves writing online, inviting comments from their readers, discovering others who happen to share their interests, no matter how specific.”

Thanks.  That comment captures so much of the reason I started my own blog.  It’s also why I keep coming back to blogs like yours.

Best,
Jim H>

    – Jim H. (02/04 05:00 PM)



Thanks for an interesting post on this issue - I can’t for the life of me figure out why the print reviewers want to spend so much time trashing the lit-bloggers. If we’re so bad at what we do, why bother?

I blog my books because I love to read, love to write and have a loyal following with over 27,000 “hits” in my first year of reviewing books on my blog. I’ve met some wonderful people through the blogs - and some darn good writers. I trust the opinions of the bloggers sometimes more than the print reviewers.

I think you got it right when you said:

“A healthy literary culture is one where [not just the books with the biggest marketing budget or buzz SHOULD] be publicly discussed. This, I believe is one of the greatest assets of the literary blogoshphere. It is here where translation is not a dirty word. It is here where the publicity schedule means little. It is here where literary authors from independent presses get equal or better attention than whatever hotty the New York Times is billowing about this week to accommodate the tastes of myriad general readers.”

My best reads have come from recommendations from the blogs - and often they are not the current bestsellers.

Wendy

    – Wendy (02/05 11:22 AM)


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"On Criticism and Blogs, Again" was posted February 02, 2008 and written by Bud Parr.

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Recent Comments

Hi Bud,

This is so bittersweet to read. I wish U of Penn more than luck in tackling the collection and making an exhibit for the books. I can’t wait to see the store again. I used to work at Gotham (all too) briefly, from the summer of 2001 to the fall of 2002 when I was 19 and in school for illustration. The building, the books, and especially the people (I had amazing co-workers, plus some really lovely customers) have a special place in my heart. I’m was hoping the link would mention Andreas (Andy) Brown, the last owner of GBM, but no such luck.

I was going to venture a guess that if the old man you met at the store was a GBM employee it might have been Phillip Lyman, but my understanding was Mr. Lyman was notoriously well-read (and had substantial library himself) so I suppose he would not have been reading Dante for the first time when you met him. More likely it was one of our splendid customers. It happened more than once that one customer on the floor would ask me about an author or title and I would meet them with my perfectly hopeless stare ‘n stammer—until another customer that had overheard the plea would effortlessly proffer the desired answer or suggestion. I learned so much working there, from everyone, but was a pretty useless specimen while the learning percolated. One of the more useful employees (our resident poetry expert) recently got a shout-out over at the New Yorker’s book blog after being made famous at the splendiferous Kwik Meal #1 cart:

New Yorker Link

One more book nerdy bit before I cut off the nostalgia trip. The above-mentioned Marc was the first person to Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino in my hands; I read it up in the 2nd floor gallery on my lunch breaks (lunch from Kwik Meal #1, of course), surrounded by art books and Edward Gorey paraphernalia. That book took (and takes, I’ve re-read it many times) me so many places, but when I’m lucky it takes me back to Gotham’s gallery, by the 2nd floor window where the constant refrain of the gold and diamond sellers coming in through the window mingled with the dulcet tones of NPR from a radio bigger than a microwave and the smell of old paper—all unchanged almost more than a decade later. At least in my mind. It’s still one of my favorite books (and authors), ever. Marc also blessed me with recommendations of Wallace Stevens’ Palm At The End of the Mind, Moby Dick with the Rockwell Kent illustrations, and my first ever NYC apartment: a little studio over in Astoria, Queens. Everyone at that store was overflowing and generous with knowledge, stories and history.

Places like Gotham do more than provide fodder for sentimental blog comment drivel though; I hope the lessons learned from the ongoing troubles are shaping a new generation of booksellers and customers that can find ways to thrive. Bookstores don’t belong in museums. Wise men fish there.

– (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
on “Well That's That”


Best wishes for the holidays, Bud.

I used to work in the Pan Am/Met Life Building in Manhattan.  I would walk over to Gotham at lunch and browse, browse, browse.  Books were the only thing I ever bought on that stree.  It’s a shame it’s gone.  Thanks for the update for those of us no longer living in NYC.  Atlanta is not so much a book haven.

Best,
Jim H.

– Jim H.
on “Well That's That”


Yeah, for all of our technology - which is great - I mean you and I are talking about this from two ends of the country - but there’s nothing like being there.

– Bud Parr
on “Well That's That”