Gawker
Can print book coverage and literary blogs ever find a way to get along? Book blogger Maud Newton thinks so: "I find it kind of naïve and misguided to be a triumphalist blogger," she told Times book reporter Motoko Rich. "But I also find it kind of silly when people in the print media bash blogs as a general category, because I think the people are doing very, very different things." A good point, and one that's entirely lost on novelist Richard Ford.
Mr. Ford, who has never looked at a literary blog, said he wanted the judgment and filter that he believed a newspaper book editor could provide. "Newspapers, by having institutional backing, have a responsible relationship not only to their publisher but to their readership," Mr. Ford said, "in a way that some guy sitting in his basement in Terre Haute maybe doesn't."At least Richard doesn't pretend that he knows what he's talking about! That totally sets him apart from Washington Post book columnist Michael Dirda, who contributed a screed about his anti-blog feelings to his boss Marie Arana over on the National Book Critics Circle, uh, Blogspot blog.
"Every blogger wants to write a book," Dirda begins. Sure, who wouldn't! That's where the real money and glamor is! Oh, hilarious. No thanks! He continues:
In fact, the dirty little secret of the internet is "Littera scripta manet"—the written word survives. A book is real, whereas cyberspace is just keystrokes—quickly scribbled and quickly forgotten. But to publish a book isn't enough: It has to be noticed. And this is where book sections matter. If you were an author, would you want your book reviewed in The Washington Post and The New York Review of Books—or on a website written by someone who uses the moniker NovelGobbler or Biografiend? The book review section, whether of a newspaper or a magazine, remains the forum where new titles are taken seriously as works of art and argument, and not merely as opportunities for shallow grandstanding and overblown ranting, all too often by kids hoping to be noticed for their sass and vulgarity.Well, that settles it. We're only reading NovelGobbler.com from now on. (What do you mean, it doesn't exist?)
Comments
I've been told I'm quite a novel gobbler. Oh, that's not what you meant?
Oh yes, serious art. Those John Grisham/Tom Clancy/JK Rowling/Stephen King epics belong in the Louvre-class, "Written Word 1.0" birdcage-liner these idiots can't stop deifying. I'd wager most nascent authors don't give a fuck who reviews their book as long as it makes people buy it. The fact that editors and kickback-whore reviewers have lost their vicegrip on the nation's book reviews is only bad for editors and kickback-whore reviwers. And the few authors pretentious enough to think that the medium of the review is indicative of the quality of their work.
NovelGobbler? That boy Michael sure got a Dirda mind.
The thing is, a quick search of the Google archives will bring up virtually every word ever written on these here Internets. Whereas my local Barnes & Noble doesn't even seem to carry Dirda's Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments.
Not that I don't love books, but this comment I'm writing right now is available to as many readers as the Washington Post's book-review section. (A fact that, now that I think about it, actually proves his point that our culture is doomed.)
Fact-or-fiction? All bloggers live in basements.
Been to Terre Haute. They read billboards.
They have basements, though, and you want them to stay there.
For Mr. Ford:
My blog's "readership" is comprised of bitter, over-educated 20-30 somethings.
They come to my blog for the quality writing they demand: sarcastic vignettes depicting drunken escapades and surly co-workers with a liberal dose of witticisms.
All of which I deliver in spades from my home office (basement), watching Montel while clad in dirty pajamas and nursing a hangover with a hair 'o the dog.
Don't dawg my craft, you elitist motherf---er.
It's easy for Richard Ford to say, every time he shits on a shingle someone at the Times writes about it. As for the keystroke asshole, most books today begin life as keystrokes you asshole and there are plenty of print reviews with, "shallow grandstanding and overblown ranting." Read The New York Review of Books lately?
@ TedSez - Exactly. One might think book publicity is about...getting the word out about your books to as many people as you can, whether or not those people live in basements. Also, it's a lot easier to buy a book from your computer than to get up and go all the way to a bookstore.
As to the "every blogger wants to write a book" comment - totally unlike book reviewers, of course. And, shockingly, it's possible to be a blogger and book reviewer. But that might be too mind-boggling for some of these people to understand.
Ooooh Mr. Ford, never ever pick a fight with Maud. NEVER. That's one 100-pound blogger who can hold her whiskey and deliver a mean right hook. Oh, and when she puts all her chips in, it means she's got the nuts and you'd be wise to fold. This from much personal (and painful) experience. Just sayin!
Give Dirda some credit -- he wasn't totally insulting to the book blogs. It's not like he compared them unfavorably to the NYTimes' coverage.
let them go the way of the dinosaur. jackasses like richard ford will never get it. the fact is, people turn to blogs for info on books, movies, electronics, EVERYTHING, precisely because blogs, in most cases, do not possess "institutional backing", and are thereby less restricted with their views and opinions.
now with that said, richard be a dear and have your lit agents phone me immediately. i've got a book proposal i'd like to speak to them about.
@lustylady: It's not just that one can be a blogger and a book reviewer at the same time, Rachel. As you and I have both proven, you can be a blogger AND publish books with some degree of critical and/or market success. And Laila Lalami proves it even better than either of us.
In fact, the dirty little secret of the internet is "Littera scripta manet"-the written word survives.
Tell that to the Georgetown public library.
Um... am I the only one who thinks the shushing librarian pic is hott?
I seriously need to get out of the office...
Richard Ford has never read a literary blog because he lives in a special pre-internet time warp where negroes still have separate water fountains.
@veronica: did you just say "negroes"?
A long time ago I worked for a corny old-school authors' organization. This was in the early days of the Internet. Every single day from 1998 to 2001 we received calls, emails and letters from doddering authors like Ford who had just taken a moment to look up their book on Amazon. They were furious to learn that any reader could actually write a review of a book and post it to Amazon.
I can't count the number of writers who wanted to sue Amazon over what they considered slanderously bad reader-reviews from lay people in Terre Haute.
He's right though. Bookslut is who I really want reviewing my work.
@the cajun boy: Yeah. If you've read any Ford, you'll understand what I mean.
@gmschmidty: Oh my god! So I live in a mother-in-law apartment on the first floor of a house. And like, the front part is on the ground level with the backyard, you know all nice and sunshiney…but there is a steep incline midway through the house so that back of my apartment is TOTALLY A BASEMENT! And I BLOG!!
One more (since trend = two) and it's a total fact! Mind is blown!
@veronica: oh. gotcha. fortunately or unfortunately for me, i have not. and to be honest, after reading this, i don't plan to anytime ever!
well, as douchey as Dirda and Ford sound, a lot of literary bloggers ARE just as douchey in their self-importance. I ain't naming any names.
@foldedleaf: Oh, you mean like all the ones in the Times article except Maud? Yeah.
That's right -- I'm working on Best Women's Erotica 2008 (no link yet), and after 6-7 solid years with overlapping book contracts (I have been under contract for *something* since 2000), I do not have a book after this. I do have books coming out steadily through 2008, but after this, I'm free.
@emily: Hey now! Mark Sarvas and Dan Wickett are both swell guys.
The book review section, whether of a newspaper or a magazine, remains the forum where new titles are taken seriously as works of art and argument, and not merely as opportunities for shallow grandstanding and overblown ranting, all too often by kids hoping to be noticed for their sass and vulgarity.
Wow. Utterly, embarrassingly stupid. Has he looked at a book review section anytime recently? Has he ever read Lee Siegel?
@boozehound: did we get married in Vegas? Please say yes.
And oh, Richard, Baby, its sooo hot in my basement. Could you pour a little julep on me?
what i'm typing now? written words. i mean, these things on blogs are words, right? i have yet to see a book review blog where meaning is conveyed through cheese sculptures (although maybe that's biografiend's niche). so yes, the written word survives...on the internet.
"Littera scripta manet"
Because really, the way to defend the relevance of your craft is to quote an elitist dead language. If you have to explain it, Dirda, it just isn't funny.
Okay, yeah, reading a review by Lee Seigel is one huge reason to use the book review section as kitty litterbox liner. But Walter Kirn and Henry Alford, to name a few, are pretty awesome.
Michael Dirda's diatribe has given rise to another loathesome internet venue.
Although it didn't exist at the time of his comments, the Novel Gobbler has now been born!!
Check http://novelgobbler.blogspot.com for sass, vulgarity, and other inspired talk about books.
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