- Only a few sentences into this op-ed piece, I knew there would be a resounding reply. (All good stuff, do go read it. Unless, of course, you've had your fill of this matter.) While I've always maintained the importance of studied, "intellectual" book criticism and reviewing, I don't know what any of that does for the average reader looking to pick up a book that is better than the one Oprah is pushing (recent picks aside) at any given moment. How does an average reader - who by their very nature does not read "intellectual book criticism" - find good books and raise their own level of reading and the like? I would wager it is not through elitist criticism.
- I will also say that I agree (shoot me, but I do) with Schickel that many book reviewers shouldn't be reviewing books, particularly those who don't have "historical and theoretical knowledge and a fairly deep sense of the author's (or filmmaker's or painter's) entire body of work, among other qualities." I would never, for example, deign to critically discuss or ever review Murakami's work, so unfamiliar am I with all of his novels. Or Vollmann or Powers or Pynchon or a whole host of other writers whose work I very much enjoy but whose over-arching themes and references and interwoven narratives are, possibly, lost on me in a way they wouldn't be lost on someone who is intimately familiar with their work. I only critically review and discuss work by writers for whom I've got a hankering, an understanding of their body of work that I feel comfortable with. If I'm not comfortable with it, I get comfortable with it by reading more before I undertake a proper review, critique, etc.
- Blogging is a different medium and it allows for formal criticism as well as less formal insights on writers and their work, but I would strongly disagree with Schickel that it is "mere yammering" and little more.
- I find it wholly offensive that Schickel should take issue with Dan Wickett's past accomplishments and employment to make his elitist point. I would argue that Dan Wickett has and will continue to contribute signficiantly to our ongoing dialogue about books. Dear Schickel, it is not every "car parts guy" that goes on to establish a publishing house that seeks to publish the very best authors that aren't getting the attention they deserve.
- On Shickel's quote that "blogging doesn't take much time...": Dear Schickel, if blogging didn't take much time, my novel would be written, submitted, bought and published. Any guest blogger (who has been published) I've ever had a discussion with has openly said: my god this blogging is a lot of work, I don't know how you do it.
- To liken "blogging" to finger-painting is as childish as the activity itself. You must do better if we are to take you seriously.
- Schickel's piece seems designed to offer the precise sort of "opinion-mongering", "flash, egotism and self-importance" he claims to detest.
- I don't want to play this game any longer - the finger-wagging, "we are better than you are" game. I AM a writer. A good writer. I will choose what to write & where I write it. It may take the form of a review, a blog post, a short story, or the next chapter of my novel. With book sales at an all time low, it does no one any good to be bitter, childish or elitist.
A journalism professor of mine (yes! imagine! a blogger with a journalism background!) once said that what you choose not to cover can sometimes say more -- much more -- than what you choose to cover. Unless my name is openly disparaged or I read something mind-bogglingly offensive and wrong-headed, I plan to slip quietly out the back door, away from this debate/debacle in the front room. I'd rather spend my time writing -- where I choose to publish that writing is my business.
