Wed, July 2, 2008
A Reader's Manifesto I've read more in the last six months than in the previous six years, and time and again I reflect on this fantastic Atlantic piece and the fun discussion that followed.
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www.onebee.com
Wed, July 2, 2008
A Reader's Manifesto I've read more in the last six months than in the previous six years, and time and again I reflect on this fantastic Atlantic piece and the fun discussion that followed.
© onebee · all rights reserved
Brandon — Thu, 7/3/08 2:51pm
Wow. Just fantastic. I enjoyed it so much I'm bookmarking it. Thanks (to you and Andy) for bringing it to my attention.
Bee Boy — Thu, 7/3/08 4:37pm
Andy rules, but thanks go to Holly on that one. She rules even harder!
Brandon — Thu, 7/3/08 5:21pm
Oops, my bad. I offer my most strangled, work-driven apologies.
Brandon — Fri, 7/4/08 2:10am
So apparently this essay was later made into a book, incorporating the original piece as well as the numerous critical responses to it, and then B.R. Myers's rebuttals to those responses. The plot thickens!
Bee Boy — Fri, 7/4/08 10:47am
Ha ha! Our browser histories are identical. (I'm assuming you also like caribou porn.) I reread the manifesto last night and immediately went looking for more information, too. I was hoping to find contact information for Myers so I could write and ask if he thought there were authors today who'd managed to break through the "sentence cult" orthodoxy and write good novels again. Still no luck with that, but I did submit a library request for the book.
On the same Wikipedia page I found two prominent rebuttals from the time the Atlantic piece was first published. Show of hands – who's skull-splittingly astonished to find out one of them is from Salon? (Me neither. Nor was I shocked when the Salon author suggested that great writers write for each other, not for commoners who buy or read books.)
The Slate response is somewhat gentler, but even more maddeningly reductive, and unfortunately raises the recent buzzword "elitism."
Brandon — Fri, 7/4/08 12:33pm
Double ha ha! I read those exact same rebuttals from the Wikipedia page. We really do have identical browser histories (www.caribouty.com). Let me know when you'd like to start coordinating our daily outfits.