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by Edward Champion

Howard Hendrix: The Great Uniter

Howard Hendrix: “I’m also opposed to the increasing presence in our organization of webscabs, who post their creations on the net for free. A scab is someone who works for less than union wages or on non-union terms; more broadly, a scab is someone who feathers his own nest and advances his own career by undercutting the efforts of his fellow workers to gain better pay and working conditions for all. Webscabs claim they’re just posting their books for free in an attempt to market and publicize them, but to my mind they’re undercutting those of us who aren’t giving it away for free and are trying to get publishers to pay a better wage for our hard work.”

This comes from Howard Hendrix, the current Vice President of the Science Fiction Writers of America, who has clarified his comments by later observing that “webscabs” was “too incendiary a term” and stating:

I think the jury is still very much out, however, on whether such free online fulltext [sic] offerings will prove to be salutary or deleterious to the writing profession as a whole. We’re still in the early stages of this transition, and data remains insufficient.

by Edward Champion

RIP David Halberstam

Jesus. Journalist-popular historian David Halberstam has died in a car crash. Halberstam was the author of The Best and the Brightest, one of the first books I ever read about Vietnam, as well as a great overview of the Eisenhower era, The Fifties, and a very compelling history of journalism called The Powers That Be. Halberstam had a remarkable gift of explaining intricate bureaucratic behavior and its effect upon cultural events in a clear and concise way. Sometimes, this meant substituting “us” and “our” for the United States (as he did in War in a Time of Peace) to get his point across to a popular American reading audience.

I never got the chance to see him speak or to interview him. And I’ll certainly miss him. This is a staggering loss. He was one of the authors I read in my early twenties who taught me that politics and history were as rich in American tradition as our cultural lifeblood. He was that very rare author who, like the historian Will Durant, had faith in the common reader to get excited about history. All of us, I suppose, start out as common readers. And for me, Halberstam was one of those central figures I encountered so happily in libraries. Like Vonnegut’s recent passing, I feel as if a dear friend who helped to show me bigger things has departed and there is nothing I can do to express my gratitude. In this age of microhistories and popular histories that prefer gossip items to substantive interconnections, I can’t think of anyone who could take Halberstam’s place.

by Edward Champion

Litbloggers and the NBCC: “Separate But Equal”

nbcc.jpgHaggis informs me that the NBCC has initiated a new campaign to save book reviews. There’s even a handy-dandy graphic, which you can pilfer on the right, should you be so inclined.

I was prepared to jump on board completely for this project — that is, until I read John Freeman’s words on the subject:

Elsewhere at the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, Newsday, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Memphis Commercial Appeal, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Dallas Morning News, the Sun Sentinel, the New Mexican, the Village Voice, Boston Phoenix, the Atlanta Journal Constitution and dozens upon dozens of other papers book coverage has been cut back or slashed all together, moved, winnowed, filled with more wire copy, or generally been treated as expendable.

And we’re getting tired of it. We’re tired of watching individual voices from local communities passed over for wire copy. We’re tired of book editors with decades of experience shown the exit. We’re tired of shrinking reviews. We’re tired of hearing newspapers fret and worry over the future of print while they dismantle the section of the paper which deals most closely with the two things which have kept them alive since the dawn of printing presses: the public’s hunger for knowledge and the written word.

So the board of the National Book Critics Circle has launched a campaign to try and beat back these changes. Over the next six weeks, in a new series on our blog Critical Mass, we will feature posts by concerned writers, interviews with book editors in the trenches, links to op-eds by critics, novelists and other NBCC board members, Q&As with newspaper editors and owners who will explain the business context for these changes, and tips for what you can do to help save book reviewing.

I whole-heartedly recognize the unfortunate and absurd decisions by some newspapers to cut or severely reduce their book coverage. If a newspaper expects to offer dutiful arts coverage, then that coverage should certainly extend to books. The current practice of hacking away these pivotal limbs is absolutely disgraceful for book reviewers and book critics and the literary community at large.

Yet, even as a freelance book reviewer and an NBCC member, I must play a partial doubting Thomas.

Why does Freeman exclude litbloggers, literary podcasters, and other online voices who write about or cover books? What of Robert Birnbaum’s thoughtful interviews at Identity Theory and The Morning News? Or Rick Kleffel’s podcasts at The Agony Column? Or Ron Silliman’s meditations about literature? These people will continue to write about literary matters, irrespective of whether newspapers exist or not. In fact, if the newspapers continue to fold, it’s very possible that some of today’s shining freelancers — perhaps even Freeman — will be forced to continue their work online, assuming there are still paying conduits. One can complain until one is blue in the face about “saving” book reviewing. But let’s be clear in our terminology here. “Saving” implies that book reviewing is some gray whale about to become extinct. But what we are seeing here is an evolution and a convergence point, not an extinction. As the thousands of litblogs now occupying the Internet will attest, there are still people who are crazy enough to care. Whether they will develop into tomorrow’s Daniel Mendelsohns or John Updikes or Edmund Wilsons is anyone’s guess. But how can we know if these voices are not cultivated or approached or encouraged?

Why has the NBCC campaigned predominantly on the behalf of professional critics without enlisting the help of amateur critics or litbloggers? A visit to MetaxuCafe demonstrates that “individual voices” are doing quite well online. Where some newspapers are content to snip thoughtful 2,000 word reviews down to 650 word reviews, a length that simply cannot do some books proper justice, or abandon column inches altogether, the blogosphere presents no obstacles to length or commitment. So why limit the achievements of literary criticism, as Freeman does so regularly in his roundups, to mere NBCC members? Why not, for example, open the door a crack and establish a relationship between the NBCC and the LBC? Is there not strength in numbers? Are there not fertile voices in the litblogosphere to be cultivated and developed? Can’t we all just get along?

I must also ask the troubling question of whether book reviewing, as it currently exists in some circles, actually needs to be saved. When Sam Tanenhaus and Leon Wieseltier continue to devote the majority of their review space to nonfiction, it’s very clear that fiction isn’t a regular requirement. It’s also very clear with some of the NBCC panels that popular and genre titles are beneath serious critical consideration. And while it’s certainly egregious to see serious literary criticism passed over for fluff, perhaps the current roster of book critics don’t provide, dare I say it, an accessible or entertaining entry point, or even an inclusive range, into thoughtful criticism.

To be perfectly clear, I am not calling upon literary enthusiasts to turn an isolationist eye to shrinking review space in newspapers. This too is a serious problem and one that calls for action.

What I am suggesting is something far more ambitious than John Freeman: a united front, whereby literary and “sub-literary” enthusiasts of all stripes, print and online, litblogger and journalist, campaign on behalf of literary coverage in as many conduits as possible. If that means mobilizing to preserve a book section in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, then let anyone who cares about literature sign petitions and send emails. If that means finding some medium where thoughtful and daring voices can continue to practice criticism and earn a modest living from it, then why not have a conference and action in which the inevitable convergence of print and online is seriously considered?

You want to know what I’m tired of? I’m tired of the needless divide between Freeman and some litbloggers. I’m tired of Daniel Mendelsohn being obsessed with Technorati. I’m tired of Sam Tanenhaus asking other people about me instead of asking me directly what my apparent beef is. I’m tired of Keith Gessen’s needless vanguard machismo and his unfortunate reliance upon generalizations instead of supportive examples and thinking that will benefit all parties.

How can we save book reviewing when Freeman writes of “put[ting] our energy into a prize honoring the best books of the year, and singling out critics who have consistently helped us find them,” while single-handedly ignoring that the litblogosphere is also doing this and having a sales impact, through highlighting overlooked titles with the LBC Read This! selections and helping other readers to find titles.

No less a critical institution than John Leonard, recently honored by the NBCC, observed in an interview with Meghan O’Rourke:

Reviewing has all become performance art; it’s all become posturing. It’s going to have to be the lit blogs that save us. At least they have passion.

The time has come for the John Freemans of the world to accept this passion instead of ignoring it, to not “generally treat” litbloggers “as expendable.” The time has come for litbloggers and book reviewers to realize that, while their respective approaches may be different, there is much that each can learn from the other.