Daniel Mendelsohn: Clueless About Online Culture
Written byPosted on March 9, 2007
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Reports from last night’s NBCC are trickling in, with perhaps the most comprehensive one to be found at Galleycat. Add Daniel Mendelsohn to the roster of elitist fogies who just don’t get it. From Ron Hogan’s report:
As he accepted the autobiography award for The Lost, Daniel Mendelsohn said that he was especially proud to get this prize “in an era in which every who owns a Dell laptop is a published critic,” while the NBCC prize comes from “people who know what they’re talking about.” Well, as one of the great electronic unwashed, to heck with you, and you’re still completely wrong about Peanuts. OK, fine, we kid because we love and all that, but perhaps the remark rankled more because of NBCC president John Freeman’s defensive opening remarks about how “book reviews are the gateway to our culture,” aimed at establishing the continuing relevance of book reviewers in an age when bloggers are attracting more and more of the readers who do, in fact, crave good information about books and writers about which they might well like to know more. This is especially ironic, given that the NBCC board of directors now has two members, Lizzie Skurnick and Jessa Crispin, who are as “famous” if not more so for their online writing as for whatever they’ve done in print. The debate continues…
UPDATE: Daniel Mendelsohn has clarified his comments at Galleycat, writing, “The obvious meaning of my comment, made in the context of accepting an award from my fellow professional book critics, was that it is an honor to have the high esteem of one’s fellow professionals—writers whose published opinions of books, unlike those of random online commentators, are necessarily subject to many stages of vetting, editing, proofing, and above all editorial evaluation by people knowledgeable in the field of literature, and which are therefore more likely, broadly speaking, to be ‘expert’: which is, as far as I’m concerned, the kind of opinion that is meaningful.”
I’m happy that Mendelsohn has expressed himself more thoroughly, but I still think that he might want to bop around the blogosphere a bit more before making such a charge. I agree with him that having a laptop does not necessarily make one a reviewer or a reporter. But while I’m not really the kind of guy inclined to toot his own horn, the roundtable discussions featured on this site (as well as the Litblog Co-Op) have, in fact, involved organizing people who are qualified to comment upon the books they read (in that they actually read the book from start to finish, a task that eludes such “experts” as Malcolm Jones), fixing grammar, playing doubting Thomas, and encouraging alternative lines of argument. The Bat Segundo podcasts involve at least ten hours of reading and preliminary research for each guest, and often many more. Whether any of this is sufficiently “expert” is, of course, subject to your interpretation. I’ve never professed to be a literary “expert,” but I do try to initiate thought and conversations that don’t appear to be practiced by the “experts” who fail to read the books of the authors they interview or review.
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Books To Jump Up and Down Over
Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan. The famed writers behind Smart Bitches, Trashy Books have written a very funny and thoughtful volume about romances, both Old Skool and New Skool. Here is a book that any smug and humorless literary manboy beating his flabby passive chest over Banville or Bolano should probably read pronto, if only for the distant possibility that he might get over himself. While the Choose Your Own Adventure segment at the end caused me to have a very disturbing dream involving Shelley Long (don't ask), Sarah and Candy did have me rethinking many of my own misperceptions when I wasn't busy laughing. They're not afraid to take on the New York Times Bok Review or even the groupthink within certain sectors of the romance community.
Alice Fantastic by Maggie Estep. This wild and highly enjoyable narrative involves two sisters (presumably, the third one was still being rented out by Chekhov), a hippie ex-junkie mother who lives with seventeen dogs, a murder, gambling, and libidinous Hollywood actresses who live in Woodstock. But this is the wonderful Maggie Estep we're talking here. And what seems at first like a quirky yarn becomes something unexpectedly moving about connectivity. What I love about Estep's work is the way that she'll juxtapose an extremely astute observation (now that you mention it, why do cab drivers always have somebody to talk with on the phone past midnight?) with an often outrageous story development.
Generosity by Richard Powers. It doesn't come out until September 29th, but Richard Powers's latest will have anyone committed to books reconsidering their literary fervor. I foresee some animosity from the vanilla critics hostile to idea-driven novels, but book bloggers, YouTube chroniclers, and MFAs would do well to plunge into this chance-taking narrative, which introduces vital questions about what the reader's relationship is with media, scientific dissection, and "creative nonfiction." Are we rats fleeing to happy cities? Or can we find the humanism within the purported plague?
Pieces for the Left Hand by J. Robert Lennon. Lennon is one of the most underrated fiction writers working today. Much as On the Night Plain proved that Lennon had a lot more in the toolbox than heartfelt (and often very funny) suburban satire, this slim but fascinating volume juxtaposes 100 small-town anecdotes -- arranged by category -- in a manner that reads, at times, like Nicholson Baker's passions for minutiae and, at other times, Stewart O'Nan's concern for psychological detail. The result is fiction that makes us wonder about whether one person's subjective view of particulars can entirely be trusted. This book never found a publisher in 2005. But thankfully, Graywolf has released it in the United States, along with Lennon's latest novel, The Castle.
Wonderful World by Javier Calvo. This wonderfully raucous volume has been completely ignored by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. But it's probably one of the most delightful reading experiences I've had this year. Calvo cavalierly mashes up multiple genres and manages to mix up familial subtext with larger-than-life, almost cartoonish characters. (Indeed, one might argue that one mobster's penis is a character of its own in this sprawling novel.). This is not an easy thing to pull off, but Calvo makes it work. And it's helped immeasurably by Mara Faye Lethem's idiom-specific translation. (See longer post.)
The Means of Reproduction, Michelle Goldberg This thoughtful book tackles the complicated (and little discussed) subject of reproductive rights from numerous angles, which includes a number of unpleasant but necessary ones. The upshot is that there isn't a quick fix solution for declining birth rates and fundamentalist abuses. Just about every political faction has contributed to the friction. But you'll want to read this book anyway to refamiliarize yourself with the topic, but also to understand just what's occurred during the past several decades to get us where we are today. (See also podcast interview with Goldberg.)
Well, since you kid, I’ll kid too:
All things being equal, I’d rather know a lot about culture and not as much about online culture. And, at 46, I wouldn’t exactly classify my brother as a “fogie.”
Cheers,
Matt Mendelsohn
All things being equal, I’d rather know a lot about culture, period, wherever it may be found. Blowhards abound in print and online, and fogeys abound in every generation set, old and young. Mendelsohn deserved to win, but his comment was ill-advised and misinformed.
Blowhards may abound, but so does hyperbole. Phrases like “blowhard” and “clueless” don’t exactly add a lot to the debate. You can parse as you like, but I think you’re creating conspiracy here where none exists. It was clear that Daniel’s funny acceptance speech, and particularly his opening remark, was not intended as an indictment of serious literary blogs (both yours and Edward’s are quite impressive) but rather the Amazon-type reviewer who writes that Dr. Zhivago is “soooooo depressing” and thinks he’s ready for the NYTBR.
As someone who is quite devoted to books, I’m sure that you’re quite aware of the peril of reading too much into something. It was just a joke.
Again, regards,
Matt Mendelsohn
I’m never quite happy with the excuse ‘it’s just a joke’. Jokes often indicate underlying attitudes and additionally can function to create a sense of ingroup moral superiority.
I’d hazard a guess that Mendelsohn wouldn’t care to make an ethnic joke, for example, in such company.
That said, I agree, however, that there is a lot of lame commentary online. Whether it passes for literary criticism (or even intends to) is another matter.