And if you took Mark out of the equation and substituted him with some other writer (Bret Easton Ellis, maybe, in light of Almond’s hatchet job in the Boston Globe on LUNAR PARK in August?) the Salon piece would be just as ugly. Period.

One is reminded of Groucho Marx, on the idea of any club that would have him.

With so many ego-strokers wanking so furiously, one could almost forget that this is a weblog post written as a comment on (and in the language of) what amounts to a weblog post about a weblog post. Peesh .

My god, the guy basically writes jokes. How can he not know that?

The ongoing story of the love-hate relationship between authors and bloggers, and authors who want to be bloggers as well as bloggers who want to be authors, is one worth reporting, and as it happens I have a personal connection to Mark, as well as my own participation in the dynamic, that prevents me from reporting on Almond’s beef with him with detachment. But I’m not going to back away from the story because of that.

And though Galleycat is, as I see it, a place for minimal LITERARY criticism, I’m not going to stand by HERE and pretend to understand why so many commenters seem to think Almond’s piece was well done. One woman on Mark’s site called it “witty and gracious.” I fail to see what’s so witty or gracious about cracking jokes about how somebody who criticizes your writing wants you to fuck him, or referring to him as “pussy” and “bitch.” Maybe if Almond had actually come out and called Mark a faggot, I would have discerned the polished humor a little more readily. If stooping to that level of discourse is what it takes to entertain readers like Alan, I’m not too worried that he finds me boring.

I’ve been amazed how Almond’s work shows up in so many places. The guy publishes all over the place. I envy his output.

I like TEV, too. Just started reading it a couple weeks ago.

More artillery! Keep fighting! Drag more kids into the playground, I say, and scrape some more elbows.

A voice can certainly sound moist: It’s called a metaphor. It’s a little freudian, maybe, perhaps not so literal as you would like it to be, and maybe not a metaphor that can withstand brutal scrutiny. But if you don’t like his writing, have the confidence to chalk it up to preference. No need for the chest-puffing. No need to try and brow beat your readers with some bombastic nonsense about saliva.

And count me amongst those annoyed with the need to bring Somerville into all this. My girlfriend used to live there and I have never once heard someone who wasn’t a harvard steakhead call it “slummerville.” It takes a certain combination of entitlement and ignorance to so smirkingly dismiss a place for not having enough starbucks on its corners. (Which, thanks to smirking assholes, Somerville has plenty of these days.)

Your blog post on Almond is, in three words, ugly, ugly, ugly. Wait: here are three more: Cruel. Shallow. Coarse.

You should cut it out. Really.

I can’t say Almond was right or wrong, but the way he introduced the topic was enough for me to see he was writing with a very decided slant (and to stop there), given his poor characterization of the lit blogs. Regardless of what follows, that set up is a big ole ax.

This post unfortunately reinforces a thin slice of Almond’s argument, and is out of character with my general expectation of a lit blog. Next time, Ed, send serious japes to more dispasssionate friends for a preview. Your inspiration is admirable, but your execution is a little wanting.

Perhaps they are very simply stupid/untalented/rude/ridiculous? Or perhaps that other person’s conception of what it means to be stupid/untalented/rude/ridiculous is different from their own, and therefore that this ‘nemesis’ (as Almond refers to Sarvas) can safely hold this opinion without altering or adversely affecting their self image (read: Almond’s), since their criteria abour studity/untalentedness/rudeness/ridiculousness is different from their own.

This relegating of human emotions and ideas into such simplistic terms is a self-serving reproach to the complexity of human psychology. It is also self-obsessed, and self-indulgent.

The world does not revolve around Steve Almond. His fiction might indeed be bad (I wouldn’t know, I haven’t read it). Its not libel when you state your opinion. And Salon’s credibility is called into question for being willing to publish such a ridiculous and specious article.

And from someone who has been told when railing against someone I hated that my contempt for them was thinly disguised lust… Steve darling, I’m sorry but I’ll bet my life on the fact that Mark really doesn’t like your writing.

Now grow up and take it like an adult.

you get mark, steve, dale peck, harold bloom, and whoever else and you get them to write essays about each other, and then you force them all to go on a field trip together and you get david foster wallace to report on that and write a two hundred page essay on that

i’m a genius

i want life to be more exciting in those ways (nobel to almond, mark murders steve)

Moreover, I feel like you made some silly mistakes rushing this piece to press. As a student who just graduated from college this past spring, I’m quite familiar with the setting, and I presume that as a professor, Steve is as well. There’s been parental concern, and I think a few psychological studies, looking into the sexual behavior of the modern college student, who more and more eschews relationships in favor of frequent, random weekend “hookups.” Combined with the typical sexual tensions that arise with the coming of spring, kids around the campus do get visibly worked up (especially the guys, from my experience, who are trying to tie up loose ends and get with whichever girls they’ve had their eyes on before they have to go home for three months, or worse, graduate). Oh, and on another collegiate note, part-time and adjunct faculty can sometimes be the home for “barely qualified instructors” and “hack writers,” but it can also be a way for those with a different full-time pursuit to contribute to the school. We had an illiterate hack teach a part-time course every year at my school; her name is Maya Angelou.

I feel like your attacks on his blog post rely on a misinterpretation. From what I understand, he links to an article in which a woman laments the “dearth of good sex writing.” When he cites “Then we were in bed and it felt good and then it was the morning” as an example of “great literary tease,” I don’t think he’s calling it great erotica. Keep in mind that “tease” can be a positive thing, but it can also be the term the horny male gives to the girl who wore that low cut top at the bar, with whom he was grinding and eye-fucking on the dance floor, only to suddenly decide it’s time for her to call a cab and disappear. And I feel confident you wouldn’t have a problem describing Steve as a “horny male.”

Whatever, there are quite a few other problems I have with your piece, but I guess I just wanted to urge you to think twice before posting this type of article in the future. Your eagerness to attack a stranger over the Internet overcame your good judgment with many of the points you make, which in turn just makes you look worse. And it’s this type of thing that loses respect for blogging — you’d never see Stone Phillips spend 10 minutes of airtime talking about what a fucktard Miles O’Brien is, but the equivalent of such attacks takes up a disproportionately large chunk of the blogosphere.

I think Mark Sarvas did himself a disservice by linking to this other blog. I read his post on the matter, and it seemed to confirm that Almond’s piece contained hyperbole. Then I read this blog. While it is fair to defend a friend’s honor or to critique another’s writing, it is rather easy to degenerate into a frothing rant. I am certain this happened here. Trash talking someone’s home town, insulting his job as an Adjunct Lecturer, commenting about a possible limp penis (“permanent detumescence”), and ending with a rant’s obligatory “asshole” certainly don’t show this blog raising above the “poison pen” its writer sees in Almond’s piece.

Most hilarious response so far, in this fascinating bout of handbags is over at Fagistan:

http://fagistan.blogspot.com/2005/10/does-anybody-smell-blog-pussy.html

Almond (nut by name, nut by nature), Mark (easy target) and their groupies need to stop groping and get a collective grip.

So what kind of writer does ridicule and attack other writers?
An envious one? A bitter one? One who must satisfy his vanity at the expense of others?