Good Morning, UK (Or, Haven't We Been Here Before?)

It looks like Robert McCrum, the outgoing literary editor of the Observer, has given yours truly a bit of a mention in this Guardian article about the ten things he sees as revolutionizing the book world.  And as always, litblogs don't necessarily come across as a good thing.  In fact, they (we) are blamed for the fall of the great newspaper book review dynasty.  Hell, if I knew I had that much power, I'd start a wiffle ball team and take down the New York Yankees franchise forever.  Or I'd karaoke so well that I'd be able to rid the world of Madonna once and for all.

This week, I'll settle for the "Briefly Noted" section in the Tucumcari Times.

I kid.  I don't think there is a Tucumcari Times. 

Anyway, here's the part where we, the cancerous democracy of litblog book reviewing spreading across the globe at an alarming rate--also known in some parts as maggots--come in:

Chapter 8 Blogs Vs Reviewing

If you believe, as I do, that Britain still sustains a vigorous and independent literary culture, look at America. The omens are not encouraging. American democratic instincts have transformed its literary landscape as surely as its colossal market has revolutionised bookselling. Anyone can review books - and now, in America, everyone does.

Book blogs such as emergingwriters.typepad.com, maudnewton.com and syntaxofthings.typepad.com now have such power and influence that a publisher's editor in Manhattan is likely to advise a new novelist not that they will be reviewed in the New York Times but that they will be covered on curledup.com. This, according to Trish Todd of Simon & Schuster, 'is the wave of the future'.

Occasionally, in the past year, this wave has threatened to sweep away many of the old landmarks on the coast of literature. In California, the LA Times merged its stand-alone book review section into a 'comment' supplement, while the San Francisco Chronicle's book review shrank from six to four pages. But the news that hit the headlines and inspired widespread head-shaking was the decision by the Georgian daily newspaper Atlanta Journal-Constitution to abolish its books editor. Howls of pain reverberated across the States. The New York Times, which still publishes an excellent books section, noted mischievously that a certain Dan Wickett, a former quality-control manager for a car-parts manufacturer, was now singlehandedly writing 'half as many reviews as appeared in all of the books pages of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution'.

That's the same Dan Wickett that helped start a new publishing company that, I'm sure, will get plenty of play on the litblogs as time goes on but will struggle to get in the pages of the sacred.  Why?  Well, when you all cover the same twenty books every year by the same twenty authors, then it all starts to make sense.

There's more:

Readers had been posting reviews on Amazon for year. Now these book blogs - in Britain, for example, a highly responsible site like Vulpes Libris - could take over and hand the power back to - time honoured term - the Common Reader. My view is that the Common Reader generates more heat than light. On closer scrutiny, we find that this creature, as fabled as the hippogriff, is just as uncertain as everyone else. The equation of Amazon plus Microsoft has left the Common Reader dazed and confused. How else to explain the extraordinary success in 2003 of Eats, Shoots & Leaves...?*

No qualification of highly responsible.  Did I miss the seminar or not read the pamphlet that listed the qualifications of responsible book reviewing?  Damn, I'll have to Google around for it.  Then again, it could be that it's written in invisible ink on the back of the hand that feeds everyone this crap and calls it a gourmet meal.  Highly responsible for what?

Here at Syntax of Things, we are highly responsible and possibly, in the eyes of outgoing literary editors for major newspapers, highly contemptible for reading books published by a former quality-control manager for a car-parts manufacturer.  AND ENJOYING THEM, TELLING YOU ABOUT THEM, AND BRINGING RUIN TO THE SACRED EMPIRES.

God, I love having this power.

_______

*McCrum may need to tip his hat to Motoko Rich for much of the content of the above paragraphs.  Much of it comes directly from her article last year in the NY Times.  While McCrum does mention the article when referring to Dan, he actually takes a lot more without giving credit than I would be happy with if I were his editor.  But I guess he's "highly responsible" so it's probably okay. 

Comments

[amcorrea]

Wow. Just...wow. The only way people of this "stature" can come to these conclusions is if they simply trust what "others" are saying and don't look into the matter (or read the litblogs) themselves.

And how can one maintain such "credibility" if one never reads for oneself?

[amcorrea]

Also, how can he praise "word of mouth" and not realize that this is one of the main functions of the litblog?

[Imani]

Ruiner of Sacred Empires. I like the sound of that.

[Dan Wickett]

Wait! What? He didn't have kind things to say about SoT or Maud? Or literary bloggers in general???

[ed]

Now that Mr. McCrum has dismissed our work, I don't know how I can find it in me to continue. You may not realize this, but all of my labors have been explicitly tied into the approval of Mr. McCrum. It is now clear where he stands, and I shall swallow the cyanide tomorrow. No reason to blog. No reason to live.

[Richard]

I thought some of his ten things were, if obvious, certainly correct about the changes brought about in the books industry, from Amazon to Kindle. This is someone looking back on a career in writing about books. His comments about blogs were a small part of an article that for the most part was a pretty good summary from a British perspective.

The changes happening in the publishing industry with literature have been happening in all the other arts, too. They're pretty much unstoppable. As with all changes, there are many things gained but undeniably some things are lost.

I expect the first wave of book bloggers will be looking back in some years and saying they remember a better "golden age" of publishing.

Litblogs will eventually disappear or morph into something else, and someone will, like the people who mourn stuff from every past era, decry their end.

[Richard]

Like Mel Brooks says, we mock what we eventually become.