Comments on The Bibliophilic Blogger: The Survival of the Essayist

I was just poking fun at the spam itself. Didn't s...

2008-06-13T15:54:00.000+01:00

I was just poking fun at the spam itself. Didn't seriously think it to be anything else.

This is a piece of spam (blogspam?) and if there i...

2008-06-11T10:42:00.000+01:00

This is a piece of spam (blogspam?) and if there is more of it I'll have to control access which I don't really want to do. I have been away for 2 weeks hence haven't had time to deal with it.

I think you should tell all about your "thing", Ni...

2008-06-03T19:45:00.000+01:00

I think you should tell all about your "thing", Nicholas. Sounds fascinating.

i did a little research after you told me about yo...

2008-05-30T20:16:00.000+01:00

i did a little research after you told me about your "thing", and if you want a way to make more money using your your blog you can enter this site: link. bye.

I wonder if something might have been lost in tran...

2008-05-26T18:45:00.000+01:00

I wonder if something might have been lost in translation here? By "typical reader" he might have meant "dispassionate reader" or "reader with no axe to grind" as opposed to a competitive fellow-writer over-anxious to find fault. Are musicians, for example, harsher critics of each other than people in the audience? I don't know. Sometimes it works in the opposite way and fellow-practitioners are cosily over-protective of each other.

On the lines of Jool's comment, any reader could...

2008-05-26T11:39:00.000+01:00

On the lines of Jool's comment, any reader could also be described as having preferences and peculiar fixations. Is there a common man existing somewhere outside the halls of literature who exists as this blank page of a persona devoid of such traits? In itself it's a very literary concept- the typical reader. Certain types of books may have broadly 'typical' readers, eg the Mills & Boon reader presumably not typically a military type.
Though on the other hand, perhaps it makes a lot more sense to talk of a 'typical academic' in terms of presumably somewhat anal characterists. 'Typical reader' is perhaps an attempt at the elegant ideal of maximum information with minumum clutter, but if the sweep of a generalisation is too broad it simply becomes meaningless.

I take issue with the Primo Levi classification of...

2008-05-26T11:15:00.000+01:00

I take issue with the Primo Levi classification of "typical reader". Yes, writers are special, but try subsituting "typical person" or "typical banana-eater" for "typical reader" in this quotation and watch the idea collapse.

The problem with academia is that forces writers i...

2008-05-23T17:21:00.000+01:00

The problem with academia is that forces writers into a kind of style straight-jacket that obscures more than it reveals. This seems particularly true of literary criticism where an alienating style conceals what is often an interesting idea. Academic writers all too often seem to be writing for other academics and not for a wider readership.

My hope and belief is that the essayist will, as t...

2008-05-23T14:03:00.000+01:00

My hope and belief is that the essayist will, as the blogosphere develops and matures, find an increasing place online: neither Academe nor Grub Street might be our rallying cry!