Sven Birkerts, editor of Agni, complains about unintelligent bloggers, declining book sections in print newspapers, and the need “to keep alive the possibility of shared discourse” in this article from yesterday’s Boston Globe. Apparently, “shared discourse” means you and I should stop blogging and suck from whatever bottle the critics will hold up for us.

Brikerts is right that blogs can be sloppy. I aspire to better writing than I achieve. He’s also right that blogs can be thoughtless and of-the-moment, much the same way 24-hour news can be. Too bad bloggers were not better educated at their modern grade schools and universities. And it’s too bad there isn’t some intellect barrier to blogging. It’s so darn democratic any fool can start a handful of blogs and waste his life posting to the world (a reminder that the best content filter is the disciplined mind).

That’s the opposite of what Brikerts wants. His quotation of Cynthia Ozick describes his desire:

“What is needed,” Ozick writes, “is a broad infrastructure, through a critical mass of critics, of the kind of criticism that can define, or prompt, or inspire, or at least intuit, what is happening in a culture in a given time frame. . . . In this there is something almost ceremonial, or ceremoniously slow: unhurried thinking, the ripened long (or sidewise) view, the gradualism of nuance.”

That’s what we can get from our metropolitan book review sections if we would only subscribe–unhurried thinking, gradual nuance. (Lately I wonder if the word nuance has come to mean either “stop disagreeing with me so fast” or “don’t be so sure of yourself.”) So, we need the right mess of critics to define or even inspire what culture does, and blogs work against this important societal goal. I think critics will do this very thing just because they are critics, whether they should or not, whether blogs complain or praise, whether paper newspapers stop production or find new life.

Are newspaper book sections defining culture for us now? Where? Ron Hogan mentions this in his post on Birkerts’ article.

Why this should be the case with as ephemeral a medium as the American newspaper rather than the massively archived blogosphere is an issue Birkerts doesn’t address. And by failing to return to the idea of “coexistence” mentioned earlier, Birkerts only widens the gap between the print and online camps—a gap that has no rational reason to exist, since both sides, when viewed in good faith, want exactly the same thing: a viable platform for the wide distribution of serious discussion of contemporary literature.

You could call it shared discourse. (via the Literary Saloon)

CAAF is on Snarkwatch. What did James Wood say about Don DeLillo’s use of the “inflationary mode” in Falling Man? Find out today on Snarkwatch.

The Literary Saloon discusses a NY Sun piece on how us bloggers are whining wannabes under the thumb of the major media. From the Sun article: “As anyone who reads literary blogs can attest, hell hath no fury like a blogger scorned. And the scorn is reciprocated: Professional writers usually assume that those who can, do, while those who can’t, blog.”

Being low on the food chain, I’ll refrain from comment.

Stefen Beck describes a curious West Virginia bookstore before praising what may be one of this summer’s bestsellers, The Dangerous Book for Boys. Have you heard about this one? Good Pete! The video promotion on Amazon.com is a seller.

In an Amazon.com interview, the author says, “I think we’ve become aware that the whole ‘health and safety’ overprotective culture isn’t doing our sons any favors. Boys need to learn about risk.” Amen. He describes a British game called “conkers” which is the same game I made up when I was a boy, not with horse chestnuts but with our toy jeeps and figurines. Mounds of fun. And it has “Latin Phrases Every Boy Should Know”? I’ve got to get hold of that.

Frank Wilson has a couple posts on writers ranting against bloggers as if the two were separate species. You know, when I think I’d like to be a critic, I usually slap myself.

So, we’re back. That bit of silence was brought to you by our web host. I hope it was restful for you. Continue you as you were.

Sherry of Semicolon is back in full force

1. recommending Bury the Chains by Adam Hochschild, an account of the end of Britain’s slave trade–she draws parallels between old arguments to current rationale in modern times;
2. recommending Dissolution by C.J. Sansom, a historic crime novel;
3. and saying very kind things about Lars, me, and BwB in the line of blog awards.

Thank you very much, Sherry. If only I deserved your praised–but then if I felt I deserved it, then maybe I wouldn’t.

FYI, my second American Spectator column has been published today. I call it “Hello, Columbus.” You may read it here.

Thanks to the Book Chronicle for long-listing BwB for its new Litty Awards, “the first annual award for litbloggers.” I hope we judged for our remarkable potential over our actual blogging. Yes, I’m speaking for myself.