Keith Gessen as interviewed by something called the New York Inquirer:
The trouble with blogs arises when they go from being diaries (very private expressions, telling us something only that person knows) to being basically attention-grabbing mechanisms. That fake blog we had up was the result of my frustration with lit-bloggers. Back in the day, you would occasionally stumble upon some person blogging about their very private reading, what it was like, what their reactions were. Those people still exist, but they're drowned out by people who are just purveyors of literary gossip--who comment on books they haven't even read, who, as Marco likes to say, are just basically freelance publicists. It's one thing to be corrupted by, say, the pressure of writing for the New York Times Book Review, or the prospect of employment somewhere, or a blurb. But to sell your birthright for a couple of review copies and a link on a blogroll! For shame. So I spent a few weeks making fun of lit-bloggers and it was therapeutic. But then I stopped when I discovered the Alexa traffic ranking system and saw that I was practically the only person reading these things.
(via The Valve, of all things...)
Surely he's not, you know, talking about us. Right? As far as I know, LS has never received a single review copy (but feel free to go ahead and make me a hypocrite, expensive presses! I'd especially like a set of Moretti's new numbers, and I'd gladly review the $200 set right here on our burgeoning site...), we don't really gossip (does this count?), and, as far as I can tell, we publicize only the revolution to come...
We do, however, often enough comment on books we haven't read. In fact, in my case, almost always. But, really, who has time in the age of the instant-and-always-on, the age of the blog?
Anyway, I'm looking forward to my next issue of n+1. I'm even trying to talk my neighborhood bookstore into stocking it. Freelance publicist indeed...
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