EPIPHANY!

[karenhealey]

INTERNETS

INTERNETS QUICK

LITERATURE IS IN DANGER

HERE TO SAVE IT IS MAN BOOKER WINNER HOWARD JACOBSON

SIT AT HIS FEET AND LEARN HIS WISDOMS

I wouldn't have written it if I didn't think there was something worrying about, not so much publishing, but the state of the book… some of the things that I play with, some of the jokes I make, attack things that need to be attacked.

GASP! SAY ON OH SAGE.

I was sitting in the American Embassy a while back, trying to get a visa, and every woman in the room was reading the vampire series – you know, the one with the black cover and the bit of blood. Now people are reading soft porn! What happened to the fun of reading a good book? There are people who, when they say they prefer Henry James to Fifty Shades of Grey, they do actually mean that.

WILL NO ONE PRESERVE THE LITERARY REPUTATIONS OF THE DEAD WHITE MALES FROM THE VAMPIRE-LOVING WOMEN?

I hate the phrase "literary fiction". I write fiction. The others write crap.

MY EYES ARE OPENED

I like a proper shirt with a collar. There's nothing else that I think I look nice in. I don't think there's anything else that other men look nice in, to be honest. Things with words on! Can you imagine? On grown-ups! Words are to make books with.

~FIN~

Comments

[holyschist]

I like a proper shirt with a collar. There's nothing else that I think I look nice in. I don't think there's anything else that other men look nice in, to be honest.

I think many men also look nice in

a) tight t-shirts (especially if decorated with nerdy sayings and/or dinosaurs)
b) no shirt
c) turtlenecks (do those count as having collars, or is that only button-downs?)
d) medieval clothing (tunics and cotehardies don't have collars)
e) Elizabethan (which does have collars)
f) kimonos (he does realize the traditional male dress of many countries doesn't have the kind of collar he's talking about, right?)
g) kilts
h) drag

It must be a daily struggle to take himself seriously. I salute his ongoing effort to do so in order to ~save literature~ and the endangered button-down shirt.

[birke]

Word!

... Oh crap. Did I misuse a word? Sorry, Mr Jacobson!

[holyschist]

Don't worry, we can compile all the blog comments into a book and then it'll be legitimate use of the language!