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karenhealeyINTERNETS
INTERNETS QUICK
LITERATURE IS IN DANGER
HERE TO SAVE IT IS MAN BOOKER WINNER HOWARD JACOBSON
SIT AT HIS FEET AND LEARN HIS WISDOMS
GASP! SAY ON OH SAGE.
WILL NO ONE PRESERVE THE LITERARY REPUTATIONS OF THE DEAD WHITE MALES FROM THE VAMPIRE-LOVING WOMEN?
MY EYES ARE OPENED
~FIN~
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~
This comment has footnotes! Surely this qualifies as an apt use of words?
Date: 2012-09-09 03:15 pm (UTC)Also, just when I thought he couldn't get more laughably pretentious, I read this part -- One of my agents once said I was one of the most dangerous men in London and I was so excited by that. -- and, wow, on a list of stupid things said and done by privileged white dudes* who find it radically subversive to get on their soapboxes haranguing others** about true literature and how they're doing it*** wrong, that ranks pretty high.
* who could really use a makeover; perhaps his agent meant that he was one of the most dangerous men in London in the sense that, his hair and beard were scarring**** to those with aesthetic sensibilities?
** for others read: dumb, uneducated, ignorant as fuck broads, or alternately, anyone who isn't, say, him or Henry James
*** for it read: EVERYTHING
**** I had a brain fart and it took me FOREVER to remember that this was the word I wanted