Daniel Drezner on what would happen if those author blurbs that come at the end of articles were forced to be honest:
* Suzie Wong has never been to the country about which she is writing. What’s in this op-ed is culled from a quick perusal of the Economist and a few phone calls.
* Cass Bunstein is a law professor. He dashed off this essay in his head while commuting to work this morning, wrote it in under thirty minutes, and it’s still smarter than anything, my dear reader, that will ever pop into your brain.
* Augusta Cornington has been teaching at an obscure state school for two decades, lying in the tall grass, waiting for her arch-nemesis to make a mistake in print. This book review is her chance to completely eviscerate him.
I once received a manuscript from a reviewer who seemed to take this principle to heart: “The writer of this review,” he wrote for his author tag, “is an associate professor at a midwestern liberal arts school, and isn’t it an outrage that someone who writes this well still hasn’t been promoted to full professor?”
September 27th, 2009 | 9:17 pm
Heh.
September 28th, 2009 | 8:11 am
The laughter provoked by this post has a slightly desperate quality when the idea of truth telling is applied to political life (campaigns for election in particular). Much serious unease is developing as people of good will struggle to understand exactly what is going on – natural growth and change – or an artificially imposed, radical reordering of American life.
September 28th, 2009 | 9:23 pm
After eight years in publishing, I realized that that there is a literary imperium often camoflaged in populist sentimentality, high church leftism, and eco-virtue (or whatever we’re being virtuous about this year). Whether it was the haughty Ms. Morrison or the rude Mr. Dunne or a demanding and ungrateful Ms. Sheehy. Certainly the funniest observation about WritersWorld comes from Moe the bartender on the Simpsons: “Writers — the happiest people on earth.” Not a surprise that a young John Updike knew he had to get out of Manhattan and fast. It can all be so toxic. And bad for writing. And that may be the point. It’s about good writing and, as with the Church, you have to keep focussed on what matters not who.
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