Thursday, January 11, 2007

Defenders?

So far, the only persons who've spoken against my criticism of Francine Prose seem to dislike her ideas and her works even more than I do.

Is there no one who will defend her?

Even one of the many editors who publish her opinions in magazines like Harper's and The New York Times Book Review? One of her colleagues or students at the New School?

Are her writings and ideas truly that indefensible?

Conditions inside the established lit scene must be worse than we thought.

6 comments:

Kareem Abdul Shabazz said...

I don't disagree with your criticism. I just think is misdirecting energy. Blogs are rather temporal. In a few days the crit will be buried in the archives. It would be more sensible to craft and in-depth critique and submit it to sympathetic journals (most likely e-journals).

If worse comes to worse, the ULA has a webpage and it can be posted there. With the use of significant keywords in the html code, it will be available forever and will be read.

Her phone number is up on the Bard college website. Perhaps a ULA rep can call and be sure she is made aware of the challenge. Also, domain names can be bought for as cheap as $4.00 a domain like www.WeChallangeFrancineProse.com would garner some attention, especially as it moves up in google rankings.

These strategies are all better than potshots on a blog that will be archived in about a week.

King Wenclas said...

With so many ideas, why don't you join our ranks and help out??
It's easy to say Do This and Do That, but most active ULAers are under severe time constraints.
Prose isn't our main target by any means. If we start creating domain names, she'll have to wait after some others.
Most of our actions are off-line. Our most effective ones have been anyway-- therefore our trip to NYC.
We're also big on snail mailings.
I'm generally pretty good at letting people know about us.
Our written Challenge will be in the mail to many established lit people. (The New School has already received their yearly copy.)
Are you based in New York?
Why don't you meet us on the 16th?
Meanwhile, here's a question for you:
If there's such widespread agreement that Prose and her ideas are NOT the answer, why has no one spoken up before now?
Why the omnipresent "go along to get along" behavior?
Anyway, thanks for the suggestions. Perhaps ULAers running the web site can act on them.

Kareem Abdul Shabazz said...

My life is sort of hectic right now. Plus, I'm anti-social and have problems with teams/groups. The three friends that I still actually have are fitting the bill for psychotherapy so that I can come to terms with my inability to work with others, and perhaps this will lead to me holding down a job longer than 3 weeks for the first time in the 21st century. I would be a huge detriment--a liability/distraction and negative force.

I'm with the cause in spirit though.

Jeff Potter said...

Some of our detractors say we can't expect anyone to give air to those who criticize them. I disagree. They like a good public fight. If it can be publicized right. They are also as full of self-loathing as any group---it's always a factor. The expose gives anyone a thrill even if it's also a chill. What's more---our info is often available in bio's and kiss'n'tells. There's an accepted venue for spilling the beans about the absurd emptiness of the lit world. They just resist the change of venue! We're shining a different light on it. It's dirty linen that they've often already profited from airing. We're just turning it into a pop storyline instead of just a insider-elite memoir morsel.

Jeff Potter said...

You know, it is too bad that blogs aren't searchable/googleable. I wonder why is that? Blogs have as many facts and datapoints to hit on as websites do.

Heck, forums are searchable. Google hits all those. (I sometimes find Google to be a better way to search a forum than its own search engine!)

Usenet is searchable---but for some reason Google segregates it---now more than ever---"Google Groups" used to be on the Google homepage, now it has its separate area.

Jeff Potter said...

ALERT! Actually, blogs ARE searchable/googleable. So their entries are NOT lost. Not even those in the Archives. I just googled a keyword from King's first post here---got a hit. Cool! Blogs are real, they last! (Ghosts don't...)