The hugely influential New York Times Book Review has a new editor, Pamela Paul. Will Ms. Paul sympathize with, and promote, the democratization of the literary art?
The answer is no, based on an article she wrote a few years ago sympathizing with the plight of America’s privileged:
The lower classes are not even an afterthought in Pamela Paul’s world.
Pamela Paul herself is an Ivy Leaguer, a Brown University grad, and has led quite the charmed literary life, according to her own bio:
http://www.pamelapaul.com/bio/
Does anything ever change in the elite New York literary world?
The system is incapable of reforming itself. The only solution is to knock it down and start over.
1 comment:
I'm still curious as to whether the 826 Valencia program has found any poor new literary stars or provoked any of those kids into their own breakthroughs apart from Eggers. It looks like there have been "books" made of the writings. How about careers? I'd think that likely. A writing dept would LOVE to get their hands on the "right" alumni of that program, eh? But as for fresh voices with impact? It *seems* like maybe a decent way to find them. Well, an approved way. Has it worked? Actually, aren't there impoverished writers out there already, without training, maybe even "illiterate"? Poor people have never been stopped before. They tend to bust out and excel. They throw up voices, representatives as well as stand-alones. Distinctive characters. Why shouldn't they? But the charity path IS an option. Isn't it? Aren't other diseases helped or cured thru charities? Big advances made?
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