I read it sometimes and I like some of their critics, but I don’t think a lot of the arguments about why the post closing book world is bad go much beyond that
Businesses do make bad decisions sometimes though no? When it comes to being DC’s paper, the post has a monopoly, so it’s not exactly disciplined by market forces.
I don't read the WaPo so I obviously don't read their book section. But I read the Guardian section regularly, & the NYT occasionally, so I understand the value of book coverage in a newspaper
Thanks, Henry. I welcome the corrective to those of us who cried foul immediately, without having acknowledged the broader confluence of factors at play, and how more than the Post’s managers are implicated.
Yet, since you refer to negative capability, let me say that part of the lament had to do with what Keats calls “the holiness of the Heart’s affections.” At its very best, Book World earned these elegies from readers for the pleasure of simply chancing on an article discussing issues of literary merit among pages made sordid by the gross ephemera of the day (“What’s a nice novel like you doing in a place like this?” I’d often ask.)
There is also the reader’s rapport with the personae of certain reviewers, and the welcome (but let’s not say Parks & Rec) predictability of encountering them in one’s town paper. For instance, nothing of Ron Charles’ self-deprecating style at BW became him like the leaving of it:
“How a major national newspaper will carry on without someone on staff to summarize the plots of midlist literary novels is beyond me.”
not to be disagreeable, but just to note: I did explicitly answer this question negatively in my piece. (I said quite clearly that end of book world is not the end of criticism, and listed a number of other places where I think good criticism can be found!)
This was a breath of fresh air to read. One thing that seems -- to me, anyway -- to be consistently on the rise is the need to be certain and to make sure that one's opinions, esp. in the hustle-bustle of the Internet, are certain. I'm not sure it's good for our sanity. Negative capability is very much an under-utilized approach, whether we're talking about literary criticism or anything else happening in the world. Thank you for adding to the sanity in the world.
Yes I have to admit—I didn’t read the Washington Post book section myself. If I didn’t value it, then who am I to say other people should have.
I read it sometimes and I like some of their critics, but I don’t think a lot of the arguments about why the post closing book world is bad go much beyond that
Businesses do make bad decisions sometimes though no? When it comes to being DC’s paper, the post has a monopoly, so it’s not exactly disciplined by market forces.
I don't read the WaPo so I obviously don't read their book section. But I read the Guardian section regularly, & the NYT occasionally, so I understand the value of book coverage in a newspaper
Please God may the Guardian collapse
Thanks, Henry. I welcome the corrective to those of us who cried foul immediately, without having acknowledged the broader confluence of factors at play, and how more than the Post’s managers are implicated.
Yet, since you refer to negative capability, let me say that part of the lament had to do with what Keats calls “the holiness of the Heart’s affections.” At its very best, Book World earned these elegies from readers for the pleasure of simply chancing on an article discussing issues of literary merit among pages made sordid by the gross ephemera of the day (“What’s a nice novel like you doing in a place like this?” I’d often ask.)
There is also the reader’s rapport with the personae of certain reviewers, and the welcome (but let’s not say Parks & Rec) predictability of encountering them in one’s town paper. For instance, nothing of Ron Charles’ self-deprecating style at BW became him like the leaving of it:
“How a major national newspaper will carry on without someone on staff to summarize the plots of midlist literary novels is beyond me.”
I don’t disagree with any of that
not to be disagreeable, but just to note: I did explicitly answer this question negatively in my piece. (I said quite clearly that end of book world is not the end of criticism, and listed a number of other places where I think good criticism can be found!)
What's wrong with being disagreeable? Yes my headline is overwrought... thanks for noting this, as I should have done
This was a breath of fresh air to read. One thing that seems -- to me, anyway -- to be consistently on the rise is the need to be certain and to make sure that one's opinions, esp. in the hustle-bustle of the Internet, are certain. I'm not sure it's good for our sanity. Negative capability is very much an under-utilized approach, whether we're talking about literary criticism or anything else happening in the world. Thank you for adding to the sanity in the world.
Excellent piece Henry.
Thanks!!
I can’t imagine crying at any MSM media collapsing. BBC? CBC ? Bring it on. They gave up on the public square a decade ago