Before I begin this howl, I’ll define Yahoo as a lout, brute and coarse human being, the term itself derived from Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. I vaguely recall reading this fabulous book in the early years of college, thinking it was written for kids. Was I wrong! For the past year I tried to market my book by going to “literary” blogs, reading up a little on the blogger, scanning some of the books read in order to get a sense of the blogspot as a reasonable market for my book. I have seen hundreds of blogs, having sent my book out at least 137 times. And I have read the reviews of the book and now I have a biased (admittedly) perspective on bloggers and blogging. I write in hyperbole, so adjust accordingly. Exceptions are always the case (see my links).
There appears to be a social phenomenon on blogs. It is often called “the challenge.” The blogger sets a pre-determined amount of books to read in a year; or the blogger decides to read at least 25 books on Nazi Germany; the blogger invites suggestions about other books on a topic, compiles a list and merrily goes on to read these books. Assuming the books are read from cover to cover, some bloggers boast that they have read so many books in a year or have completed the challenge as described. Other bloggers laud them. Interactivity about the challenges met strokes each blogger for his or her achievement.
When I was taking a graduate course in English I recall the professor saying that when he prepared for his course on Henry Adams he was lucky if he got through 8 pages per hour, given the notes he wrote in the margins, the symbolism being employed causing him to reflect and reconsider. The point has always been to me that it is the careful reading of prose, the idea that great books need great readers and not how many books read that is the measure of the experience. One does not gather and collect books. One engages books. One examines, one gleans, one fixates on a concept, rolls an idea about in the hallways of one’s mind. Not bloggers. It is consumerism at its worst. Look, I have a library in my house and I can hear the books groaning on the shelves so filled are they with the wisdom of mankind. Bloggers who set challengers remind me unremittingly of Don Quixote, who demented himself by reading tales of knight erranty; isn’t that only one of Cervantes satirical barbs? I will not explore here the difference between illusion and reality in that work for that is not for the “book challenged.”
Consequently a part of blogging is the “challenge” and is yahooism of an “intellectual”
kind.
Another aspect of blogging reflects the ignorance of the blogger, call it being undereducated or not au courant in the field. I offer a book of short stories to be reviewed and some of the complaints voiced reflect little knowledge about short stories. Demands are made for plot, or discontent with the subject matter as if “dark matter” (think Poe) is uncomfortable, which it is for some of these bloggers. Books are comfort food for many of them and they readily dismiss books without a second read or perhaps the first read is shallow, lacking introspection. I sense that books should please and not discomfort. Interesting. I get bird-brain observations about how long the story should be, or how short; I hear shallow thoughts about why the novel is superior to the short story because there is more to read ! It is to say that I look only at murals and I dismiss sculpture. A narrowness prevails for these bloggers, revealing a weak background in the very subject matter they presume to evaluate. These are not critics — often savagely reviewing the writer — nor readers, nor reasonable evaluators; rather, they are Costco customers rummaging through jeans or sneakers. The pretense at being educated and well-read is pronounced and in hilarious poor taste. The personal posturing they give to themselves is worthy of a Swiftian barb. They are cultural boors.
When I am personally displeased with another human being, when I encounter insensitivity or boorishness, when I meet up with shallow hypocrisy I often say to that person: “You are not a serious human being.” Many bloggers are proto-humans blaring forth how cultural and critically wise they are. This is, again, intellectual yahooism.
Of course, blogging reeks of a mutual admiration social club, stroking one another’s reviewing skills, commenting on how interesting the other’s blogger’s life is; citing such fanciful things as a blogger’s birthday, pictures of her spouse, pictures of her pets, of recipes mixed in with reviewing books; I have seen trees, mountains, lakes, the natural world all on a blogspot. The blogspots call out: ME…ME…ME. The saturated fats of these blogspots require heavy doses of Lipitor. And amid all this sound and fury signifying self-importance is some underclass sense that reviewing books may give the appearance of intellect and social consciousness. Oh, sure.
A need to be important, to feel cultured, to interact, all atwitter, a need to posture and pose like putting your foot forward in a Michael Kors shoe is the abundant blogosphere I have encourntered this past year. Marketers argue that to become noticed as a writer on the web is to leave comments at the site. At first I did so, often educating about the short story or to thank the blogger for a review well done. I was not motivated by selling my book — sometimes I was. However, as I scanned these comments it was like jumping into a pool of chicken fat, gelatinous self-congratulatory ooze. One time I engaged the reviewer and asked what he made of the mother in my story. He slapped back with the short sentence that he reviews what he reads, no more, no less; oh, how open and intellectual you are, how accessible to hear another idea. He is a dead human being, but his answer was so lacking in social skills, so loutish that this too is another one of my conclusions — the boors are in charge. Our culture is in charge, running rampant over the web. I am so glad that through hard-work, years of treatment, more years working on myself, on deconditioning my self I have arrived at a personal place where my crap detector senses shit all about. I said a few paragraphs back that I am writing now using hyperbole; that is so. Dear reader, it also is not far from the fact of the matter.
Pretentiousness. Savagery. Cruel Malaciousness. This extended example is true. I queried one blogger with my usual query letter. I received an e-mail in which she tweezed out all the so-called grammatical errors I had made; made observations about the query in that it was not up to standards and if I wanted my book reviewed, in essence, shape it up. More comments were made and I was so stunned. She could have not answered. She could have answered and said that at this time she’ll not review my work for whatever reasons. We call this politeness, or having social skills. The note was bereft of civility. After all it was a query. It reminded me of those English teachers who on subliminal levels savage a student’s paper down to the kind of ink he or she used. Her email was vicious, unnecessary and plain awful.
I thought about it and then decided to respond. In short, I labelled what she had done — a prig; I labelled her criticisms — anal-retentive; and I labelled what I believe to be her essential character disorder — narcissitic. She did not reply back. I never forwarded a book to her, let that be clear. However, six months later I googled the book and her review came up. (Imagine the purchasing or borrowing of the book, the waiting game, the malignant thinking process.) The book was not only dismissed, it was raped and savaged; wait a minute, not the book, but me. She reviewed me, having harbored this malice for some time. This is one disturbed chick. I felt I was being tortured by a Nazi. It was a very cruel event. I never responded. What was appalling is that her conclave of fellow reviewers joined in as she uploaded my response to her; I don’t believe she uploaded her original comments to me. In any case a slew of followers agreed with her assessment and launched an attack upon me, not the book. When I shared this incident later on with Sabrina Williams of breenibooks.com, she wrote back “Holy cow.” I do not exaggerate that this was a scene reminiscent of “The Lottery.” The blogger identifies herself as an “English Major,” that she has been recently married (poor dumb bastard!), and has no record of having publishing anything other than pictures of her feet and herself frolicking on the beach at her wedding to the poor dumb bastard.
All this was appalling. What is salient with this child was her image of herself, her picture of some kind of literary grandee, of being Maxwell Perkins, of correcting all those errors that mortal writers send to her known as books. The grandiosity is monumental, but the sheer madness of it all is disturbing. Not one of her camp followers dissented, not knowing me at all; the human herd response in all its panoply was clearly represented. Granted this is an egregious blogger, but a consequence of a blogosphere that reflects inordinate self-importance, moral flatulence, the uneducated literary inmates being in charge.
A few final thoughts. Often bloggers will lust for a book after a query is made and then take months to respond, often as a prompt by a query by me. I understand magazines taking 6 months or so; I am used to that. Here is a book of 133 pages and often the delays are inordinate. Recently I had one blogger excuse herself with a paragraph of neurosis about her need to delay or to put off — review the book or don’t review it; sometimes bloggers ask for a book and then tell me that they choose not to review it and then choose not to return the book. A query was answered, a book was sent, the book was not read, and I the blogger now keep it; interesting. You are not a magazine, honey! Again, I help to fill up their libraries. Some bloggers waffle in that they say they’ll not review the book if they feel they don’t like it. I can’t get my mind around that. I submit a book and as the writer I’ll take the heat. A reviewer reviews. Don’t worry about my feelings. Review the book. It is an odd position to take. Or is it. Perhaps it is Americana — we have to be nice to one another, shoving chicken fat up one another’s asses. Yeah, that’s it.
This howl has said it all up to this point. I have no sweeping generalization to make except that blogs simply are cypher-visuals of peacock strutting human beings, some of whom imagine they are literary critics. And so it goes.
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