Craven vs Cunningham? or Blogs vs Print?
October 02 2009 — Sophie Cunningham
I want to take issue with editorial comments in the latest ABR that address the controversy surrounding Peter Craven's review of the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature, (which can now be found online, here ).
'Peter Craven’s review of the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature has generated much comment, some of it favourable, some not. Much of the latter was concentrated on the Internet, with the kind of reflexive, personality-driven, bien-pensant umbrage that often passes for literary discourse in the blogosphere. James Joyce’s phrase ‘the choir of the just’ springs to mind. What comes through is a shrill note of intolerance, the implication that because certain people disagree with other people’s views, the latter should not be aired. So much for liberal values. Happily, this issue carries measured letters from Nicholas Jose, General Editor of the anthology, Ian Britain and Sylvia Martin.'
What I'm reacting to is the false distinction between the rabble of the blogosphere versus the reasonable debate represented by print. I've already linked to - and do so here again - to James Bradley's emminently reasonable response to Craven's review, which was written as a blog post. I'm not sure if my voice is one of the shrill note[s] of intolerance' referred to in the ABR editorial - but assuming that it is, I'd point out that my Crikey article written in response to Craven's review has been described both as 'tearing strips' off Craven, and as a blog post, here. Whatever the flaws of my piece I would point out that it was an article, written, and considered, over several days. It was later reproduced on Spike. I'm also surprised that it was perceived as 'tearing strips' off Craven as Craven himself is a great fan of robust language. I don't believe my response was any more strident than his review.
I don't think that the kind of 'attack' that I, and others, engaged in, is an attack on 'liberal values', as the editorial states. It is an engagement with liberal values - the right to argue, and to disagree. And as much as my article could be seen as being politically correct, I am happy to reiterate my view that language and words are important, and, therefore, to use phrases such as 'no literary value', 'every kind of doggerel and naïve memoir' and 'devoid of literary quality or even literary ambition' are phrases that should be used with the greatest of care. I'd also note that I very much appreciated Craven's refinement and backing up of his position, in his response to me, also published on Crikey. That, to me, is the sign of a productive debate.
Comments
Hear, hear. Great response, Sophie. But are you really surprised at 'ABR', the bastion of conservatism and trapped in the doldrums of archaisms, to recognise the discursive merit of the blogosphere?
I suppose not - but still felt the need to make the point!
I could send you links to hundreds of ridiculousnesses from the mainstream media attacking blogging. It's just a power struggle, and one they know they are doomed to lose. They do not like voices they cannot control.
What, then, to make of the ABR blog? Or the most recent post on it which attempts to explain creative non-fiction by way of comparison to blogging? 'I got mixed up confusion. Man, it's a-killin' me.'
Thought you'd be unimpressed with that piece. Glad you didn't miss it. I would hazard a guess that many blogs have a greater readership than certain articles in ABR :)
Very glad to see this: I was completely nonplussed also by Geordie Williamson's odd remarks in the Oz on the weekend regarding how deep into the blogosphere he had to travel to find the 'debate', about which he was also snarky. For my part, I don't regard several posts on Crikey by mainstream editors and writers as 'blogging' anyway!! aren't they just online media commentary? Haven't read any of it yet, as I did not see anything at all much in the blogosphere that hadn't already been quoted in hard copy, and was scratching my head wondering what it was Williamson saw till I did a search last night and turned up the Crikey posts.
I have just read the letters in ABR, however, and it's way amusing to see that Ian Britain believes Craven made comments in his discussion on Crikey that should have been made in his ABR review!! So much for bien-pensant umbrage.
'reflexive, personality-driven, bien-pensant umbrage'? Isn't that a definition of all literary discourse everywhere at all times? And a good thing too. Which of those is a bad thing? ABR often seems like a character from an Anthony Powell novel......Widmerpool most probably.
Because of course "reflexive, personality driven, bien-pesant umbrage" only ever appears on blogs & is never put into print, is it????
'Spike, the excellent online presence of the venerable literary magazine Meanjin...'
My words. Obviously offensive. I won't make the mistake of repeating them.
Geordie, clearly you were fine about the parts of the discussion on this blog and in Ivor Indyk's article that you were interested in. However I was nonplussed, I confess, that there was this tired sound towards the end of your article in The Oz regarding the further comments made in other, unnamed places somewhere deep in the Internet - and I was surprised, because I had yet to encounter any of it. I assume that those remarks were focussed on the discussion at Crikey? as none of the rest of us, quite frankly, are qualified to comment anyhow - and I felt most of us held our fire meekly while the literary heavyweights gave voice. Online.
eeek. This comment carries my URL, the previous one does not.
Geordie, I'm sorry that I gave offense. I read, and appreciated, those words. I was trying to make a broader point about the way people wrote about the debate and I was taken aback to be described as taking strips of Çraven, and, in ABR, the use of the term shrill voices in response to people's critique of Craven. As I said above, he uses very strong language in his reviews and articles, yet if people argue with him they are represented as sounding strident. But I did appreciate alot about your article and am sorry I didn't make that clearer.
And I apologise for being tetchy, especially since I really do believe that Spike is doing great work and wanted to suggest as much in my piece. As for the tearing strips comment, while I still think it a fair description of your post's tone I don't think I described Peter Craven's outburst with equal plainness (he was 'rhetorically intemperate'). Couching his language in antique circumlocutions and yours in colloquial terms was (I thought at the time) a neat way of marking a generational gap. I can see now that the effect is to let him off the hook and make you sound sharp, which (given my Solomonic efforts to evenly split the debate) was far from my intention.
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