Comments for The Missouri Review

Comment on Shenandigital by Michael

Michael — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 20:50:45 +0000

Reading is, for me, at least in part, an aesthetic experience, so I prefer to hold something in my hands. Online reading seems to be more information based – latest baseball news, politics, etc. – and not right for the kind of length of time to sink into a book. But along with TriQuarterly, this sadly seems to happen to a big-name literary journal every year.

Comment on An Incomplete Narrative (Or, Mutiny On The Bounty) by Michael

Michael — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:17:46 +0000

@Sophia: all fair points. Bissell does have a bias, which he doesn’t hide. I’m not sure that he’s swallowing Genoways’s version, but pointing out that maybe there is more than one way to view the entire situation. Maybe it’s not as simple as “bullying” and that others, just like Bissell, have a vested interest in a particular type of narrative (one that is simplistic and points a finger at a villain) has taken center stage.

I’m not suggesting Bissell is correct. Not at all. But this is the first piece I’ve seen, so far, that doesn’t follow the chorus line, and it’s worth considering.

Thanks for the comments!

Comment on Library by Subscription by Michael

Michael — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:13:23 +0000

What about the public good? If libraries become a subscription service – the way public schools are with charter schools, roadways with toll roads and EZ-Pass – who benefits? I wonder if this is a problem of political will and the language of “public good” making the easier answer – monetizing a once public place – or innovative thinking, the ideal vs. reality.

Still wrapping my mind around this; I feel like pinballs are shooting around my head. Terrific post!

Comment on An Incomplete Narrative (Or, Mutiny On The Bounty) by sophia

sophia — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:02:22 +0000

Tom Bissell is hardly a disinterested party here since he earned money and enhanced his career by publishing in the VQR. It’s not surprising that he swallows Genoways’ version of events and then spits them back out in the Observer. But what has he actually observed? Has he been to the VQR offices and met this “mutinous” staff? I have — and guess what? They seemed to be great people, hard at work. And I never even heard them raise their voices once.

Comment on What’s in the Bag? by Cameron Riesenberger

Cameron Riesenberger — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 04:13:19 +0000

I have two!
From “The Ballon” by Donald Barthelme:
“The ballon, beginning at a point on Fourteenth Street, the exact location of which I cannot reveal, expanded northward all one night , while people were sleeping, until it reached the Park. There, I stopped it; at dawn the northernmost edges lay over the Plaza; the free-hanging motion was frivolous and gentle. But experiencing a faint irritation at stopping , even to protect the trees, and seeing no reason the ballon should not be allowed to expand upward, over the parts of the city it was already covering, into the “air space” to be found there, I asked the engineers to see to it. This expansion took place throughout the morning, soft imperceptible sighing of gas through the valves. The ballon then covered forty-five blocks north – south and an irregular are east-west, as many as six crosstown blocks on either side of the Avenue in some places. That was the situation, then.”

From Franny and Zooey by Salinger:
“Though brilliantly sunny, Saturday morning was overcoat weather again, not just topcoat weather, as it had been all week and as everyone had hoped it would stay for the big weekend – the weekend of the Yale game. O the twenty-some young men who were waiting at the station for thei dates to arrive on the ten-fifty-two, no more than six or seven were out on the cold , open platform. The rest were standing around in hatless, smoky little groups of twos and threes and fours inside the heated waiting room, tlking in voices that, almost without exception, sounded collegiately dogmatic, as though each was clearing up, once and for all, some highly controversial issue, one that the outside, non-matriculating world had been bungling, provocatively or not, for centuries.”

Sorry those are both long…

Comment on Kindle and Co.: Blame it on the Puritans by Joanna Eleftheriou

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 19:34:24 +0000

I loved this!!

Comment on Kindle and Co.: Blame it on the Puritans by Claire

Claire — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 17:25:41 +0000

I hope you’re right about the continuing market, Chris. I guess my fear is that the book will survive *only* as a sort of novelty/luxury item–the way you can buy high-quality, leather-bound editions of certain books now for a lot of money.

Comment on Kindle and Co.: Blame it on the Puritans by Chris Schaefer

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 06:31:44 +0000

It seems to me it’s all a question of our appropriation of new technology. Certainly, technophobe English professors might not appreciate the discussion we’re having on this blog, but, despite all the huffing and puffing out there, the medium can be worthwhile.

Confession: I finally broke down and bought a Kindle this time around. I plan to use it especially for non-literary fiction or non-fiction. But for good literature I intend to continue buying the book as object, because I can dialogue with the author, pencil in hand, in a way that the Kindle note-taking device just doesn’t allow. Also, I value having a personal library of good fiction–the books I will want to flip through again on occasion and then eventually pass on as heirlooms.

Given the reactions to your post, Claire, I’m pretty sure there will always be a market for real book even if sales do decrease.

On a different note, I tend to think the American obsession with technology and efficiency comes more from Pragmatism than from Puritanism. Much as an early American consensus emerged around the shared truths of the varied Christian denominations, James, Dewey, and Peirce dealt with America’s melting pot of confusing diversity by keying in on “what works”. Without a single tradition in common, it’s a natural American movement to go to the common points, the bare bones, what just works. And from there, it’s not a far stretch to become obsessed with the efficient and economical at the expense of the ornamental and the traditional.

Comment on Kindle and Co.: Blame it on the Puritans by Michael

Michael — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 21:47:18 +0000

My grandfather also had an amazing, diverse range of books in his office. Even though I had been in there many times before, it wasn’t until after he passed away that I discovered he had multiple William Trevor novels, the collected stories of Frank O’Connor, and Joan Didion’s books. Having those books, knowing he read them, has tremendous value to me, something that we get from books in a way that we just won’t get from an e-reader.

Comment on Kindle and Co.: Blame it on the Puritans by Cameron Riesenberger

Cameron Riesenberger — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 18:26:04 +0000

I agree with the “real-books-are-vinyl-of-our-generation” argument, and I don’t really see books dying out, at least in my lifetime – and I’m 22, so I’m hoping we’ve got awhile. My it’s naiveté, but I for one am going to cling to that naiveté with white knuckles. Reading Infinite Jest just wouldn’t be the same if you could just click a hyperlink instead of flipping across a cinder block of paper to get to the endnotes.