Friday, May 23, 2003

Stephanie with some good remarks on Steve Evans's Flaubertian critique of blogging: too tired to respond in full now, but it puts me somewhat in mind of something I came across on William Gibson's blog from a few weeks back on blogging. Still not sure how I feel about this one, but:

"One of the reasons, I'm convinced, that I've been able to produce even the few novels I have is that, almost from the start, I largely swore off less formal avenues of literary expression. The culture of SF, particularly, seemed to me to be studded with truly scary examples of talented writers who had chosen to sublimate their energies in SF's native (and relatively ancient) fanzine scene, the geniuses of which (and there arguably were a few) eventually (and perhaps inevitably?) evolved their own equivalents of blogging.
It's the "conversational" aspect, I think, that keeps this kind of writing from really getting off the ground. You see the initial lift into heightened language, into intent, but when the wings begin to wobble (as they invariably will) there's always the option of safe and instantaneous descent back into a fundamentally informal relationship with the reader. There's no risk involved. Unless, if you're accustomed to playing for higher stakes, it's the risk of some edge being taken off your game."

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