McCrum on blogs

Reading Robert McCrum’s latest column left me in a curious state of bewilderment. He segues from the Orange Prize win to scratching his head about the now-utterly-infamous New Yorker article about Kate Lee and her blogger posse of would-be authors (most of whom, incidentally, were or are about to be fairly established writers in a myriad of different career paths.) Rightly, he points out that Salam Pax got there first, but then he goes on to parrot a list of blogs that originally appeared in Daniel Radosh’s article without giving any sense that a) he even knows who they are and what they do and b) that he’s looked at them. But he also has to be dismissive of the entire concept:

[B]ecause this is America, not only are there bloggers writing novels online, there are also literary agents surfing the net, keeping an eye out for a glimmer of literary talent in the encircling gloom of the new medium.

It is not as stupid as it sounds. Although some bloggers concede that many of their number have very little of importance to say, in the end the new medium will throw up if not a William Shakespeare at least a Dave Eggers.

There are more than a million blogs out there, and as the late Roger Straus, one of the great postwar publishers, notable for his plain speaking, was fond of observing: ‘Even a blind pig will eventually find his truffle.

I suppose McCrum’s trying to be provocative in some manner or another, but perhaps a more effective–and timely–article on how blogs are tackling criticism and literary coverage in a way that newspapers cannot, or do not, want to engage in would have been a more thoughtful, and even more provacative, read. Never mind that ultimately, the reasons why blogs of any kind prove to be successful in the short or long-term, lead to freelance opportunities and so on and so forth is because they have something to say and know how to say it well, and in a way to strike a chord in readers’ hearts and minds.