Blogging the Classics

It went wonderfully. I was thrilled as a PR, as a blogger, and as a reader.

Chairing was the excellent John Carey, author of  The Intellectuals and the Masses, and What Good Are The Arts?, both of which I now desperately want to read. Then we had Mark Thwaite of ReadySteadyBook, John Mullan (author of How Novels Work and Anonymity), and finally lovely Lynne Hatwell aka dovegreyreader - and she needs no introduction round these parts.

A blog called Torque Control has an excellent synopsis of the discussion, which was basically about the litbloggers versus the professional literary critics/academics... who has the right to talk about books? Essentially... all of us. We all bring different qualities to the table. Of course, I'm always going to be rooting for the bloggers though. We don't claim to be critics, or as Lynne said last night, even book reviewers. We are just people who love to talk about books, and the blogosphere provides the perfect platform to get the conversation going. And that is what it is, a conversation. I don't expect people to agree with what I think about a book 100% of the time, and similarly I don't expect to agree with anyone else 100% of the time, but the point is, we talk about it. Discourse, discussion, chat, it's what it's all about.

But to yet again steal Lynne's words, we seem to have caught some of the pros on the hop. They didn't see us coming, and are now blustering about in their ivory towers, choosing the worst of the bad blogs (and there are some real stinkers, lets be frank) to write us all off as yammering simpletons who wouldn't know a Good book (note the capital G) if it hit us in the face. Thing is, we do know what we think are good books, and we've read a few...

From left: John Carey, John Mullan, Lynne Hatwell, Mark Thwaite

PS, yes I did take these photos on the iPhone of joy.

Comments

[Katy]

I thought this was an excellent discussion. Really interesting for bloggers and non - bloggers alike I would imagine.

I'm also excited to see my back in one of the photos - fame at last!!

[Simon Thomas]

Yes, it was great fun, and very interesting. Lovely to meet you there, Kirsty!

[Kirsty]

Thanks Simon - very nice to meet you too!

[Angie]

Very nice to meet you last night Kirsty, and the event was very interesting. Compelling, in fact.

[Mark Thwaite]

I'm thrilled it went so well -- and it was a privilege to be asked to talk at the event ... staying the night in Christ Church was quite special too!

All the feedback seems to have been pretty positive so far too which is lovely.

[dovegreyreader]

I'm just coping with the jet lag and the of course the time difference here in Devon where we are at least a day behind everyone else! I had such a good time, really enjoyed the debate, thanks to Mark who let me borrow his pen every 5 minutes on that platform, my retina are scorched after those lights and I will be thanking Academic Friend of Other Stories when I recount the official version of "How we tried to get into Merton College with the key to Corpus Christi"...it can't be done.

[Kirsty]

Aha! Yes, I heard that story dgr - I look forward to your account!

[Academic Friend]

Just to contribute to the consensus, Monday night was excellent. I think that the self-important hegemony was rightfully dismissed as just that. As dovegreyreader has attested, Oxford credentials don't count for much (like distinguishing between one college and another)!