Mining Hard Stone

As I was reading Stephen King's Duma Key last night, I was blown away by King's depiction of the main character, Edgar Freemantle, survivor of a deadly pickup vs. crane accident on a construction worksite. Freemantle's severely injured, losing an arm, breaking ribs, his hip, and sustaining a brain injury that leaves him feeling that "behind my forehead it was alway midnight in the world's biggest clock shop."

Having suffered a viral infection that left me with several unbroken weeks' worth of the worst headache I've ever experienced, I shuddered at the description because it was so dead on. Which reminded me, of course, of the terrible accident that nearly killed Mr. King some years back and his painful, longterm recovery, which he chronicles in his excellent book, On Writing. (If you haven't read it, do. Whether or not you're a fan of King's fiction, it's extremely worthwhile for anyone interested in crafting novels.)

Getting back to my point, the kind of pain King suffered makes my three-week headache from hell seem like a gnat bite on the bumpus. But rather than doing all he can to forget it, King uses the experience to inform his fiction. He mines life's hardest stone to bring his characters alive.

Hard stone doesn't have to come in the form of physicial injury. A broken heart, profound embarrassment, soul-splitting grief and loneliness -- every pain we've ever suffered can be transmuted into writing gold, because no matter how different the factual details of any given story, human emotions are universals to which every reader can connect.

So as you go about your daily writing, ask yourself to recall a time when you've experienced a similar emotion to what your character may be feeling. Mine the hard stone of experience and see if there's a gem to be uncovered

The Art of Eliciting Emotion

Because I'm a complete sucker for dog stories, the other night, I picked up Garth Stein's thoroughly-engaging novel, The Art of Racing in the Rain and started reading. And reading. And reading. Before I knew it, it was well after midnight and I was sitting in the crumpled forest of damp tissues. Yep, I'd read it straight through, and like just about every dog book since Where the Red Fern Grows and Old Yeller, I ended up bawling my eyes out. What is it about dog books and their gut-wrenching endings? Even The Story of Edgar Sawtelle left me with the sniffles.

But that's not all bad, is it? When a story tethers itself to our hearts and elicits genuine emotion, it's succeeded on a primal level, whatever its other flaws may be. And surprising as it seems, it's the genuineness of the emotion, rather than the pleasantness, that really sucks in readers. As much as I love to laugh, a good cry is not only cathartic, it makes me feel more connected to my humanity. (Pretty ironic, since I'm speaking of dog books at the moment.)

Still, it's important that an author doesn't go too far. If a tearjerker comes from your heart and you never talk down to the reader, it can work well. Yet when an author deliberately attempts to emotionally manipulate the reader, it will hack off a large percentage of the audience and leave the author vulnerable to the appearance of words such as "sappy," "melodramatic," and even "cloying" in reviews. (The appearance of those criticism is more likely if you're female. If you're male -- a couple of well-known authors of unapologetically-sentimental stuff spring to mind -- you'll probably have mass appeal and make a pile of money.)

I find a lot of early-career novelists err on the side of excess in the emotion department. But often, readers love it one heck of a lot more than the excessively restrained (i.e. boring) stuff that can come of being "too" stingy with sentiment.

My philosophy is to write fearlessly, with plenty of emotion, but pay attention to my critique partners', agent's, and editor's gag reflex. You can always edit out some of the emotion, but it's really tough to shovel it back into the manuscript.

Question for the day: What are the very best books you've ever cried over? Do you sometimes enjoy a good tearjerker, or do you avoid unpleasant emotions in your reading material?

And by the way, I highly recommend The Art of Racing in the Rain. If you want a great example of an author emotionally engaging the reader, this is it. Just make sure you have some Kleenex handy and a solid block of time.

Octopulp (because it is Wednesday and because it is my heart)

I have tried and been interrupted mid-post half a dozen times now, so I'm just going to share something quick and fun from my "bloggo" file -- a storage locker of interesting things I stumble upon (no, not Stumbled Upon, and gimme back my idiom, Internet) whilst doing research on other stuff.

"Poulpe Pulps: a silly web site" is dedicated to images of giant squids in pulp fiction and comics.

You are allowed to enjoy this for twenty minutes in lieu of playing Word Mojo, then it's back to the salt mine for all us flat-nosed grindstoners! In the words of Sir John Buchan, first Barron of Tweedsmuir (seriously) and author of The Thirty-Nine Steps: "It's a great life if you don't weaken!"

Kindling Desire

Amazon has just announced the release of the Kindle 2, an electronic reading device that has taken aim at the intersection of booklust and gadget-philia in my avaricious little heart.

Three hundred fifty-nice bucks or not, I want one. I want to be able to buy books and have them appear, as if by magic, at the touch of a button. I want to be able to store as many of them as I want without having them pile up all over my house. I want to have the cool new tool and take it for a test drive.

I want...
I want...
I want... (Wiping away drool)

Or do I? Because I love the tactile pleasure of the page, the smell of the new ink and paper, the craft and thought that went into the embossing of the title's letters, the font and the layout and artwork and all the little details. I love the feeling of reading books as prior generations read them, of pulling myself out of technology's slipstream and reverting to a slower-paced world.

Also, to me, the joy of discovering a great book isn't complete until I've loaned it to a friend, and we've discussed it. But the Kindle, terrific as it it, won't allow you to pass books along to others. In a way, that's great for authors, since it lessens the chance the electronic version of their labor will be distributed far and wide for free. But it also deprives these same writers of the chance to earn new fans.

Besides, as much as I admire the Kindle's cleverness, I'm also very aware that Amazon's got itself a terrific little racket going, since Kindle users can only purchase Kindle books through Amazon. As the device grows more popular (and it's bound to, particularly since Oprah recently declared how much she loved it) what will this do to my favorite brick & mortar bookstores, particularly the independent booksellers nearest and dearest to my heart? (Sending a shout-out to my friends at Katy Budget Books and Houston's Murder by the Book, among others. You folks are what book selling's all about!)

I'm not sure I want to live in a world where cool, little stores with employees who know books and hand-sell them can't survive, a world where Amazon -- much as I love it -- and e-retailers (should you use another brand of e-reader) are the only game in town. So for the time being, I'm holding off on purchasing a Kindle.

Besides, I've decided it would be waaaay too dangerous to have my credit card on file and only the touch of a button between me and my addiction. I shudder, thinking of the book bill I'd rack up.

So what about the rest of you? Any Kindle fans here? If not, are you waiting for the price to come down, or does the idea of reading from a screen leave you cold?

Leaning Toward the Light

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.

-Albert Schweitzer

I love this quote, but I think writers too often misinterpret this sort of thing as meaning if you love it, then money and fame and perhaps a National Book Award or two will definitely come. Not so, of course, there are too many other factors (from talent to timing to the mood of the market to luck itself) to guarantee anything of the sort, but I think that living a life you love is the definition of success.

Besides, joy shines through art, whether it's writing, music, dance, teaching, or what have you. And people respond to that joy, leaning toward the light.

Maybe it won't necessarily bring you world domination, but satisfying, meaningful work is a reward unto itself.

Introducing the Fabulous Lonnquist Sisters

My sisters are the authors of me in more ways than they will ever know. When I was little, I toddled after them, longing to be included in the secret, fabulous lives I was convinced they must live while I was sleeping, and that hasn't really changed. Linda is the crusader, Diana the adventurer, Jas the procedural genius. Their style, grace, wit, and creative genius with everything from computers to Campbell's cream of mushroom soup still intimidates and inspires me. The books they've shared with me have influenced me as both a reader and a writer, so I wanted to share a few of their favorites.

A problem solver by nature, Linda loves a good mystery. She cut her teeth on Trixie Belden books and graduated to Agatha Christie. A strong conservative Christian, she says the Bible is the book that has most influenced her, of course, specifically the writings of Paul. She loves the boldness of his stories and identifies with his driven nature. Having home-schooled her four children and worked in a children's bookstore for several years, Linda has an encyclopedic knowledge of children's lit. She reads tirelessly to her grandchildren (who are, if you ask me, the luckiest grandkids on the planet.) A current favorite: When Pigs Fly by Valerie Coulman, illustrated by Roge Girard. "It's about a cow named Ralph, who wants a bike. When everyone tells him cows don't ride bikes, he says, 'Well, not yet.' His father tells him that he can ride a bike 'when pigs fly.' So Ralph figures out how to make that happen.

I asked Linda if any one book on grieving or loss that had been especially helpful to her after the death of her husband, and she said she would recommend Will I Ever Be Whole Again: Surviving the Death of Someone You Love by Sandra Aldrich. "It's a spiritual yet extremely practical guide to widowhood that tells you what you need to know instead of trying to tell you how to feel." A book I loved and recommended to Linda is The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, which is not about widowhood so much as it is about the stories we tell ourselves in the falling silence of loss.

Diana's taste in books always ran to the classics. She particularly loves Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre for its "marvelous dialogue and beautifully articulated sentiments with a feminist story line" and The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck, because "There are foreign countries, and then there are really foreign countries. Buck's stories of China open this country up to westerners." Having spent three transformative years in the Peace Corps in Gabon, Diana says The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver is "the best depiction of Africa I've ever seen. Usually people think of sweeping vistas and loping, exotic animals. This book talks about the smell of rotting wood, the trees fighting for the sun, and the real price of the diamonds and cotton people wear so casually."

I asked Diana, "What's you're favorite book about sisters?" and she surprised me by saying, "Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. It's really about Scarlet's relationship with her sister-in-law, Melanie. Then there's the animosity between her and Ashley's sister, India. And Scarlet even marries her own sister's beau. You really don't get the fullness of that from the movie. You have to read the book." If you asked her about the best book I've sent her way recently, she would say The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. "This book creates its own reality—like any good science fiction—and then weaves a wonderful story into it." Or she might mention The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, which takes you inside the orderly world of an English Butler and examines the compelling question: What constitutes a wasted life?

Since Jas started writing seriously a few years before I did, she blazed a trail for me and provided me with some valuable resources, including my first copy of that essential sledgehammer in any writer's tool shed: Writer's Market, a comprehensive listing of American book and magazine publishers, along with helpful articles on breaking into print. "Don't be cheap," she told me. "Buy a new one every year." And I repeat that advice to every aspiring writer I meet.

Jas also turned me on to Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg ("Handwriting is more connected to the movement of the heart. Yet, when I tell stories, I go straight to the type writer.") and Anne Lamott's Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life ("We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason they write so very little.") Both authors are passionate about the art of writing, diligent about the craft, and savvy about the business. The same can be said about my sister.

Booya! TJ Bennett's The Legacy is a "Desert Island Keeper"

Congrats to our critique bud TJ Bennett whose debut novel The Legacy made the AAR Buried Treasure list, scoring a rave review and "Desert Island Keeper" status.

Anyone familiar with All About Romance knows that these reader/reviewers are extremely difficult to please, so you know you've got something going on when the reviewer is "overwhelmed by the quality of the writing, by the fascinating characters, and by the authors’ happy disregard of the usual formulas of historical romance writing."

The glowing review goes on to say:

"I loved the way the historic background got subtly woven into the tale without overpowering it. That includes the issue of religion. Sabina is a former nun, and religion is an integral part of the characters’ lives without any trace of preachiness. The secondary characters were delightful...and I can’t wait to read about Wolf’s delicious brothers Günter and Peter."

(Coming later this spring: The Promise. Visit TJ's web site for updates.)

Gofightwin, TJ!

Stephen King Calls 'Em As He Sees 'Em

There's been a lot of hoopla on the 'net over reports that in an upcoming interview for USA Weekend, Stephen King spoke his mind (gasp!) to writer Lorrie Lynch in her "Who's News" celeb column. And by speaking his mind, I mean saying that he thinks certain popular writers, chief among them Stephanie Meyer of Twilight fame and James Patterson are lousy writers. Very popular, but crummy in the craft department.

So which popular authors does King think are terrific? Jodi Piccoult was mentioned, along with J.K. Rowling, and King feels Dean Koontz "can write like hell. And then sometimes he’s just awful. It varies."

A lot of people on the 'net are frothing at the mouth that Mr. Stephen has broken some sort of unwritten "code of silence," where authors don't indulge in public put-downs of other authors. What do I think about this interview and the resulting controversy?

I think it's great because it gets people talking about authors, writing quality, and storytelling. If folks are arguing the merits of their favorite writer, they're probably also reading and forming opinions of their own. Huzzah!

As for my personal opinions, let me just say there are authors who are craftspersons, author who are what I call "natural storytellers" (not necessarily great writers but still suck readers right in), and a small minority who combine the best of both worlds. And then there are authors who (at least with some efforts) strike out on both counts. As for who's who and which type or individual is your favorite, I'll leave that to you to sort out, as long as you're actually reading books and not simply parroting someone else's opinion. :) And as for my personal takes on each of these authors, I'll tell you -- but only in a one-on-one conversation over margaritas. (Warning: By the time I hit bottom on the first margarita, I won't actually recall the names of any other authors.)

For now, however, let me pose a couple of questions. First, do you think King was right to publicly criticize other bestselling authors? Also, to your way of thinking, which authors are outstanding at consistently combining great writing skills with page-turning storytelling? Some of my favorites (Harlan Coben is one example) work in this exciting intersection, and I'm always eager to find more.

Last Night in Montreal (a strangely beautiful story of love and forgetting)

Up to my eyes in research, rough writing, and revisions on a work in progress, I have absolutely no time for pleasure reading right now. So it was a huge mistake to allow even a passing glance at an advance copy of Emily St. John Mandel's lovely debut novel, Last Night in Montreal. I can't help it; I am about to utter the hacky cliche of all book recommendations: I couldn't put it down. The words "pleasure reading" hardly begin to describe it. This was somewhere between a spa treatment and mid-day lovemaking. It's a mystery and a love story, a twisting path through the heart and mind of a richly drawn character.

From the flap:

Lilia Albert has been leaving people behind for her entire life. She spends her childhood and adolescence traveling constantly and changing identities. In adulthood, she finds it impossible to stop. Haunted by an inability to remember her early childhood, she moves restlessly from city to city, abandoning lovers along with way, possibly still followed by a private detective who has pursued her for years. Then her latest lover follows her from New York to Montreal, determined to learn her secrets and make sure she’s safe. Last Night in Montreal is a story of love, amnesia, compulsive travel, the depths and the limits of family bonds, and the nature of obsession. In this extraordinary debut, Emily St. John Mandel casts a powerful spell that captures the reader in a gritty, youthful world—charged with an atmosphere of mystery, promise and foreboding—where small revelations continuously change our understanding of the truth and lead to desperate consequences. Mandel’s characters will resonate with you long after the final page is turned.

This is not the blockbuster you're going to see on an endcap at Borders, but I hope hope hope it catches on with book clubs. There's so much fertile ground for discussion here, and this talented author deserves the affirmation.

Warning: If you read the following excerpt, you will want to read more.

No one stays forever. On the morning of her disappearance Lilia woke early, and lay still for a moment in the bed. It was the last day of October. She slept naked.

Eli heard the sounds of awakening, the rustling of the duvet, her bare footsteps on the hardwood floor, and she kissed the top of his head very lightly en route to the bathroom—he made an agreeable humming noise but didn’t look up—and the shower started on the other side of the almost-closed door. She stayed in the shower for forty-five minutes, but this wasn’t unusual; the day was still unremarkable. Eli glanced up briefly when she emerged from the bathroom. Lilia, naked: pale skin wrapped in a soft white towel, short dark hair wet on her forehead, and she smiled when he met her eyes.

“Good morning,” he said. Smiling back at her. “How did you sleep?” He was already typing again.

She kissed his hair again instead of answering, and left a trail of wet footprints all the way back to the bedroom. He heard her towel fall softly to the bedroom floor and he wanted to go and make love to her just then; but he was immersed so deeply in the work that morning, accomplishing things, and he didn’t want to break the spell. He heard the dresser drawer slide shut in the bedroom.

She came out dressed all in black and carrying the three pieces of a plate that had fallen off the bed the night before; it was a light shade of blue, and sticky with pomegranate juice. He heard her dropping it into the kitchen trashcan before she wandered past him into the living room. She stood in front of his sofa, running her fingers through her hair to test for dampness, her expression a little blank when he glanced up at her, and it seemed to him later that she’d been considering something, perhaps making up her mind. But then, he played the morning back so many times that the tape was ruined—later it seemed possible that she’d simply been thinking about the weather, and later still he was even willing to consider the possibility that she hadn't stood in front of the sofa at all--had merely paused there, perhaps, for an instant that the stretched-out reel extended into a moment, a scene, and finally a major plot point.

"The Impotence of Proofreading" by Taylor Mali

Typos are my curse...

So I had too laugh at this piece. Thought I'd share it again for those of you who share my frustration and might have missed it in the past.

Kat Von D's High Voltage Tattoo (plugged in to the culture of ink)

The incomparable Kat Von D will be at B&N on Westheimer, signing her new book, High Voltage Tattoo. From the flap: "High Voltage Tattoo is a graphic perspective on today's global tattoo culture by Kat Von D, star of The Learning Channel's L.A. Ink and one of the most talented and popular artists working today. Designed in a style that is reminiscent of a handmade Gothic journal with its red padded cover, ornate typography, and parchmentlike pages, it throws the door wide open to tattooing culture in the way only an insider like Kat can. High Voltage Tattoo traces Kat's career as an artist, from early childhood influences to recent work, along with examples of what inspires her, information about the show and her shop, her sketches, and personal tattoos. The book goes deep into tattoo process and culture: readers can see up close the pigments, the tools, and the making of complex, even collaborative, tattoos."

My daughter Jerusha's been a huge admirer of Kat's art and the free spirit in which she conducts business. I'm more intrigued by the culture that surrounds tattoo art -- and the psychology of personal and cultural response to it. In the two years since Jerusha chose to emblazon the upper half of her back with her personal manifesto ("To thine own self be true") along with a custom illustration of a mechanical bird, she's gotten a variety of reactions to it. Her dad was just kind of jaw-dropped. Her friends think it's the coolest thing ever, of course. Guys who might have hit on her at a concert think twice about a woman with that sort of pain threshold. And a cop we used to see at Starbucks sometimes said, "If that was my daughter, I'd burn it off her." (Which makes him a really scary cop, and I don't mean scary in cool Patrick Swayze in "Road House" kinda way, I mean scary in a too redneck to tell the difference between a gang member and an artsy dean's list debate diva kinda way.)

I'll let you know what Kat has to say about it. Jerusha and I will be heading downtown tonight to hear her talk about the art form that literally gets under your skin.

In honor of the occasion, I'm rerunning a post from September of 2007:

Men and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (or "Why I Love This Bird")


Shortly after I posted about risk-takery on Wed morning, my son Malachi walked into Starbucks with his girlfriend, a voluptuous psych major who actually seems to get his sense of humor (a testament to the towering abilities of the psych professors of Central Florida.) Gary and I were doing a fast latte and email check on our way out of town.

I said, “Hey, Spike. How are you today?” He responded, “I am astonishingly well.” And he was. Gary had trucked him and his wounded motorbike around Orlando in search of repairs the previous day, the VPM had driven over from Tampa for a pleasant meet the parents over Mexican food, and Malachi was preparing to meet his fate as a UPS box hefter, a job that might be less than edifying on an artistic level, but will fund his travels to Asia and Europe this year.

Sitting across from him at Starbucks, I observed a happy man. He had wheels. He had a woman. He had work. His life, for this brief and shining moment at least, was working on a mechanical level. When we parted in the parking lot a little while later, I was weeping about this, and thinking I was crying because I wanted him to remain my baby, he put his arms around me and said quietly, “I love you, Mom. I’m still your kid in a lot of ways.”

Meanwhile, holding down the fort here at home, our daughter Jerusha was apparently feeling the need to spread her wings, as it were. For three years, she’s been talking about getting a tattoo of a mechanical bird on her back. The idea presented itself to her in a dream when she was fifteen, and she fixated on it, but I said, “Absolutely not. A tattoo is an adult decision. If you end up regretting it, I’ll be responsible because I gave permission.”

Now she’s eighteen. My permission is no longer required. (Neither is my blessing, so I appreciated that she was up front enough to keep me in the information loop.) With the droning folks conveniently out of town, she drove down to Sacred Heart Studio (“best tats in Houston”, according to her exhaustive research) and talked with a guy named Grimm ((gulp!)) about the design. In an effort to assuage my fears, she sent me a link to his page on the Sacred Heart website:

…I am an artist first and foremost, and then a tattooist, so my style isn't what most consider traditional tattooing. I like rendering things in unusual combinations of color and like my tattoos to look like paintings rather than tattoos…I believe a tattoo should be a reflection of an individuals spirit and perspective on life not mine. Therefore I gather lots of information as well as references from a client when I'm working on a piece.

Decepticons Rule!

Now, I don’t know what “decepticons” are, and I try not to render hasty judgments about the maturity level of people who state that things “rule”, except in cases where this person is jamming a permanently disfiguring ink-loaded needle into the baby soft flesh that was knit in the foundry of my womb. I was not greatly comforted by Grimm’s artistic manifesto. I did look at photos of his other work, however, and he is an amazing artist. He spoke at length with Jerusha about her vision and looked over some Victorian art samples she’d collected, then spent the following day free-handing a design.

As Gary and I drove across the Florida panhandle, I received a text message from Jerusha’s friend Jess: “Tattoo is underway and she’s taking it like a trooper.” A few grainy photos made their way through our leaky cell phone signal. We got the general idea. It was not small. It was not pale. Or fragile. Or temporary. I sent Colleen and the other midwives an email from a Starbucks somewhere in Alabama: “It’s a whole lotta tattoo.” Ever the pragmatist, Colleen urged perspective: “It’s not a swastika, or a 666, or anything that will show under an interview suit.” (Lord, I can’t wait till her kid turns eighteen…)

Grimm’s opus was still swathed in gauze when Gary and I got home last night. Jerusha brought the after care instructions up to my bathroom, where I peeled away the bandage and gently washed away the dried blood, spare ink, and surgical tape stickum. The bird emerged in stunning detail. Spring-loaded wings, hinges, gears, tiny cogs and rivets, even a little mechanical heart. It’s good art. Astonishingly good. Gorgeously rendered, minutely nuanced, placed with enormous sensitivity to the pepper of freckles I kissed the day my daughter -- the child of an artist and an airplane mechanic -- was born.

This tattoo, which I thought was about rebellion, is in fact about resilience and maturity, the beauty of strength and the strength of beauty. It’s about life and art and love all working on a mechanical level.

The Rituals of Writing

Lately, I've gotten hopelessly hooked, via the series DVDs, on Showtime's fabulous Dexter series, which was based on Jeff Lindsay's novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter. In case you're unfamiliar with it, Dexter is a friendly, wryly-funny serial killer -- a forensic blood spatter expert who only kills other serial killers. I love how the author/series writers get the reader/viewer rooting for this antihero. (Michael C. Hall's brilliant portrayal -- and handsomeness -- don't hurt a bit, either!)

When he goes about his grisly business, Dexter Morgan has his rituals, patterns of behavior that make the act "feel right" and help him get into the zone. Which got me thinking about my own evolving rituals to help me fall down the rabbit hole of writing and achieve a state some psychologists call "flow." This is where the effort (be it writing, art, or serial kills, I suppose) shifts into that effortless overtime where the doer loses track of time. Flow is a pleasurable, powerfully-addictive sensation. What writer doesn't love "coming up for air" to find she's spent hours upon hours happily and completely immersed in the story she's creating?

My own rituals for descending into flow include or have included scented candles (vanilla or cinnamon are best), wordless, ethereal music (Phillip Glass and Anonymous 4 are a couple of favorites), and playing a mesmerizing computer game (Bejeweled, Scrabble, etc.) for about fifteen minutes while I focus my thoughts (or just plain stall). Then I reread and edit the prior day's work before beginning The Descent. Any interruption (a ringing phone or one of my husband's "Are you really writing or just playing with the computer? I have one quick question. Are you listening to me? Hey, there's no need to give me that look" jerks me out of my twilight, which often takes me another twenty minutes to recover. (Grrr)

So how do you get going and achieve flow in your work? Do you have a ritual, or are you blessed with special "anytime, anyplace" skills? I'd love to do an article on this topic, and I'm looking for some great quotes (for which I'll be sure to ask permission).

David Denby on the destructive creep of snark

David L. Ulin posts an excellent, thought-provoking review in today's Houston Chronicle, commenting on Snark: It's Mean, It's Personal, and It's Ruining Our Conversation by David Denby (author of one of my favorite tomes, Great Books.)

Quoth Ulin:

God save us from Gawker’s world.

The New York-based media gossip Web site, which launched in 2002 and has distinguished itself by, among other things, attacking writer Neal Pollack’s young son, Elijah, is generally regarded as the prototype of a new style of cultural discourse: dismissive, superior, jaded, marked by what David Denby, in Snark: It’s Mean, It’s Personal, and It’s Ruining Our Conversation, calls “false knowingness,” a way of pretending to be more clued-in than it is.

Denby quotes Gawker founder Nick Denton: “The ideal Gawker item is something triggered by a quote at a party, or an incident, or a story somewhere else and serves to expose hypocrisy, or turn conventional wisdom on its head, and it’s 100 words long, 200 max.” This, Denby continues, is “snark’s mission statement — indolent parasitism as a work ethos.”

Snark aspires to make a counter-argument: that the culture of mean, as exemplified by Gawker, TMZ and Perez Hilton, is not just idiotic but a dehumanizing force. “We are in a shaky moment,” Denby writes, “a moment of transition, and I think it’s reasonable to ask: What are we doing to ourselves? What kind of journalistic culture do we want? ... What kind of national conversation?”

These are excellent questions, the kind any thinking person ought to be asking as the top-down authority of traditional media yields to the fluidity of the electronic frontier. What makes this new paradigm so exciting, after all, is what makes it so unsettling: that we can respond to anything instantaneously, almost without thinking, Twittering and posting and YouTubing in an endless monologue, like Joyce’s stream of consciousness run amok.

Click here to read the rest on Chron.com.

The hilarious footnote to this post is that when I went to Amazon to grab a link for Denby's book, I couldn't help but notice that it has been (predictably) lambasted by two dozen snarky one star reviews.