At The New York Review of Books blog, Tim Parks writes of the “general and ever increasing anxious desire to receive positive feedback” on writing: It is a situation that leads to…an intensification of conformity, people falling over themselves to be approved of….Announce an article…on Facebook and you can count, as the hours go by,Continue reading “Tim Parks On Writerly Conformity”
Tag Archives: Tim Parks
Hagiography as Biography: Turning Writers into Saints
Tim Parks wonders why biographies of writers flirt with hagiograpy, why they are so blind to their subjects’ faults: With only the rarest of exceptions…each author is presented as simply the most gifted and well-meaning of writers, while their behavior, however problematic and possibly outrageous…is invariably described in a flattering light…special pleading is everywhere evident,Continue reading “Hagiography as Biography: Turning Writers into Saints”
Tim Parks Overrates the Indispensability of Copyright Regimes
Tim Parks has an interesting article on copyright over at the New York Review of Books Blog. (Parks concentrates almost exclusively on copyright for literary works and does not mention movies or software executables.) There are some interesting observations in it, which lead up to a puzzling conclusion. Roughly, copyright law is indispensable because itContinue reading “Tim Parks Overrates the Indispensability of Copyright Regimes”
Why Write and All That – I: Bargains Struck
Two recent articles about writing, writers, and writing as a job–Tim Parks in the New York Review of Books blog and Seth Godin’s interview at Digital Book World–prompt me to take on the insufferably self-indulgent business of being self-referential. The issues covered in the pieces linked above should be familiar: Why write? Is writing aContinue reading “Why Write and All That – I: Bargains Struck”
Samir Chopra 