I recently had a chance to offer an opinion on a hot literary topic for the Review-Review. The word limit was 600, I was told. I took it as a challenge to try to cram my usual prolix prose into a smaller vessel. They accepted what I wrote, and it's up now, but I'm still easily the longest-winded of the people on the page. They had to put me at the bottom so I didn't mess up the flow.
I'm capable of saying yes or no with fewer words, of course, but it's very hard to put restraints on all that rhetorical training: the need to cite evidence, build lines of reasoning, establish ethos and anticipate counter-attacks. Anyhow, follow the link to see an example of me being brief. You've now seen another example of the same with me, here, talking about it.
I find it far more objectionable that Simon & Schuster first offered to sign Yiannopoulous then chickened out, meaning it lack any moral compass beyond sales in determining whether to sign him in the first place. But heck, once signed, stand by him. Of course, dropping Simon & Schuster is odd for Gay. They apparently were good enough, but their market based morals weren't a problem previously. Let's be honest, one either makes one's piece with selling out at some level and shuts up, or one doesn't sell out to begin with. But once the sellout comes, well, it's dirty arms no matter where one dips.
ReplyDeleteWhen they asked for our opinion pieces, it was actually a few days before the big video came out and pretty much did Yiannopoulous in. So when I wrote it, it was still at a time when we didn't know that he wouldn't be published by S&S. They probably should have made that clear. Some of the comments don't make as much sense now as they did a few weeks ago.
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