Cruelty unintended;
It seems a natural question -
"What have you published?"
I dined in an Oxford college with my old friend The Egregious Dr P recently. I have done this several times over the years, but not for quite some time; and I had forgotten how demanding it is. I wouldn't call it an ordeal exactly, but it can be quite mentally and emotionally taxing. We don't often find ourselves in a situation where everyone is very bright, and where cleverness in conversation is the default position rather than an occasional option to be deployed tactically, and tactfully. I can keep up pretty well on history or psychology or the philosophy of mind or whatever it happens to be, but I do find a lurking sensitivity in myself to the fact that these chaps have all written books. You know, weighty academic tomes. I don't think I've ever aspired to such a thing myself, and yet I still feel oddly impressed or intimidated by it. (I did correct a footnote once, but I didn't get a credit for it.)
2 comments:
"What have you published?" seems to me to be a philosophical question. An academic has published on real paper. A blogger has published on virtual paper in cyberspace. Which author has achieved the highest readership? I rather think that your blog wins this contest, don't you? A selection of essays from your blog could make the leap onto the printed page if you pushed hard, surely?
Well, it's very kind of you to say so, Elizabeth. Various of my friends have made similar suggestions from time to time, but I like to feel that my little blogs are wilfully distanced from the world of commercial publication: I like being insulated from any external pressure as to form or content. In fact, I have consciously avoided trying to write on here anything that would be readily publishable in another form. I think my subjects are too various and my style too protean to make this an attractive possibility for a blog-to-book conversion.
I can't imagine how any of this could fit together as a book. But I might possibly try to re-use some of the ideas and 'bons mots' I've produced on here one day.
I have no clear idea how, but I'm giving it some thought. Publishers are welcome to contact me.
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