N+1 and its critics

Fiction writer, book critic, and sometime Ideas contributor Keith Gessen was interviewed last week by the New York Inquirer about another of his undertakings, the literary-intellectual journal n+1. (NB: I have contributed to n+1; and I've written about n+1 for Ideas; and Keith mentions my forthcoming n+1 essay on what I call the "Argonaut Folly.")

In the comments section over at The Valve, an n+1 reader says that Gessen's interview responses sum up what he dislikes about the journal:

There’s something about the editorial combination of "we are the only ones who will get harsh on writing that we don't like, no one else does that" and "we only write about contemporary lit, not about those dusty old dead people" and naive politics that is deadly enough to overcome some of the merits of the individual essays, which are occasionally very good.

Gessen -- not interested in dusty old dead people? This is misguided, to say the least. For example, check out Keith's great essay about Alexander Herzen from the Oct. 30 issue of The New Yorker, here.