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« Taking Things Seriously -- the party | Main | Brainiac's favorite blogs » Tuesday, September 4, 2007Lit-Crit Conflict DiagramSpeaking of James Wood, according to the Fall 2007 edition of The Quarterly Conversation, the renowned Somerville literary critic's position in the world of letters looks something like this:  Why is the Wood/n+1 relationship signified by two-way darts of disapproval AND rings of harmony? For those of you who don't pay close attention to such matters, back in Fall 2004, on the first page of the first issue of the journal n+1, the editors claimed that The New Republic's literary section was "indiscriminately" negative, and that Wood -- the magazine's main writer on fiction -- was a hit man. Wood wrote an eloquent response that was published in n+1's third issue (Fall 2005). He wasn't a negationist, he insisted: He negated in the name of an ideal. The editors' efforts to compose a reply to Wood led them to publish a long symposium on the topic of "American Writing Today," in n+1's fourth issue (Spring 2006). So... darts of disapproval and rings of harmony all around, indeed.
Posted by Joshua Glenn at 05:16 PM
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