Ed Needham apparently doesn't read. I can list a handful of books that qualify as "adventures" just for their sheer postmodernity, their blatant (and successful) attempts to turn the written word inside out. Take "House of Leaves." It has upside down text, backwards text, hidden messages, color codes, and at the core of it two great story lines, one entirely in footnotes. Or look at anything Dave Eggers and McSweeney's churns out. A recent McSweeney's journal comes with a CD (as did House of Leaves) and Eggers' "Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" broke boundaries for memoirs. This week I'm reading Rick Moody's "The Black Veil," which further fucks with what it means to write "nonfiction." I could go on. So what does Ed mean -- that if people read more there would have been more textual innovations? Because people do read and clearly there are plenty of weird things happening between the covers. On the other hand, I can attest to just how hard is it to get my students to read their assignments. What I think Needham means is that not so many people are interested in reading. That's all he was saying and that's kind of weird for a magazine editor to say.
posted by Jen at 2:49 PM link/comments
