A commenter has kindly pointed out that Esquire posted a Fitzgerald piece , ("The Crack Up" ), on its homepage, after our Fitzgerald discussion in yesterdays Manifesto . Coincidence or subliminal message? Are we having some sort of impact on the current State of Fiction? Now, that would be sweet.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Have We Had An Impact?
A commenter has kindly pointed out that Esquire posted a Fitzgerald piece , ("The Crack Up" ), on its homepage, after our Fitzgerald discussion in yesterdays Manifesto . Coincidence or subliminal message? Are we having some sort of impact on the current State of Fiction? Now, that would be sweet.
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8 comments:
Why the lightning fast new entries? It tends to push a subject of interest back onto the trash pile of history.
People tend to look at what's current and disregard what has been passed by.
Awesome
Zam, Anonymous #1; everyone's a critic. I often post more than one article per day, but, if you must know, what's going on in my person life, I'm traveling and wanted to make sure I fed the mice today before I got on the road.
apparently, there are more mens titles in magazines than ever before. lots more. but just look at them: not liable to find a thoughtfully written, wonderful short story in them, are we?
What, a weblog has dictated what has been put on the cover of Esquire? (And they actually put a piece of great literature on said cover?)
Truly astounding.
Thanks. But I'd venture to guess that it's just a coincidence.
Well it's about time Esquire had something worth reading again.
They've been off in their fashion tips for as long as I can remember. Last time I looked, they recommended wearing the jacket of a suit with dress slacks, even jeans!
Esquire hasn't been relevant for a long time. So they pulled a few good bits from their archives. So what. You could even take it to mean that Granger's rubbing it in.
Don't get me started on Esquire. Please.
It was a great magazine, then they reacted to feminism and hippies (and ironically that was the last time they printed work by "undiscovered" writers like Thomas Pynchon and Tom Wolfe), and then they morphed into a very slick skin-mag wannabe with PG-13 pix and Neanderthal text to match. FWIW, I think Rust Hills did what he could with the shrunken fiction after that - he was a good guy - but by the late 90s when he was out, Esquire was basically over.
Point is, David and the folks at Hearst sell the issue as a unit now, and he only buys work that's "consistent" with the ridiculous image they've concocted for themselves, some kind of animal frat boy let loose at a sexual buffet: every piece of writing they buy has to fit that pose. The Heath Ledger "fiction" he commissioned for the last issue is case in point: it's indistinguishable from anything else in the issue. And pretty much all of it is tasteless, don't you think?
I loved how New York Magazine's "fiction workshop" rejected it.
Don't forget: "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and all the "Pat Hobby" stories both debuted there, along with tons of other great work. How would they fit in the magazine now? They wouldn't. And that's the problem.
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