yeah also a fan of his shakespeare book. was never really able muster up strong feelings about either side of the canon wars stuff, everybody should just read good books all the time, idgaf.
i also encountered a few Very Online lit ppl in my feeds dunking on his death and its just like, dude liked different books than you, big deal, chill out and go read a book.
― “Hakuna Matata,” a nihilist philosophy (One Eye Open), Thursday, 17 October 2019 18:27 (four years ago) link
He had impeccable, albeit limited, taste. Anyway my challop is that he was both good and bad.
― pomenitul, Thursday, 17 October 2019 18:29 (four years ago) link
Just realized that if weren’t for him and those Chelsea House books I might never have moved out of my parents’s house.
― Beware of Mr. Blecch, er...what? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 17 October 2019 18:31 (four years ago) link
Saw this too. Twitter is disgusting.
The story about his son’s illness prompting his “commercial” turn is true, or at least I’ve heard it from a short grapevine. However, I think his partisanship—while maybe part a publicity thing—was true. He was a humanist and didn’t like the constructivist account of subjectivity that, in various permutations, lie behind all the theoretical approaches he lumped under “the school of resentment”
― treeship., Thursday, 17 October 2019 19:55 (four years ago) link
The people cheering his death are probably not his enemies in the academy as much as people who only know about him via the naomi wolf accusation. Just realized this.
― treeship., Thursday, 17 October 2019 19:57 (four years ago) link
Those Chelsea House books, intimidating and colorful, impressed me in high school, and his categorical dismissals I emulated in my early years.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 17 October 2019 20:01 (four years ago) link
apart from the naomi wolf thing the accusations of harassment et al have been pretty lacking in specifics, unless calling everyone "my dear" counts
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, 17 October 2019 20:02 (four years ago) link
thats a really nice piece alfred
the naomi wolf thing is a legit reason to think he sucks, but in the extremely limited sample of people I follow on social media, the negative comments from the hot take brigade were mostly all variations of "finally we're free of this suffocating promoter of Dead White Men", as if he had been actively going around burning other people's manuscripts. So dumb.
― “Hakuna Matata,” a nihilist philosophy (One Eye Open), Thursday, 17 October 2019 20:55 (four years ago) link
a friend who studied with him (and is/was an attractive woman) said he was a wonderful teacher, funny and unusually kind
― mookieproof, Thursday, 17 October 2019 22:01 (four years ago) link
umm
― Seany's too Dyche to mention (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 17 October 2019 22:57 (four years ago) link
OK wow i just checked in on what people are saying on twitter.
― treeship., Wednesday, 23 October 2019 22:06 (four years ago) link