Over at The Millions J. Greg Phelan explores why Paul Elie is irked.
Let’s review: David Shields extracts Paul Elie’s quote from a larger narrative, changes the words, and purges any reference to the ideas’ original source: Walker Percy. Then Gideon Lewis-Kraus quotes Shields’s misquote of Elie, contradicts his misquote, and characterizes what he wrongly alleges Elie having written as a “shoddy lament.” But no citations; this is art.
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Good catch, The Pot.
Now I’m irked, too.
Yeah, well, I’m irked that Elie got to write a book on Bach, and that it came out the same day as SwM…
But yeah. Misquoting is lame.
You and Elie are mystically linked in a brotherly bond of irkedness.
You know what irks me? He’s not at FSG any more. He’s a fellow down in Georgetown. Who’s gonna publish The Last Gentlemen now?
Oh.
Georgetown University Press?
You never stop, do you?
Challenge accepted.
But I wasn’t trying to be a wiseacre — You really might stand a chance: I’m told Georgetown isn’t what it once was.
Wow.
It’s easy if you try.
It’s all fun and games until someone gets irked.
[smirk]
Shields’ imagined glee at getting things swirling in controversy is akin to the imagined glee of Satan in Eden immediately after he hears that first hard pop of incisors against apple skin: “Oh, look what I’ve done! Look what I’ve done!”
JOB
Yeah, you’re right about that. I enjoyed Reality Hunger, and thought it explored some important territory, but I was also left with the impression that Shields is a bit of an ass.
Or an asp.
Another very bad sign. Lots and lots of bad signs everywhere; HHS mandates, student loans, cheating at West Point, Muslim cultural center at ground zero, $16,000,000,000,000 national debt etcetera, etcetera.
There is a difference between telling a lie to cover your embarassment (I never had sex with that woman, et al)and something like this. Something like this your repentence needs to be more famous than your sin.
Sorry to ramble.
Enemies all around.
Sorry for bad grammar.
Wait, is FSG shutting down??
Like so many publishers these days, FSG is indeed shutting down, SR — on the hopes and dreams of one Matthew Lickona.
If only I won the Powerbball…
If only I ran the circus. SR, Angelico speaks truth like a stiletto, but FSG is not, to my knowledge, going under just yet. Elie is no longer there, is all.
‘Do you care? Are you there? No? We’re through!’
Matthew thundered up into the blue.
But a hailstone’s keen aim
Made him scream the Lord’s name,
And a still, small voice said, ‘Quiet, you!’
Yikes. I read both Elie’s The Life You Save May Be Your Own and Lewis-Kraus’s A Sense of Direction within the space of a few months, and didn’t spot the discrepancy.
Some reader I am.
I’m happy to have seen Phelan’s article.