(Hat tip to Maud Newton, via Twitter)

Edward Champion at Reluctant Habits gets the first-hand story from Alain de Botton on his recent bombastic reaction to Caleb Crain’s review of his new book The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work. In Part 1, de Botton answers some questions about the dust-up. A taste:

Under what circumstances do you believe that a writer should respond to a critic? Don’t you find that such behavior detracts from the insights contained within your books?

I think that a writer should respond to a critic within a relatively private arena. I don’t believe in writing letters to the newspaper. I do believe in writing, on occasion, to the critics directly. I used to believe that posting a message on a writer’s website counted as part of this kind of semi-private communication. I have learnt it doesn’t, it is akin to starting your own television station in terms of the numbers who might end up attending.

Part 2 is an essay submitted by de Botton reflecting on his reaction to the review, reviewing in general and how authors ought (and ought not) to respond:

My altercation with Caleb Crain has attracted a peculiar amount of interest at heart because its nature as a private communication has been misunderstood, both by me – and those looking on. It has widely been taken that I have written back to The New York Times directly to complain. Instead I wrote to Caleb Crain to speak very directly to him and not principally to the world at large. I feel very sorry that this tiff has been broadcast so widely. The embarrassment is as akin to an argument with one’s spouse being inadvertently broadcast to one’s work colleagues or a private letter appearing on a widely-read internet site.

Check out the entire pieces (interview and essay).

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 at 12:07 pm and is filed under *William's Posts, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.