2. One thing we learned is the vagaries of reputation & how that shapes reading. Among literary people, Dale Peck is still fairly well-known as a self-styled "hatchet man" with an over-the-top polemical style. He was a fixture of Wieseltier's book section.
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3. Here's a snapshot of how Peck is viewed in literary circles. https://twitter.com/ColinMylrea/status/1149804792652488704 …
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4. Literary people who saw Dale Peck's byline would likely know what to expect (a baroque, excessive screed). But I suspect few political readers would have that contextual background & so, coming fresh to the piece, reacted with WTF.
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5. This is not to say the piece was good (it wasn't). But it does read differently if you know who Peck is and that some of the kookiness of the piece is not untypical of Peck's frequently failed attempts at stylized writing.
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6. For the record, I don't condone violence, https://twitter.com/sarahw/status/1149796242949627905 …
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What, so the piece depends on signaling who’s cool enough to get away with writing that, who knows he didn’t really mean it, and who doesn’t deserve the insider treatment? That attitude is the whole problem.
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No, no, not what I meant. I more mean that Peck is a writer with a schtick, which is a not a good thing and becomes all the worse if readers aren't familiar with the schtick and so read him literally.
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I think I’m confused. Am I supposed to read the piece more or less charitably knowing he’s prone to writing this sort of thing on the regular?
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Which, by the way, it looks like they already took the piece down. Cowardly move if they thought it was worthy of publishing in the first place, stand by the damn article if you published it.
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