There’s a great section right before this on literary periodicals, which I must save for later. Here, instead, we have an attack on “anonymity, that shield for every kind of literary scoundrelism”! Do you think Schopenhauer might have gotten some bad anonymous reviews? I don’t actually know, but I feel certain that even if he hadn’t he would still have written something like this:
The pretext for [anonymity's] introduction into literary periodicals was that it protected honest critics from the wrath of authors and their patrons. But for every case of this kind there are a hundred cases where it serves merely to allow complete irresponsibility to reviewers who would be unable to defend what they write, or even to conceal the shame of those so venal and abject as to recommend books to the public in exchange for a tip from their publisher. It often merely serves to cloak the obscurity, incompetence and insignificance of the reviewer. It is unbelievable what impudence these fellows are capable of, and from what degree of literary knavery they will not shrink, once they know themselves secure in the shadow of anonymity.
Well doesn’t that just sound remarkably apt for a book blog? It all sounds so familiar…venal, abject, incompetent, insignificant, and impudent! Too bad for Schopenhauer and a few curmudgeonly old-school literary types, I suppose.
I think there’s a valuable differentiation to make here, though. Blogs, even “anonymous” ones, are really pseudonymous, and this has real effects. A pseudonym builds up a reputation; while it may stop people knowing some details of your outside life, it won’t really help if you go on writing indefensible things and expecting anyone to listen. And with the proliferation of this type of publishing, my obscurity, incompetence, and insignificant are hardly cloaked.
Also, I know that if I ever commit true literary knavery, some impudent, possibly anonymous, commenter will come to tell me so.
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