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<h1 id="peck-peck-peck">Peck, Peck, Peck</h1>
<ul class="post-metadata">
<li><time datetime="2002-07-24">24 July 2002</time></li>
<li><a href="/tags/novels/" class="post-tag">novels</a></li>
</ul>
<p>A quick update to last weeks <a href="/yikes/">comment</a> on Dale Pecks cranky outburst occasioned by his review of Rick Moodys <em>The Black Veil</em>. <a href="http://www.wombatfile.com">Bill</a> has continued the discussion on his site, usefully reminding us of <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2001/07/myers.htm">B.R. Myers</a> similar Summer 2001 screed published in the <em>Atlantic,</em> and directing us to <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57255-2002Jul11.html">Jonathan Yardleys</a> rather dull attempt at same.</p>
<p>Today, <a href="http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2002/07/24/peck/index.html">Salon</a> gets into the action, with a Heather Caldwell article exploring a number of writers responses to the Peck piece and considering what makes for good literary criticism.</p>
<p>Sadly, we are nowhere mentioned.</p>
<p>Happily, the article includes the following quote, from a critic who “trounced Moodys memoir in another publication” but who feels that the wholesale absence of credit given to the merits of such fiction render Pecks critique meaningless:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“You have to reserve some language for Sept. 11, Adolf Hitler or, if youre discussing art, Albert Speer,” says [Andrew] Solomon. “There can be a crisis in literature that warrants this urgency, but this isnt it. Turning such frantic invective on writing that even in Pecks view is nothing worse than banal and self-important is extremely irresponsible. I think Pecks review tends to make literary discourse laughable rather than powerful, ridiculous rather than urgent.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One salient question raised by this article is what Peck <em>does</em> like about literature, and why he feels he must so passionately defend it — a seemingly vital issue to which his anger permits him to give no time. The beauty of the screed is its use of the attack in the service of a higher value; here, there is no higher value espoused. Is Peck then guilty of a variant on the vacuity of which he accuses Moody, Eugenides, et al? Does that emptiness, as the <em>Salon</em> article hints, reveal the hidden motives of professional jealousy and infighting?</p>
<ul class="links-nextprev"><li class="links-nextprev-prev">← Previous<br> <a href="/return-of-the-depressed/">Return of the Depressed</a></li><li class="links-nextprev-next">Next →<br><a href="/that-i-didnt-expect/">That, I Didn&#39;t Expect</a></li>
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