In the “Those Who Can, Do” Department

I don’t know too much about The First Post, which sort of looks like a British version of Salon, but their first lead story is an interview with John Irving, or rather a partial transcript of a conversation between Irving and Radio 4’s Sarah Montague. Now, I’ve noted some awfully bad reviews for Until I Find You, as I’m sure you have, but Irving’s not worried:

“I’m not really concerned about book reviewers. They don’t write books themselves… People who don’t write them can’t tell me how to do it.”

Fair enough, then, but what does Irving do when confronted by a reviewer who does write books? His reaction to Marianne Wiggins’ criticisms has been widely reported, of course, but did he learn anything from the negative assessments of April Bernard and Adam Mars-Jones?

24 August 2005 | uncategorized |

A Highly Evolved Discussion

You may recall last month’s item on George Gilder’s role in promoting “Intelligent Design,” in which I mentioned his hand in the Discovery Institute, a think tank that’s been pushing this issue especially hard. Well, I just caught up with Jodi Wilgoren’s big story on the group. It’s part of a NYT series called “A Debate Over Darwin,” which also has Kenneth Chang laying out the science and Cornelia Dean on scientists with religious faith, whose “belief in God challenges scientists who regard religious belief as little more than magical thinking, as some do. Their faith also challenges believers who denounce science as a godless enterprise and scientists as secular elitists contemptuous of God-fearing people.”

The issue probably resonates with me more than usual lately because I’ve just spent the last week writing about the scientific respectability that some folks have attributed to What the Bleep Do We Know?, when it’s probably a lot closer to the New Age equivalent of creation science…or, as one journalist after another has suggested, recruitment propaganda for a cult. (See also this interview with Alexandra Bruce, the author of the “definitive unauthorized guide,” Beyond the Bleep.)

But even for those of you who don’t have that mental spur, the Times reporting makes for provocative reading. If a single reporter were doing all this, he or she would almost certainly have the makings of a book proposal by the end of the week.

23 August 2005 | read this |