Paul Theroux on Blogging

Interesting quote but I don’t really have the same point of view. Blogs are for anyone anywhere to communicate in the way that suits them, well I think.
Travel blogs can be at times just like upmarket emails which tell you friends what you doing and a few pictures to make it a little more interesting.
On the other hand, over the years on here I have read a lot of great blogs that seem to have some right out of a book. At times I try and write like this with very little success of course but here the individual is able to do as they wish which what makes it perfect.
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Ali -

I'm surprised there haven't been more responses to this Theroux quote.

Paul Theroux, the grumpy elder statesman of the travel genre, is a fine writer. He is also somewhat of a cranky old man.

What is the difference between a travel blogger and a travel writer of Theroux’s generation? He probably typed out his transcripts and mailed them to his editor, on paper. Things now are so instant and anyone can publish – themselves - almost the instant they finish typing. When Theroux began writing, it would have been read by ‘the general public’ only after it had been approved by editors and publishers, there was a stewardship which groomed and nurtured the ‘talent’, there was a process which ‘weeded out’ those deemed surplus to requirements, for any number of reasons.

Theroux is in an Ivory tower looking down. The overwhelming majority of bloggers aspire to be just that – bloggers, as ‘International backpackers’ remarks, producing, “upmarket emails”, I know that is how I started out. We don’t wish to be Theroux and perhaps that is where he misses the point. Blogging is a fantastic privilege; some choose to give it more effort and more respect than others, and there are myriad different styles, approaches and ideologies which is the prerogative of the blogger, which is the beauty of blogging.

Does a blog have to have literary merit? It is of course true there are no standards in the self-publishing bloggersphere; but what is Theroux’s elitist statement suggesting; censorship,, entrance exams, travelblog police? But then aren’t we playing a variation of the same game at the other end, we except and promote praise in the form of “Best blogs”, “Likes”, “Recommends”, “Favorites” and “Halls of Fames” etc… Can we have our cake and eat it? Praise me, but don’t criticize me. If writing is to be democratic, and put out there in the public domain, is it fair game?

Blogging is writing and self-publishing for literally anyone who is literate. Some feel threatened by that, some may even feel bitter about that, particularly those that did it the hard way, who paid their dues, the old way. Many many talented writers didn’t, and won’t, ‘make it’. I’m sure they were given knock backs, as was doubtless Theroux, which were delivered with a lot more severity than Theroux’s ill-informed attack on bloggers

I would choose not to be personally insulted, I’m sure he wasn’t talking about our blogs;-)
I’m somewhat disappointed you’ve yet to read any of his work after I gave you a personal recommendation 6 years ago – just maybe that is why he has a bone of contention with bloggers;-) Next time you're thinking about a purchase for the Kindle, pick up something from Theroux; Mosquito Coast, The Great Railway Bazaar, or Dark Star Safari and you may even forgive the cranky old bastard.

Although in fairness, I haven't read anything of his for some years, I feel I've grown and changed a wee bit and so maybe I'd see his writing in a different light these days?

Jason.

It is quite possible Theroux may have been talking about personal blog websites of which there are a couple thousand more appearing on the web every day. But that’s a different story…


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Naturally, I will take the stance that there is nothing inherently illiterate about chatty things. Who is chattering and what about to whom can, in fact, be quite interesting those to in the Ivory Tower as well.

What does the proliferation of blogging sites say about our need for public disclosure and self-confession? And how does this influence the production of expertise when information can be produced by anyone (and yet we still seem the same tropes repeating in travel writing and blogging, so there are some forms consecrated as more authoritative then others)? What makes now a time when daily logs about what one eats or what one saw can be considered interesting, one might even suggest valuable - layered with implications of status and class - to both the producer and the consumer?

All very good questions. Again, I'm not so much with the answers.

(PS: Too many good theoretical topics on the forums these days, and I have no time what so-ever to draft up proper responses)

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