Link: Why book bloggers are critical to literary criticism, from the Guardian

Again, the question of the amateur versus the professional drives a controversy, this one in the world of books.

The chair of the judges for this year's Man Booker Prize complains that book bloggers will harm literature by writing inferior reviews and encouraging the public to buy all the wrong books.  Interestingly, he seems to be assuming, essentially without  question, that those uninformed book bloggers will encourage the public to buy "readable" books, which he seems to equate with books of limited artistic value.

But does the average paid and traditionally published book reviewer really focus entirely on artistic and literary merit? And does the average home blogger focus entirely on readability, on a good pulpy page-turner? If I were to judge from perfume bloggers, I'd assume the opposite--perfumes on the artistic edge seem to get more exposure from the amateur perfume blogger than from almost anyone else. Of course, the perfume world, unlike the literary world, has traditionally suffered from a lack of independent criticism. But all the same, I don't assume that the amateur will always seek the sweet, obvious, and exciting.

This article in the Guardian responds with a defense of book bloggers, one sufficiently eloquent that no comment immediately comes to my mind, so I just encourage you to go read it.

(Side note one: This all makes me think of the recent post and discussion about "wearable" perfumes, which included a certain amount of commentary on "drinkable" wines.)

(Side note two: When I use the term "amateur" in this blog, I mean a person who follows  a pursuit primarily reasons other than financial compensation. That person may be a beginner, or they may have more skill than the average paid profession.)

Image: By Raider of Gin. Wikimedia Commons.

Short Thought: Amateurs and the truth about onions

Caramelizing onions takes a long time.

In "Why do recipe writers lie and lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions?" on Slate, the author explains that caramelized onions (deep-brown slow-cooked onions) need about an hour of cooking time, but that many recipes insist that they can be finished in ten or twenty minutes.

According to the article, this discrepancy comes from the pressure for quick recipes. If that hour were added to a recipe's prep time, the recipe-reading public would flee to someone else's recipe, and therefore someone else's book or website, bedecked with someone else's ads. (OK, he didn't say "bedecked." No one says "bedecked". I'm paraphrasing here.)

Yesterday, I was thinking about the value of amateur communication, and this came to mind. Some people object to amateurs, arguing that the information provided by professionals is more accurate and responsible. But professionals face a variety of pressures that amateurs can blissfully ignore. An amateur cooking blogger can tell the ugly truth about caramelizing onions.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Discussion Out There: Controversies

Once in a while a controversy comes along that has people talking about blogging in a particularly interesting way. Whenever that happens, I always wish that I had a logical place to track and discuss the development. That's one of the reasons for this blog.

So, what kinds of controversy? Well, I'm collecting a basketful of past ones and presenting them below. Someday I may write a proper post about these, or at least a proper listing of links. But today, it's just one link per, of the many very good ones that were posted for each controversy.

There was the controversy about perfume bloggers who went ahead and blogged without, in the opinion of some, sufficient expertise. Tangled with the suggestion that there were just too many perfume bloggers anyway. Part II of a rant from MuseinWoodenShoes offered a dandy analysis and many links, including a link to Part I.

In 2010, a garden blogger complained about people who have "ugly gardens" giving vegetable gardeners a bad name. An uprising of garden bloggers resulted; this post on GardenBloggers.com presented links to a great deal of that discussion, and a detailed discussion of its own. The discussion wasn't about blogging, but I found it fascinating to see how the blogging world so quickly responded to the accusation, blogger after blogger pointing to other bloggers talking about the issue. And the discussion had a lot of parallels to the above discussion about perfume bloggers--thoughts about the conflict between the expert versus the joyous amateur were very similar.

Also in 2010, the FTC decided to crack down on all of us ethics-impaired bloggers, since obviously other forms of media like, oh, fashion magazines, would never dream of allowing the slightest conflict of interest between advertising and editorial. (Ahem.) The Perfume Posse article "Swag Wank", by March, is a fine and entertaining example of the many discussions of the topic.

In 2011, there was the shocking discovery that some bloggers blog for free! (OK, sorry, I'll cut down on the sarcasm.) This was sparked by the rebellion when the Huffington Post collected a big bag of money for a site that contained content created for free by a herd of bloggers. I  actually did discuss this (with limited sympathy for those bloggers), so I'm going to point to my own post, though no doubt there are many better ones.

Image: By Olivier Aumage. Wikimedia Commons.