Literary Clusterfucks 2013

sorry to introduce bad takes into the thread but

This morning I think it’s about two female writers getting stuck in a war of attrition over a $425 short story while a man got paid about $20K to write about it

— Jean Hannah Edelstein (@jhedelstein) October 6, 2021

exactly how much money do people think there is in short stories

new york times artcile was tl;dr, can someone summarize the literary clusterfuck

someone begged for attention and got it on the worst possible way

on, in, I'm not a ~~writer~~

new york times artcile was tl;dr, can someone summarize the literary clusterfuck

― flopson, Wednesday, October 6, 2021 8:12 PM (twenty-two minutes ago)

oh come on man it’s a breeze

exactly how much money do people think there is in short stories

I authentically think people drastically overestimate how many people can make a living as a writer of for-lack-of-a-better-word literary fiction

People drastically overestimate the connection between "I have heard of this person" and "this person is living a financially secure existence" in general.

does the NYT Mag actually pay 20k for a big story tho

Its not straight up like that its $1 per terrible take generated

brutal metrics imo

This is the game now its not what it was its what it is yknow

game is to be sold not to be told imo

I def think that whatever side you lean towards in this story reflects your own experiences with either personality type - like, I can’t think of any mean-girl/clique situations I’ve been the victim of myself, but I’ve had two really bad experiences with emotional vampires just in the last few years (and I hardly socialize so that’s a lot), one being the aforementioned current coworker and the other an attempt at making a new friend.

Ppl like dorland are hard to handle bc if you’re too nice they’ll absolutely drain you by dumping all their trauma on you and expecting deep interactions in return but if you’re not nice enough they’re constantly asking what they did wrong, apologizing in extremely obsequious ways, begging for your attention, while also making you feel like you’re the bad guy.

Yep, Dorland is the kind of person you'd run a million miles from. But she did something objectively good, regardless of the narcissistic motivations. I mean, donating a kidney to a total stranger increases the amount of wellbeing in the world. Larson on the other hand just seems cruel without any redeeming features!

yeah on one hand, Dorland's reactions to every single thing were just wayyyy over the top - who the hell emails people after they failed to respond to an FB post? or notices when people don't bring up their selfless act in conversations? contacting every organisation Larson ever worked with? the actual lawsuit itself? pitching the story to the NYT? just an absolute nightmare.

but none of this would've happened if Larson didn't decide to write a story that - regardless of what she says or how the story turned out later on - not only cribbed from Dorland's life/writing, but was clearly meant to mock her while knowing full well that everyone who ran in the same circles would recognise the character as Dorland. (Dorland was even alerted to the story via a mutual friend!).

it's just unnecessarily mean and petty, when the best thing would've just to have left her and her kidney donation alone. toy with an emotional vampire, don't be shocked if you get bit.

Dorland pitched the story to the NYT, but Larson played along and was happy to be interviewed, and if you go to her website, the homepage says "Hi. I wrote The Kindest." - she's milking it for all it's worth!

oh wow you wrote The Kindest? isnt that the story about the kidney donation? *runs*

toy with an emotional vampire, don't be shocked if you get bit.

― Roz, Thursday, 7 October 2021 04:34

Otm

But yeah this is probably going to be good for at least one of their careers

Would love if Dorland finished her book and it turned out to be extraordinarily original and accomplished and showered with praise

Just to annoy the grub Street

i think the worst part of this whole thing is that i have had to read the phrase 'Grub Street' many times

the phrase "grub street" mainly reminds me that i beached abt a third of the way into gissing's new grub street and i shd dig it out and finish it >:(

actually both these characters wd kinda fit into new grub street tho kidney donation is maybe a bit avant-garde for the 1880s, it wd be more like best-kid-glove donation

Would love if Dorland finished her book and it turned out to be extraordinarily original and accomplished and showered with praise

― plax (ico), Thursday, October 7, 2021 6:09 AM (one hour ago)

https://www.ourgoldenage.com.au/user/pages/film/the-king-of-comedy/GAC_KingOfComedy3.jpg?page_context&media&caption

Surely Dorland will write a memoir

but none of this would've happened if Larson didn't decide to write a story that - regardless of what she says or how the story turned out later on - not only cribbed from Dorland's life/writing, but was clearly meant to mock her while knowing full well that everyone who ran in the same circles would recognise the character as Dorland. (Dorland was even alerted to the story via a mutual friend!).

See, my take is that none of this would have happened if Dorland hadn't made a worthy but private act of sacrifice into a public spectacle and something that she deserves accolades for, accolades which she went out of her way to solicit and harangue people about when she didn't feel she was getting enough attention.

It boggles my mind that anyone can see this any other way, actually!

how do you feel about dreamers/excellers?

I mean it's basically like--do Truman Capote have the artistic right to write a bunch of gossipy fiction about his famous friends? Sure, he did. Did they have the right to be pissed about it and kick him out of their circles? Sure, they did. The lawsuit is what makes this instance ridiculous.

did Truman

Larson is definitely an asshole, but someone actively PMing people to say "hey don't you have an opinion on the amazing, selfless thing I did" seems like, at best, to be a complete lack of self-awareness, and at worst, a full-fledged emotional vampire.

how do you feel about dreamers/excellers?

― St. Twel'mo, or the Cuneiform Cyclopedist of Chattanooga (President Keyes), Thursday, October 7, 2021 9:15 AM (thirty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don't see how this question has anything to do with the frankly unhinged behavior of Dorland.

It boggles my mind that anyone can see this any other way, actually!

It's so hard to pick a side to champion for when both sides are clearly people you'd quickly learn to shun in real life.

the author is being disingenuous af though

but legally? idk that Dornan has any case at all

It boggles my mind that anyone can see this any other way, actually!

― St. Twel'mo, or the Cuneiform Cyclopedist of Chattanooga (President Keyes), Thursday, October 7, 2021 9:58 AM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Still doesn't answer my response to your question— how does Dorland being a needy vampire translate into being a "dreamer" or an "exceller"? Nothing about the way I've characterized her would put her into the camp of "dreamer" or "exceller," but instead into the camp of "socially inept, unhinged, needy weirdo." Sorry, but that isn't the same thing.

But to answer your question, I have no problem with dreamers or excellers, I would even consider myself to be one— but I also don't act like Dorland, and think that it's a disservice to dreamers and excellers to associate them with someone who is so clearly unwell.

I’m talking about how both sides of the Viking debate cannot see how anyone could possibly disagree with them

Dorland's definitely the exceller, Larson the dreamer.

See, my take is that none of this would have happened if Dorland hadn't made a worthy but private act of sacrifice into a public spectacle and something that she deserves accolades for, accolades which she went out of her way to solicit and harangue people about when she didn't feel she was getting enough attention.

― I'm a sovereign jazz citizen (the table is the table), Thursday, 7 October 2021 16:13 (forty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah i think this really gets to whats going on, where its about larson/grub st very brutally upholding a strongly bourgeois aesthetics (of the self/of writing) which dorling desires but fails at. So there is a correct way to write the short story (show don't tell), a correct way to be a professional writer (MFAs, prestigious workshop programs) and discrete ways of comporting yourself in public/online. There is a real horror I think in the way they all respond to Dorling, that seemingly comes earlier than her targeting them individually. They seem quite literally disgusted by her and fascinated by their disgust and what deeply bores me about the story is how it seems to leave the assumptions about those prescriptive norms very much intact. Everyone in this story buys into quite a rigid, bourgeois ideal of 'success' and are very willing to be judged by it, which is why everyone comes across as equally pathetic.

Agree with tabes here and the dreamers/excellers parallel doesnt rly imo fit

In dreamers/excellers its only one side who are awful and wrong

Lol

The Viking Debate? Please.

Dorland started this whole thing by acting unhinged af, inviting the mockery and scrutiny of those whom she erroneously considered colleagues. The resulting situation sucks for her, and exposes the meanness and pettiness of those supposed colleagues but it also is of her own making.

And I should mention that I agree with plax— these people are all much too much invested in "mainstream" literary success, whatever that means, instead of focusing on their art, which should be the point of all of this anyway.

Well except that 'focusing on their art' does seem one of the most normative ideals that gets trotted out (by Larson)

Whatever, it's the truth, as normative as it might be. Most people who say it don't actually practice what they preach.

Exactly. These kinds of commonplaces have to be arbitrated in more or less fine-grained ways to delineate correct, respectable kinds of conduct.

Totally— here, Larson is using it as shorthand for "don't pay attention to the sources for my work, just focus on the messages that I would like to be inhered in the work."

My point is that many, many artists and writers, myself included on occasion, would do well to ignore gossip and drama and interpersonal BS and just focus on the work that they are making or trying to make.