March 06, 2014
Viva Foghat Redux
Every now and then I'll receive an angry message from someone who thinks the most interesting thing to say about King Dork is to note that it strains credibility to imagine a contemporary teenager who has an opinion on Foghat.
And in response I always send this link.
I've always found it a little puzzling when people pounce on Tom Henderson's hostile retrograde tastes in music as a kind of "gotcha moment," an indication that I as a writer am clueless or out of touch or something, like I imagine that all teenagers these days are walking around thinking deeply about Thin Lizzy. You know, that's, like, part of the joke, dude.
ADDED: from my comments on the face thing:
"..what I'm pointing to is this trend (not just with my books by any means) on goodreads etc. for readers to assume that the primary role of criticism is to spot "inconsistencies" kind of like (I guess) scrutinizing movies for anachronisms or historical inaccuracy. I'd disagree that that's the most interesting thing to do when commenting on a novel, but even setting that aside, it often leads to absurdities where the central conceit of the novel or a primary feature of characterization is noted as a glaring "problem" that renders the whole enterprise null and void. Like criticizing Hamlet by saying "you know there really aren't any ghosts. The editor should have caught that."