Blogs v Books

There comes a point when the blogger has to wake up and smell her blogs. Blogs are informal, chatty, personal, and confidential (in an open-ended kind of way), but the blogger’s books, I’m guessing, for the most part, aren’t. So there comes a surprise for “the reader”, when, after enjoying the nudge ‘n’ wink ambience of a writer’s blog, they take on one of the writer’s books, and let themselves in for a fake trip of pretentious dull fiction. Reading a novel after reading a blog can feel like watching Ewan McGregor (or any other actor) perform in a West End musical on a Monday morning after staying at his apartment all weekend on an intimate basis. There’s something distant and phoney about it. The writer is in third person mode, perhaps, and describing the weather or a location or a character’s state of mind or something else he or she simply made up. And you’re asking yourself, is this important? Is this worth the paper it’s written on? Is any story or book really important, in the grand scheme? Is it really? Blogs can be important. Letters can be important. Because they are not make-believe. They are direct first-person speeches unhindered by silly seven-point arc plots.

You would think a good blog equalled a good book and vice-versa, wouldn’t you, but who’s to know? Maybe the less known about a writer the better, so books are not judged before they are read. The only info need be known about a writer is his or her name...and maybe a middle initial, if you are lucky. Complete strangers are the best recipients.