• • • low end theory

bronze-by-gold:

champagnecandy answered your question: So basically the difference between a professional troll and an admirable contrarian is prose style and social standing?

no. Hitchens was a professional troll. and a great writer. one can be both.

Having a nice prose style is not enough to make a great writer, though it’s popular—and safer—to think so. Joanna Russ, whose death earlier this year didn’t receive anywhere near so much attention, was a great writer because she could write great sentences and because her thought went beyond provocation to actual innovation. Hitchens was a good enough writer. Moreover, misogyny and other bigotries are not only political or social justice issues but also aesthetic problems; they are limits on the sympathetic imagination which needs to be as unfettered as possible to make great writing.

(Source: chapel-eyes-odd)

Notes

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    I think James Joyce was also a giant douche and I think he’s a great writer; ditto T.S. Eliot and many, many other...

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