Tournament Watcher: Foer def. Gaitskill
In the Powells/TMN Tournament of Books, judge Kate Schlegel picks Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close over the "terribly sad and slow" story of Veronica. Kevin Guilfoile snipes shamelessly from a shaky idealogical perch, asserting that "people who reread novels are buying only half as many books as their monoreading counterparts," therefore they are "destroying book publishing." Shouldn't that argument apply to any media that someone purchases, then? Buy a video; watch it once; buy another. Get that new hit record; if it's good enough to listen to, then it's good enough to put on a shelf and never listen to again. Put a dark cloth over the painting you got at the art fair yesterday; you don't want to steal more than your share from the artist, do you? Down with libraries. Up with impulse buys at Amazon and B&N.
Meanwhile, a few points remain to be seen. Who is the new Bradley? Who is the new Wichita State?
