Tournament of Books discussion

Space to discuss the Final round, Mar 31:
tbd vs. tbd

And the Rooster goes to . . . https://www.tournamentofbooks.com/202...

the rooster should go to those high school kids in the comments

Although I didn’t read all the books this year I did read those two. I would have gone the other way. Babel just seemed so fresh to me, unlike anything I had read previously and Goose just had me thinking how much the author must admire Ferrante.

Kyle wrote: "the rooster should go to those high school kids in the comments"

I'm afraid the Rooster went after those kids in the comments....

I didn’t think references to the matrix necessarily had anything to do with Andrew Tate, but maybe I’m missing something.

I think it was a knee-jerk reaction. they're kids.

Lee wrote: "I didn’t think references to the matrix necessarily had anything to do with Andrew Tate, but maybe I’m missing something."

I don't know for sure, but I'd assumed some worse things were said that got deleted?

Kyle wrote: "I think it was a knee-jerk reaction. they're kids."

Exactly this. When I think of my own lack of restraint at times in the face of a judgment defeating a book I loved, I am prepared to cut all manner of slack to these young people. In fact, I find it most encouraging, and a tribute to their teacher, that they feel this strongly about any work of literature.

Risa wrote: "Kyle wrote: "I think it was a knee-jerk reaction. they're kids."

Exactly this. When I think of my own lack of restraint at times in the face of a judgment defeating a book I loved, I am prepared t..."

He's wonderful, isn't he? I'd have given my left leg for a teacher like this in high school. He's helped develop readers who will likely have this passion for books for a lifetime. They'll...become us. <3

Ah! That went COMPLETELY over my head. That’s what I get for not being all that well versed in the broader social media world.

It's not like the boys were referencing any of Tate's other (truly awful) views. I can definitely understand the feeling of wanting to keep that nasty corner of the internet away from the ToB, though.

I have no idea who Tate even is, that's how out of things I am these days! I was going to look it up, but then decided it would be healthier for my peace of mind not to.

The good news is he's in prison. That's really all you need to know!

I thought it was an over-reaction, too. I mean, they were there in support of =Babel=, after all. Surely we aren't so fragile as a group.

I’d want to continue encouraging their passion for literature and use it as an opportunity to discuss how the way we choose to convey our enthusiastic opinions can affect how others feel, respond to, consider, and are (or are not) persuaded by them. That’s a lesson worth learning, too, and something the grown-ups in the Commentariat often wrestle with. So, I’m of the teach-not-block view, though perhaps the block is an attention-getting way of setting up that discussion.

Juliana wrote: "I understood the impulse to not want those references in this corner of the internet I value, and appreciate how much work moderating must be...
Risa wrote: "I’m of the teach-not-block view..."

Being moderator is not an easy job, so I'm not trying to cast any shade on Meave here.

And while "teach-not-block" is probably okay for Mark's students, no real troll is going to be interested in learning, so there's a place for blocking.

The difficulty is protecting the open and (mostly) polite discourse from trolls while avoiding becoming an echo chamber. That requires a lot of situational judgment. There's no simple algorithm, and I appreciate that Meave had to make a fast judgment - the problem with trolls is that they (by design) suck all the oxygen out of the room very quickly.

In retrospect, though, speaking in my capacity as armchair quarterback, and having learned they were Mark's students, I probably would have given them a little more leeway. They were passionate followers of the ToB, they probably weren't trying to disrupt things, just join the fun. But then, I'm not on twitter, so I'm not aware of how much The Matrix may have been co-opted by bad actors, and how much they knew they were amplifying the Tate brothers. It sounded to me like they intended a different context - but I am not be the best judge of that.

Tim wrote: "Juliana wrote: "I understood the impulse to not want those references in this corner of the internet I value, and appreciate how much work moderating must be...
Risa wrote: "I’m of the teach-not-bl..."

Yes - I intended the "teach-not-block" approach for the students, whose youthful enthusiasm I'd cut slack.

I haven't been participating in ToB for nearly as long as the veterans among us, so I don't have the historical view that would enable me to calibrate whether this year's comments were more or more frequently "over the line" than the norm. I personally didn't see any that I'd block, but perhaps that is because those comments had already been blocked by the time I got to the site that particular day.

In general, I err on the side of giving wide berth because the passionate discourse between and among the members of the Commentariat is a good part of what makes it appealing. That said, I do occasionally have post-hoc regret over my own personal lapses into sarcasm, and I am trying to rein that in a bit more in favor of a more gracious tone. The line between wit and churlishness can sometimes get tricky in the heat of the post-judgment moment, and I am personally trying harder to navigate that balance in a way that I can feel better about in the morning. :-)

Risa wrote: "That said, I do occasionally have post-hoc regret over my own personal lapses into sarcasm, and I am trying to rein that in a bit more in favor of a more gracious tone. ..."

That's exactly what worries me. I think it is fine to be sarcastic or to have a, let's call it "lively" tone to the discussion. I don't want our moderator to be having a chilling effect on that. But I do want her to squash the trolls like a bug.

The goal of the moderator should be to block the bad actors, not to temper our enthusiasm.

FYI the Books Are Magic discussion has been posted: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G73bm...

From LitHub:

Today, the PEN/Faulkner Foundation has announced the winner of the 2023 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: Yiyun Li’s The Book of Goose (FSG).

The Book of Goose was chosen by a panel of judges (Christopher Bollen, R.O. Kwon, and Tiphanie Yanique) from 512 eligible novels and short story collections written by American authors and published in the US in 2022. “Yiyun Li’s The Book of Goose is a dazzling, conventions-defying, nuanced novel,” said this year’s judges in a statement. “It’s a tale of a complicated friendship, of two girls bending toward and away from each other. The prose is singular; the central characters, Agnès and Fabienne, haunted us with their radical ingenuity and bold, unruly ambitions. We kept finding that we wanted to press this book on others. It is an honor to give Yiyun Li the 2023 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.”

“I am deeply honored, thrilled, and grateful for this award,” said Li in a statement. “Writing a novel is like sending a message in a bottle to the unknown. To receive this recognition is a heartwarming confirmation that someone has found the bottle and read the message. My deepest gratitude to the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, to the judges, and to my fellow finalists: it’s always a good day when people read literature with care and thoughtfulness.”

Thank you for posting that, Tim. Well done by that judging panel. I heartily agree!