Very Ouch

And you thought your TF was harsh.

In a New York Times article published last month, Briggs-Copeland Lecturer in Nonfiction Sven Birkerts was deemed “the worst writer of his generation.”

The piece, written by journalist Greil Marcus, lambastes Birkerts in a recent review of essays.

“Perhaps [Marcus] views himself as the presiding eminence and guardian of the hipster 60s,” retorts Birkerts. That would explain the journalist’s “obviously bitchy” remarks says the maligned scholar.

Marcus quotes a line from Birkerts’ essay, which asks, “Can I possibly convey how those words moved in me, how that cadence undid in a minute’s time whatever prior cadences had been voice-tracking my life?” The critic answers “No...he can’t.”

He continues by attacking Birkerts’s phrase “the moment of Shakespearean ripeness,” which Marcus alleges is Birkerts’ crass plot to remind his readers that “he knows Shakespeare.”

A current student of Birkerts’s—who prefers to remain anonymous—says his teacher “is such a nice guy...really chill,” and was “surprised” to read such a vehement attack on Birkerts.

Birkerts hasn’t planned any retributive acts thus far. He tends to shy away from “Tarantino-criticisms”—all effect and high body count.