Comments on: Literary Feuds

By: Audria Launiere

Audria Launiere — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 09:31:08 +0000

Good info. I used to spend alot of my time water skiing and playing sports. It was probably the most memorable sequence of my life and your post somehow brought back me of that time. Thank You

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 17:59:28 +0000

I love Julie Burchill. Despite what Camille Paglia thinks, I had heard of and read Julie Burchill.

By: Jenny Dunville

Jenny Dunville — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 16:01:31 +0000

And I just love it that you chose the Goya image for this entry. He was unafraid to visually tackle any emotion/experience.

By: Sister Wolf

Sister Wolf — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 08:34:15 +0000

Denise – xo

Make Do – I guess Team Hooker is too busy for a war of words. Sad.

David – Thanks, LOVE it.

Ann – Oh god, I love you too much to even think of it!!! Staaahp, Bethany!

Miss Cavendish – Hahahha! Julie really delivered, didn’t she?

enna – a great one. I’m with team Fitzgerald.

Eliza – OOOH, I didn’t know about this one, thanks!

Kate – Brilliant summation, so true. Camille is a lunatic.

Alicia – I think someone got trampled once at a Harrods sale.

By: Alicia

Alicia — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 05:34:39 +0000

@kate physical violence for the fashion obsessed is definitely the rule in real life. I’ve seen it. Women fighting over shoes and dresses…the shit is vicious.

By: kate

kate — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 23:48:08 +0000

Fashion is too full of idiots for a proper feud–all fashion lovers are willfully idiotic when interacting with their obsession, even when theorizing, talking business, arguing the socioeconomic significance of shifting hemlines. Something about fashion love does seem conducive to a more physical violence, though, but who will ever know if we all continue to compartmentalize behind computer screens.

FUCK Paglia…for real…that woe-man is a smarmy snoozefest who thinks a stray ball-scratching in the 1980s is the apex of the Greek spirit of democracy, fraternity, and drama. What a sub-Nietzschean sellout. There’s no better way to roundly defeat that dreaded popular feminism than to fashion yourself into a Penis Envy Envoy whose every word rolls from a Viagra-sponsored megaphone to the tuneless tune of “cas-tra-tion anxi-ety,” taking ivory tower to its Freduian extremes and then claiming to be “of the people.” Julie Burchill may be a vulgar indulger as well, but at least she wasn’t so obliviously dualistic. Hell, I’m surprised Paglia didn’t challenge her to a duel (no fencing outfit, just standard black turtleneck and hairgel)…seeing as she so believed in male virtue and valor.

And Vidal is the glorious cunt that Paglia always wanted to be, but she was never half the woman as he.

By: Eliza

Eliza — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:37:05 +0000

In my experience gender-baiting is taken seriously and not worth the cheap laughs, even over the internet.

I’ve enjoyed the fighting between Jonathan Franzen and Ben Marcus because you’re never too pretentious to call someone a cocksucker.

By: enna.

enna. — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:09:48 +0000

My personal favorite literary feud is the one between Hemingway and Fitzgerald. So delicious!

By: Miss Cavendish

Miss Cavendish — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 18:48:28 +0000

That was a hilarious fax feud. I’ve had misgivings about Camille Paglia since the cover of her Sexual Personae was modeled after her own image–the half Nefertiti/half Emily Dickinson boasted Pagila’s archly raised eyebrow. And why am I not surprised to see Toby Young in the middle of this? Thanks for the humour.

By: Ann

Ann — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:27:21 +0000

How was I unaware until now of the feud between Camille Paglia and Julie Burchill?! What a delightful discovery!

And you couldn’t pay me enough money to initiate or contribute to any sort of feud with you. And it’s not only because I love you, either. It’s also that I’m not a fan of being eviscerated in a public forum and I know damn well I couldn’t hang.