Ars Technica reviews Digital Barbarism by Mark Helprin
In a way, we have already given copyright zealot Mark Helprin’s anti-public-domain screeds far more press than they deserve—we covered his New York Times column here, reviews of his book Digital Barbarism here and here, and even his website here. But Helprin’s book is so over the top in its extremism that it carries the same sort of appeal as a bad train wreck: although you really really want to, you just can’t look away.
And so we turn to the review of Digital Barbarism that Ars Technica’s Nate Anderson has just turned in. It is clear from the very first line (“Some books beg to be read; others beg you to stop reading them”) which way this review is going to go, and it goes there with gusto.
I don’t have a lot new to say about this subject—it has all been said already in the links from the first paragraph. But Anderson’s review is just as enjoyable in its way as anything Mystery Science Theater ever did to an Ed Wood movie, and I highly recommend checking it out.
August 6th, 2009 at 12:10 am
Helprin’s novels A Winter’s Tale and A Soldier of the Great War were wonderful… But then something seems to have broken. Freddy and Frederica was one of the worst books I’ve ever read. It’s like his descriptive powers and witty wordplay have come uncoupled from any actual meaning. Basically, total shite.