As we navigate through the vast world of writing, one thing that most of us can unanimously agree on is our mutual discomfort towards the unrelenting thirst for another post about cancel culture or wokeness. Yet, the culture war still dominates the literary domain, and ubiquitously takes over the narrative. However, amidst the chaos, a thousand Substacks bloom with writers being paid directly by their readers. Cheers to them, but let’s be honest, some of them are just mediocre. The absence of an editor can be detrimental to the quality of the literary landscape, and this is where Bookforum had a pivotal role to play.
Recently, Bookforum, a scrappy quarterly magazine gained quite a reputation being an antidote to the culture war and salvaging the lost standards of intellectual discourse. However, it was shut down in December 2020, leaving many of us in a state of shock. Losing Bookforum was like losing a childhood home. Launched in 1994 as a modest literary supplement to Artforum, it took on a life of its own. But when it wasn’t part of the deal when Artforum was sold to Penske Media Corp, Bookforum went up in flames, and its staff went out of their jobs.
What made Bookforum so special? Their editors were wizard-like talent spotters who gave many new writers their first shot at ambitious long-form criticism. The magazine was not limited to literature, but it delved into art, cinema, music, philosophy, politics, technology, history, food, sports, and fashion. It even had a column dedicated to bestsellers, which is quite a daring move, as most critics avoid writing about the same. Their downtown sensibility made them an international magazine that was not afraid to take editorial risks. Overall, Bookforum was a pleasure to read.
Critics are obligated to be fair, but there is no duty to be polite. Bookforum always resisted the baleful literary trends of the past decade. The first of these trends is the frenzied literary consumerism that eschews reviews in favor of book recommendations, author Q&As, puff-piece profiles, and other forms of higher publicity. It requires minimal intellectual engagement and costs less than hiring critics. It imagines readers as mere shoppers. Bookforum was different, and we salute them for it.
Literary culture including criticism, is perpetually in a state of crisis. In Hardwick’s seminal 1959 essay “The Decline of Book Reviewing,” she wrote about the disillusionment with book review sections of the New York Times and the Herald Tribune stating that “The value and importance of individual books are dizzily inflated, in keeping with the American mood at the moment, but the book-review sections as a cultural enterprise are, like a pocket of unemployment, in a state of baneful depression insofar as liveliness and interest are concerned.” The problem with book reviews is not that they are boring or bad but that they disappeared, especially from newspapers. Which is sad. Thank you, The Post, for reviving The Book World.
Although American newspapers have been capitalist enterprises with potential for enormous profits, this is not the case for the little magazines. These publications have been dependent on wealthy individual backers and are subject to their whims and/or the limits of their life spans. This is where n+1, Drift, and Forever come into the picture. These magazines are funded by a variety of donors, have an editorial collective, and are entirely literary, with a keen eye for discovering new writers. Although some magazines take refuge in academic settings, even these arrangements are precarious.
Americans have always been subjected to the tyranny of publicity. Recently it has felt as though we are living through an age of publicity about publicity. A fawning profile in the New York Times of Jenna Bush Hager, which was titled “Jenna Bush Hager, Progeny of Presidents, Is Now a Publishing Kingmaker.” This profile exposed the overlap between the audiences of Bookforum and the “Today” show, where Hager is a cohost and “TV book club” convener. However, the proximity of these media events set my mind on a dystopian path. I started imagining a future where all the cultural, political, and intellectual publications had disappeared. The only cultural discourse left was dominated by the progeny of celebrities. It was a world where the purpose of literature was to warm the heart. Although you could ignore the likes of Hager’s book club when literary culture is robust, when the institutions start to wobble, one begins to imagine a future of sheer bewilderment.
We live in an era of cultural disintegration, beset by cultural artifacts that are bite-size, superficial, and even artificial. What we need more than ever are the intelligence, verve, and criticality of a well-edited little magazine. Bookforum is now dead, but we hope that soon we will see its reincarnation. Long live Bookforum!
Serious News: washingtonpost
