About Rohan
Rohan Maitzen is an Associate Professor in the English Department at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her main teaching and research interests are the Victorian novel, gender and historiography, and ethical criticism. Her academic career is mostly an excuse to keep rereading Middlemarch.
Email Address: Rohan.Maitzen@Dal.Ca
Website: http://maitzenreads.blogspot.com
Posts by Rohan
Monday, August 11, 2008
Adam Bede: Conclusions?
This is the final installment of our Adam Bede reading project. In case anyone is inspired to go back and read through the posts and comments in sequence, here they are:
June 16: Chapters I-V
June 23: Chapters VI-XI
July 1: Chapters XII-XVI
July 8: Chapters XVII-XXI
July 15: Chapters XXII-XXVI
July 22: Chapters XXVII-XXXV
July 29: Chapters XXXVI-XLVIII
August 5: The Whole Novel
Was Adam Bede the best choice for a project like this? I don’t know, but clearly some people enjoyed it, or at least persevered with it, and probably we all know things we didn’t know before, whether about George Eliot, Dutch painting, fanfic, or just ourselves as readers. I don’t have any sense of how many people were reading along but not commenting. If there are any of you still lurking out there, I hope you’ll take this opportunity to say a few words about you and your experience of reading Adam Bede this summer. I’m sure the people who have been commenting all along don’t need any special prompting from me to add their own last words!
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Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Summer Reading Project: Adam Bede (Book VI & Epilogue)
And so we reach our final installment. As usual, George Eliot is one step ahead of us: “But no story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather, we who read it are no longer the same interpreters.” There are, perhaps, no real surprises in the basic plot: ever since her telling blush in Chapter XI, we’ve known about Dinah’s suppressed passion for Adam, and it seemed only a matter of time before he learned to love a less kittenish model. His revelation is a bit sudden as a personal matter, I thought, but as a matter of plot and theme, it seems inevitable. What about Dinah’s initial reluctance to give in to their love? And what about Lisbeth’s role as go-between? Also of interest, among other things, are Dinah’s giving up preaching, Hetty’s death, and Arthur’s return from the wars. The final scene mimics very closely the ‘waiting for father to come home’ sequence from the first part of the novel; as has come up a few times in our discussion, the structure of the book seems cyclical or circular, and yet isn’t it also moving forward, towards a new kind of “Victorian” domesticity, for instance? These and any other points of interest are open for your comments! And congratulations, by the way, to all of us who persevered to the end, with both reading and posting.
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Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Summer Reading Project: Adam Bede (Chapters 36-48)
This week’s installment of our summer reading project brings us to the emotional and moral climax of Adam Bede. This is a section full of pathos, suspense, and melodrama as we follow Hetty on her journeys in hope and despair, as we see the painful process by which Adam and our other friends at Hayslope are brought into knowledge and suffering by “the terrible illumination which the present sheds back upon the past,” and as we go with Dinah into Hetty’s dark cell. How far do the lessons we have been offered about sympathy and forgiveness move us past the horror of this moment:
‘I hadn’t got far out of the road into one of the open places, before I heard a strange cry. I thought it didn’t come from any animal I knew, but I wasn’t for stopping to look about just then. But it went on, and seemed so strange to me in that place, I couldn’t help stopping to look. . . . And I looked about among them, but could find nothing; and at last the cry stopped. So I was for giving it up, and I went on about my business. But when I came back the same way pretty nigh an hour after, I couldn’t help laying down my stakes to have another look. And just as I was stooping and laying down the stakes, I saw something odd and round and whitish lying on the ground under a nut-bush by the side of me. And I stooped down on hands and knees to pick it up. And I saw it was a little baby’s hand.’
How far, also, is the dramatic turn of events at the end of Chapter XLVII a break from the novel’s program of realism? I’m also interested in Bartle Massey’s role in this section as well as Mr. Irwine’s, and in the structural symmetries of many of the scenes here to earlier ones. As always, everyone is welcome to pitch in on these or any other topics.
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Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Summer Reading Project: Adam Bede (Chapters 27-35)
First, in the serendipity category, today’s “Review-a-Day” from Powell’s is the Atlantic Monthly on George Eliot’s first published fiction, Scenes of Clerical Life:
Fiction represents the character of the age to which it belongs, not merely by actual delineations of its times, like those of Tom Jones and The Newcomes, but also in an indirect, though scarcely less positive manner, by its exhibition of the influence of the times upon its own form and general direction, whatever the scene or period it may have chosen for itself. The story of “Hypatia” is laid in Alexandria almost two thousand years ago, but the book reflects the crudities of modern English thought; and even Mr. Thackeray, the greatest living master of costume, succeeds in making his Esmond only a joint-production of the Addisonian age and our own. Thus the novels of the last few years exhibit very clearly the spirit that characterizes the period of regard for men and women as men and women, without reference to rank, beauty, fortune, or privilege. Novelists recognize that Nature is a better romance-maker than the fancy, and the public is learning that men and women are better than heroes and heroines, not only to live with, but also to read of. Now and then, therefore, we get a novel, like these Scenes of Clerical Life, in which the fictitious element is securely based upon a broad groundwork of actual truth, truth as well in detail as in general.
It is not often, however, even yet, that we find a writer wholly unembarrassed by and in revolt against the old theory of the necessity of perfection in some one at least of the characters of his story. “Neither Luther nor John Bunyan,” says the author of this book, “would have satisfied the modern demand for an ideal hero, who believes nothing but what is true, feels nothing but what is excellent, and does nothing but what is graceful.”
The Atlantic Monthly’s review of Adam Bede was actually featured not that long ago:
We do not know where to look, in the whole range of contemporary fictitious literature, for pictures in which the sober and the brilliant tones of Nature blend with more exquisite harmony than in those which are set in every chapter of Adam Bede. Still life—the harvest-field, the polished kitchens, the dairies with a concentrated cool smell of all that is nourishing and sweet, the green, the porches that have vines about them and are pleasant late in the afternoon, and deep woods thrilling with birds—all these were never more vividly, and yet tenderly depicted. The characters are drawn with a free and impartial hand, and one of them is a creation for immortality. Mrs. Poyser is a woman with an incorrigible tongue, set firmly in opposition to the mandates of a heart the overflows of whose sympathy and love keep the circle of her influence in a state of continual irrigation. Her epigrams are aromatic, and she is strong in simile, but never ventures beyond her own depth into that of her author.
That brings us to today’s installment, which includes the immortal Mrs. Poyser having “her say out”:
“Yis, I know I’ve done it,” said Mrs Poyser, “but I’ve had my say out, and I shall be th’ easier for ‘t all my life. There’s no pleasure i’ living, if you’re to be corked up for iver, and only dribble your mind out by the sly, like a leaky barrel."
To which any one of us who has ever been accused of speaking out of turn (or just speaking too much) can say a hearty “hear, hear!”
Now, too, we’ve reached, not the crisis of the book, but a crisis at least, as Arthur’s guilty secret comes out and he and Adam face off “with the instinctive fierceness of panthers.”
One of the most compelling aspects of this volume for me is Arthur’s growing realization of one of GE’s most stringent moral laws--you cannot escape your deeds:
Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds; and until we know what has been or will be the peculiar combination of outward with inward facts, which constitutes a man’s critical actions, it will be better not to think ourselves wise about his character. There is a terrible coercion in our deeds which may first turn the honest man into a deceiver, and then reconcile him to the change; for this reason--that the second wrong presents itself to him in the guise of the only practicable right. . . . Europe adjusts itself to a fait accompli, and so does an individual character,--until the placid adjustment is disturbed by a convulsive retribution.
She returns to the fatality of action in Romola--
Our deeds are like children that are born to us; they live and act apart from our own will. Nay, children may be strangled, but deeds never: they have an indestructible life both in and out of our consciousness.
and again in Middlemarch--
1st Gent. Our deeds are fetters that we forge ourselves.
2nd Gent. Ay, truly, but I think it is the world
That brings the iron.
How often, in George Eliot’s fiction, do past deeds return to haunt, confound, or indict those who seek to leave their pasts behind?
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Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Summer Reading Project: Adam Bede (Chapters 22-26)
This week’s installment of Adam Bede brings us to the birthday feast for Arthur Donnithorne, the ‘young squire,’ complete with speeches, drinking, and, of course, dancing:
Pity it was not a boarded floor! Then the rhythmic stamping of the thick shoes would have been better than any drums. That merry stamping, that gracious nodding of the head, that waving bestowal of the hand--where can we see them now? That simple dancing of well covered matrons, laying aside for an hour the cares of house and dairy, remembering but not affecting youth, not jealous but proud of the young maidens by their side--that holiday sprightliness of portly husbands paying little compliments to their wives, as if their courting days were come again--those lads and lasses a little confused and awkward with their partners, having nothing to say--it would be a pleasant variety to see all that sometimes, instead of low dresses and large skirts, and scanning glances exploring costumes, and languid men in lackered boots smiling with double meaning.
Wiry Ben’s hornpipe deserves notice as well:
Have you ever seen a real English rustic perform a solo dance? Perhaps you have only seen a ballet rustic, smiling like a merry countryman in crockery, with graceful turns of the haunch and insinuating movements of the head. That is as much like the real thing as the ‘Bird Waltz’ is like the song of birds. Wiry Ben never smiled: he looked as serious as a dancing monkey--as serious as if he had been an experimental philosopher ascertaining in his own person the amount of shaking and the varieties of angularity that could be given to the human limbs.
I wonder: can we take the varied reactions to Wiry Ben’s performance as indicative of some of the larger historical currents running through the feast more generally and through the novel as a whole? Most of his audience responds with “abundant laughter”; Mrs Poyser remarks that “the gentry” are “fit to die wi’ laughing,” while Arthur attempts to compensate by clapping and cheering. Only Martin Poyser sincerely appreciates his dancing: “I used to be a pretty good un at dancing myself when I was lighter, but I could niver ha’ hit it just to th’hair like that.” The whole birthday sequence seems to me to hum with tension between nostalgia and a Scott-like sense of the inevitability of historical change, between continuity and transformation, between sentiment and irony. At the center of it, of course, is Arthur himself: his consciousness of wrongdoing (and our knowledge of it) is rot at the heart of the community. Even without noticing that the first chapter in next week’s installment is called “A Crisis,” we can’t simply enjoy the party because we know too much.
As far as I can tell, there are about 7 stalwart souls who are both reading and commenting. If there are more of you out there reading along, please feel free to add your thoughts, questions, insights, curiosities, objections, perplexities, or anything else to the discussion. The more the merrier!
To review the overall plan and schedule, see here. Previous discussions have covered Chapters 1-5, Chapters 6-11, Chapters 12-16, and Chapters 17-21.
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Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Summer Reading Project: Adam Bede (Chapters 17-21)
Comments are now invited on this week’s installment of Adam Bede. Finally--the famous (infamous?) Chapter 17:
All honour and reverence to the divine beauty of form! Let us cultivate it to the utmost in men, women, and children--in our gardens and in our houses. But let us love that other beauty too, which lies in no secret of proportion, but in the secret of deep human sympathy.... [D]o not impose on us any aesthetic rules which shall banish from the region of Art those old women scraping carrots with their work-worn hands, those heavy clowns taking holiday in a dingy pot-house, those rounded backs and stupid weather-beaten faces that have bent over the spade and done the rough work of the world--those homes with their tin pans, their brown pitchers, their rough curs, and their clusters of onions. In this world there are so many of these common, coarse people, who have no picturesque, sentimental wretchedness! It is no needful we should remember their existence, else we may happen to leave them quite out of our religion and philosophy, and frame lofty theories which only fit a world of extremes. Therefore let Art always remind us of them; therefore let us always have men ready to give the loving pains of a life to the faithful representing of commonplace things....
Also, Hetty goes to church, Adam goes to work, and Bartle Massey has been “such a fool as to let a woman into his house,” but he makes up for it by swearing and snarling at her.
Now may be a good time to take stock. Are you finding the installments reasonable, too short, too long? Are people happy to continue with the open-ended structure of the discussion? If not, are there specific alternatives people would like, such as focused discussion questions or topics, critical comments or posts to respond to, or something else? If you are reading along but have not posted a comment so far, can you suggest anything that would increase your willingness to go public? As I’ve said before, I don’t believe blogging is at its best as a spectator sport. Come on in--the water’s fine! And people are being good about respecting Rule 3 ("It’s summer; let’s have fun and not be snarky.")
To review the original plan and schedule of readings, see here. Previous discussions have covered Chapters 1-5, Chapters 6-11, and Chapters 12-16.
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Sunday, July 06, 2008
Best Canadian …
(cross-posted to Novel Readings)
There has been a lot of CanCon around this week, what with the holiday formerly known as ’Dominion Day‘ and all.* So, for instance, the Globe and Mail ran a story about revising the canon of great Canadian novels.
Thirty years ago dozens of scholars, critics, authors and publishing types gathered for four days in Calgary for what was billed as the National Conference on the Canadian Novel. Organized by the University of Calgary in association with publisher McClelland & Stewart and Dalhousie English professor Malcolm Ross, the conference, a raucous and controversial affair, became famous for two things. The first was the publication of the results of a ballot mailed earlier to participants in which they were invited to choose “the most important 100 works of Canadian fiction” according to three categories: “major,” “significant” and “secondary importance.” The second entailed the selection of “the 10 best Canadian novels yet written.” Critics decried (and continue to decry) its attempt to create a literary consensus as both a misguided nationalist holdover from the 19th century and a rank marketing/promotion stunt on behalf of M & S’s New Canadian Library, which Ross founded in 1958 and which, at the time of the Calgary conference, had more than 150 “classics” in print as paperbacks. (Ross later described Calgary as “the most painful experience” of his career.) The NCL still exists, winnowed down now to 110 titles. However, while the notion of “literary excellence” continues to hold sway, notions of a fixed canon or canons, of “shared literary values,” are pretty much in tatters. Even in 1978, as one participant in the Calgary conference observed, “we know that literary reputations are not built and perpetuated by any lists."
Still, lists are fun. Or they can be, if undertaken in a spirit of play and gamesmanship.
And so, with this in mind, The Globe and Mail thought it might be, well, fun, or at least interesting, 30 years on from the Calgary conference, 50 after the creation of the NCL, to come up with a new Cancon semi-canon - or should that be Can-on? - for the first decade of the 21st century.
My colleague Dean Irvine was among those consulted, and there has since been some spirited discussion on our DalNews site, with lots of further nominations.
I’m not about to volunteer a competing list--first, because I’m not nearly as well-informed or up-to-date about Canadian fiction as any of those called on, and second because, like them, I find the process of canon-formation more interesting than the end result in any case (there’s nothing like having to choose between unlike alternatives to focus the mind). Still, as some evidence of my citizenship, I’m pleased to say that I could name a handful of Canadian novels I particularly like that I didn’t spot on anyone else’s list (though I wouldn’t necessarily make a pitch for any of them as one of the 10 best):
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Friday, July 04, 2008
I’m sure The Valve was 101st on the List…
...of “The Top 100 Liberal Arts Professor Blogs“:
Academics are flocking to the Internet like never before, particularly to start a blog. Faculty members in colleges across the world are connecting with people on a whole new level. Let’s face it – academia can actually be very lonely at times. Not only can a blog be cathartic for professors, it can allow for valuable feedback from students and/or colleagues.
Liberal arts subjects are wildly varied. From art to science, the major disciplines have long been considered part of the liberal arts. Below are 100 of the most interesting and popular blogs written by liberal arts professors.
Congratulations to Valve authors Amardeep, Miriam, and Marc who are deservedly among those recognized for outstanding contributions to the academicoblogosphere. And, of course, thanks to all of the bloggers here and everywhere who are helping us overcome our loneliness.
(Link from BooksInq)
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Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Summer Reading Project: Adam Bede (Chapters 12-16)
Happy Canada Day! I hope you’ll all raise a cold one in honour of the occasion--and none of that watery American stuff…
Now, on to our real business: this week’s installment of Adam Bede. (If you need to review the overall plan and reading schedule, see here; for the previous discussions, which have been varied and interesting, see here and here. If you haven’t been reading along with us so far, it’s not too late to join in: by 19th-century-novel standards, we’re not that far along (less than 200 pages, in my Oxford edition). This week’s teasers:
1. What is “the correlation between eyelashes and morals”?
2. How is “our mental business” like “the business of the State”?
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Monday, June 23, 2008
Summer Reading Project (Chapters 6-11)
Finally, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: time to talk about Hetty! That’s right, it’s Week 2 of our Adam Bede reading project. (To review the general plan and reading schedule, look here; check out the comments on last week’s installment here.) Here’s a teaser, for those of you who have not caught the Bede bug yet:
There are various orders of beauty, causing men to make fools of themselves in various styles, from the desperate to the sheepish; but there is one order of beauty which seems made to turn the heads not only of men, but of all intelligent mammals, even of women. It is a beauty like that of kittens, or very small downy ducks making gentle rippling noises with their soft bills, or babies just beginning to toddle and to engage in conscious mischief--a beauty with which you can never be angry, but that you feel ready to crush for inability to comprehend the state of mind into which it throws you. Hetty Sorrel’s was that sort of beauty. . . .
And here’s some wisdom from Mrs Poyser:
“Ah, it’s all very fine having a ready-made rich man, but may-happen he’ll be a ready-made fool; and it’s no use filling your pocket full o’ money if you’ve got a hole in the corner. It’ll do you no good to sit in a spring-cart o’ your own, if you’ve got a soft to drive you; he’ll soon turn you over into the ditch. I allays said I’d never marry a man as had got no brains; for where’s the use of a woman having brains of her own if she’s tackled to a geck as everybody’s a-laughing at? She might as well dress herself fine to sit back’ards on a donkey."
Indeed.
How will the “struggle between arithmetic and inclination” turn out? And why does Dinah blush? Read along with us and find out. Everyone’s observations, interpretations, queries, and curiosities are welcome.
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Monday, June 16, 2008
Summer Reading Project: Adam Bede (Chapters I-V)
Welcome to the inaugural post of our Adam Bede summer reading project. The plan is to work our way through the novel in instalments; see here for the preliminary schedule. At each deadline, I’ll put up a basic post inviting comments. For June 17, we were to read at least the first five chapters. I look forward to seeing your comments, questions, critiques, objections, and appreciations. The only guidelines I’d like to propose are the following (though I’m in no position to enforce them and not inclined to police them):
1. Let’s be cautious about “spoilers.” Some of us have read the novel before, or have read enough about it to know the story. Others are new to it. I’ve found that opinions are often divided on the issue of “spoiler alerts.” Personally, I think it’s nice to allow other readers to enjoy suspense and surprises, especially in a long book when curiosity about what happens next can be both pleasurable and motivating. Others see little or no value in such deference to plot, or argue for the interpretive benefits of knowing key developments ahead of time. Perhaps we can compromise by alluding to events beyond the ‘assigned’ material obliquely or elliptically, if the occasion arises.
2. By all means let’s bring in critical or contextual knowledge from “outside” the novel if we think it bears interestingly on our reading. But let’s avoid doing so in a way that shuts down discussion--by, for instance, implying that everything we might think of to talk about here has already been said, and better, by others--or that we can’t talk intelligently about this book unless we’ve read 86 others.
3. It’s summer: let’s have fun and not be snarky.
Though I won’t usually do this kind of thing in my initial posts, I thought that this time I would provide one additional bit of contextual material myself right up front. In 1856, just before she turned her hand to fiction, Marian Evans published two (now famous) essays in the Westminster Review that (though ostensibly reviews of other people’s books) were manifestos for what would become her own brand of moral and aesthetic realism: “Silly Novels by Lady Novelists” and “The Natural History of German Life.” The latter is most obviously relevant to Adam Bede, and so, by way of an overture to the novel, here’s an excerpt:
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Friday, June 13, 2008
Summer Reading Project: ABD
Rich put this in the comments thread below the announcement of our summer reading project; I think it’s too good to stay buried down there.
From Book One, Chapter 1 of ABD:
The concert of the key presses and the low mumbling of voices was at last broken by Seth, who, saving the file on which he had been working intently, placed it in his My Documents directory, and said, “There! I’ve finished my dissertation today, anyhow.”
The grad students all looked up, and Adam said to Seth, with a sharp look of surprise, “What! Dos’t think thee’st finished?” Seth waited interminably for Microsoft Word to reopen the file. “What’s a’wanting to it?” Seth said with answering surprise tempered by dread. A loud roar of laughter went up from the other onlooking students. Adam, smiling slightly, had to break it to him, “Why, thee’st forgot the footnotes.”
The laughter broke out afresh as Seth contemplated another year or two of documenting his sources. The others turned back to their grinding labor, but one of them, Weirdy Ben, was bent on making sport of Seth, enlivening the drudgery of his own years with success in nitpicking.
“Why, ‘tis an important comma, that one!” cried Weirdy Ben. “Is it part of the text or ‘tisn’t it?”
“Nonsense!” said Adam. “Let it alone, Ben. Some text hai’ it, some don’t, and if they don’t, it was likely a slip ‘o the pen or ‘o the printer to begin with.”
Ben, however, had now got the “red light” in his eye, and was seized by unholy inspiration. “It’s the Mark of PKD!” he declared. “Why, that comma changes the way we’d read the whole book. Is this a writer hu’d skip a splice for effect, or not?”
“‘’Tis anachronistic rot-” Adam said firmly, striding up to seize Ben.
“But it changes how we read the text!” raved Ben. “Did you know there’s a whole book of fanfic that uses PKD as a character, written after his death?”
“Let it alone, will you?” said Adam sternly, shaking Ben by the shoulder. “Let it alone, or it’ll shake the wits out of your body.”
[to be, hopefully, not continued]
Bill responded, “I’m waiting for the part where Adam goes to hear the Theory Lady give a lecture.” Me too.
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Monday, June 09, 2008
Summer Reading Project: Adam Bede
The book:
Adam Bede was George Eliot’s first full-length novel. It was published pseudonymously in 1859.
The plan:
As many people as are interested will read Adam Bede. We can start with the instalment plan proposed below, which begins with about 50-60 pages a week and builds up a bit as things in the novel get more exciting. The idea is to complete the specified chapters by the date given. If it’s too fast or too slow, we can change it. Each week a simple message will be posted here at The Valve inviting discussion of the reading so far. Everyone is welcome to contribute. People who have their own blogs can post there and provide excerpts and/or links over here if they want. If this approach proves too open-ended and those involved would like more structure (e.g. posts to respond to, or questions to initiate discussion), we can consider how best to do that. Initially, though, let’s just see what people want to talk about. Lurkers especially welcome! Blogging is not meant to be a spectator sport.
Proposed Schedule:
By the given date, we’ll aim to have read at least the chapters specified.
June 17 Book 1 Chapters 1-5
June 24 Book I Chapters 6-11
July 1 Book I Chapters 12-16
July 8 Book II (Chapters 17-21)
July 15 Book III (Chapters 22-26)
July 22 Book IV (Chapters 27-35)
July 29 Book V (Chapters 36-48)
August 5 Book VI and Epilogue
August 12 General Discussion
Some related links are provided below the fold.
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Thursday, June 05, 2008
Summer Book Club?
In the comments to Adam’s recent post about A Portrait of a Lady, Rich remarked, “After our long discussion of evaluative criticism, it’s good to see some that focuses on what works and what doesn’t.” I agreed, and I wondered if there was any appetite to engage collectively in something similar--that is, to pick a literary text and read it together (evaluatively or otherwise). A lot of the discussion here is meta-critical and professional; I’m curious what would happen if we tried a group read of a primary text. Some time ago, Amardeep had mentioned to me his interest in doing something along these lines, perhaps of a lesser-known 19th-century novel. Adam wonders about some other James novels. I seem also to recall some people here proposing a Sebald event. Any of these ideas is appealing to me, but if people have other proposals, that’s good too. Any interest? Any suggestions? We could take Marc Bousquet up on his “fighting words“ and read Green Grass, Running Water, if others besides me haven’t read it and are intrigued by his high praise…
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Sunday, June 01, 2008
More on Evaluative Criticism
Those who followed the discussion sparked by Bill Benzon’s recent post on David Bordwell, much of which focused on the role of evaluation in criticism, may be interested in Ronan McDonald’s recent contributions to Nigel Beale’s blog Nota Bene Books. McDonald is the author of The Death of the Critic, one of the central claims of which is that “If criticism is to be valued, if it is to reach a wide public, it needs to be evaluative” (149). This is the book at the center of the recent Salon piece on the death of criticism, also noted by Bill here (and by me here). McDonald sent some responses to Nigel’s review of his book, and Nigel offered to post some of the questions I had raised in my own earlier discussion of the book as well. McDonald has since posted a response to those. (I think the very possibility of these direct exchanges exemplifies the immediacy and energy blogging can bring to criticism.)
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