A Rather Nasty, Truculent, Aggressive Edge

The Q&A of the day comes from Isaac Chotiner’s interview of Ian McEwan in the New Republic:

Chotiner: Do you read any online reviews?

McEwan: I don’t read the blogs much. I don’t like the tone-the rather in-your-face road-rage quality of a lot of exchange on the Internet. I don’t like the threads that come out of any given piece of journalism. It seems that when people know they can’t be held accountable, when they don’t have eye contact, it seems to bring out a rather nasty, truculent, aggressive edge that I think slightly doesn’t belong in the world of book reviewing.

This is true of much more than online book reviewing, of course.

(Link via, again, PrufrockTwo.)