Jessie Tu and the Fashionably Regressive Approach to Reading
6th November 2021
Any person who produces art or literature, or who offers up anything at all for public consumption, must have a thick skin. Harsh reviews are as much a part of the writing life as days in front of a blank screen. But Jessie Tu’s recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald about Irish novelist Sally Rooney strikes a nastier tone than most scathing book reviews manage. It is symptomatic of an increasingly prevalent trend in literature, according to which the identity of the writer is more important than the words on the page. If your reaction is to scoff and retort that this is exactly what happened when white men dominated publishing, well okay. But that injustice is simply being re-rehearsed in reverse—this time, the wolf preens in progressive sheep’s clothing, masquerading as virtuous while advocating a heavily regressive approach to reading.