“Today, however, being chained to the desk, as the expression goes, is no longer a guarantee of productivity. Who can stick with the blank page when the click of a mouse opens up a cocktail party of chattering friends, a world-class library, an endless shopping mall, a game center, a music festival and even a multiplex? At once-remote literary colonies, writers can now be spotted wandering the fields with their smartphones, searching for reception so they can shoot off a quick Facebook update. These days, Walden Pond would have Wi-Fi, and Thoreau might spend his days watching cute wildlife videos on YouTube. And God knows what X-rated Web sites the Marquis de Sade would have unearthed.”
—Tony Perrottet’s essay, “Why Writers Belong Behind Bars,“ on the Marquis de Sade’s prolific prison writing and how today’s technology distracts writers from writing at The New York Times.
One response
I appreciate the sentiments about digital distraction and writers struggling with technology and productivity. But when I clicked through and read the whole article, I really wished Tony Perrottet had found a different metaphor. I get it, it’s a cute angle. But dude, Twitter is not prison, and prison is not a productive way to get writing done for bygone aristocrats — it’s a brutal reality for millions of living people, many of whom take up writing as the only way they can have a voice or retain some humanity behind bars. Poverty is also not a choice for a lot of artists. Look around. (This is not directed at you, LaToya, but rather at the content of the Times essay.)
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