In Defense of Literary Stunts

I’m scratching out this article on natural parchment with a goose-quill pen dipped in black ink. I’m conducting a grand experiment to see whether using antiquated technology changes how I write. When Nietzsche started using a typewriter, one critic opined, his prose “changed from arguments to aphorisms, from thoughts to puns, from rhetoric to telegram style.” By picking up a quill, can I reverse that process? Can this feathery, splattery tool connect me to the past?

You should know that this is not my first literary experiment. More like my 41st or 42nd. A few years ago, I wrote a book about reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. Then I spent 12 months living by all the rules of the Bible—including its ban on wearing mixed fibers or shaving. In my newest book, Drop Dead Healthy, I followed all the medical advice I could find in a quest to be the healthiest person alive. Plus there are the dozens of magazine articles I’ve written. (In one, for example, I outsourced the maintenance of my personal life to Bangalore.)

Yes, I am a stuntman—and I say that with pride, even though the word itself derives from the Middle English for foolish. Critics blast stunts as manufactured and contrived, the literary equivalent of The Bachelorette. Stunt writers are seen as publicity sluts who will do anything for a book contract.

But yea, I hereby proclaim that stunts are more than cheap gimmicks! Forsooth, they are the tools of enlightenment itself! (Thanks, quill!)

Read the rest of his post here: http://www.wired.com/underwire/2012/05/pl_ajjacobs/