Snoopyotics

Has this distinction really been so hard to make clear? Years ago, I was obsessed with the essays of Lytton Strachey, and one of their most obvious features is a failure to "review" the books that provoked them.

I'm afraid ithe answer is yes.

I have written profiles that were based on extensive interviews (with an author, the author's cothinkers, and those who think the author is full of bullchowder) and in which I do not express any judgment of my own of a book -- only to have them called "reviews."

That sort of piece is also (in turn) quite different from an essay in which I try to follow my own line of thoughts, connect up a book with topics it does not cover, etc.

But making such distinctions is hopeless, and things can only get worse. From now on, every piece of prose is going to be called a blog, at least if it appears online. I have no doubt about this.

Is there something going on between Philoctetes' bow and Charile Brown's kite that I'm missing here?

That's one for Eco to answer. I can see Wilson's point in calling on the story, but Eco's reference to Charlie Brown as "Philoctetes of the paperbacks" did puzzle me.

every piece of prose is going to be called a blog

I'm very much afraid you're right. I thought, for example, that there was a distinction between a "blog" and the "posts" / "items" / "entries" that appear on it, but no. Just this morning, I heard an NPR commentator call a post a blog -- and the first comment on an Unfogged item.

Are the essays published in the New York Review of Books reviews?

Good question....Some are, some aren't. And there's a category of the "review-essay" that seems particularly suited to a lot of what appears in NYRB. (Also Bookforum, I think.)