Craft Notes
Against Good Stories: A Rebuttal
Earlier today Roxane posted about the merits of what she called “good stories.” She also invoked a discussion of the conventional/experimental split. I have just read her post and feel compelled to respond. (Thanks, Roxane, for providing such a provocative post!)
Let me admit right up front that this post is going to be impromptu, and therefore the organization of my thoughts will presumably be scattershot, and in no way comprehensive. I am not going to edit this post; I’m just going to type off the cuff and then post the post. I have to do it this way or else I’ll do like I always do, which is to say that I’ll tell myself I’m going to write a post responding to Roxane’s post, but then I won’t ever get around to doing it.
So here goes my thoughts as they occur to me…
[I’m going to write this response in third person, Roxane, I hope you don’t mind…I wrote two sentences in second person, as like an address to your claims, and it felt too confrontational or something…seems like more of a discussion/debate/conversation/etc. if I do third person…]
Okay, so Roxane offers a common accusation leveled at experimental writers: “they just don’t give a damn about audience.” Objection! This claim is patently false. If anything, it is the conventional realist who has scorn for the audience because they pander to the lowest common denominator, whereas the experimental writer respects the intelligence of the audience; and unlike the conventional realist, the experimental writer invites the reader to participate in the construction of the text. Conventional realists are fascists. They alone hold control over the text. They alone hold the power of “storytelling.” They do not care about their audience, all they care about is projecting their “good stories.” They require that you turn your critical skills off (they call this “suspension of disbelief”) and, in the words of John Gardner, fall into the fictive dream.
As far as “good stories” go…I have said this elsewhere, but it bears repeating: there is no such thing as a “good story.” There are stories with greater or lesser popular appeal, there are stories with greater or lesser reliance on convention (familiarity) or experimentation (unfamiliarity), there are stories whose material is situated within a particular tradition and can therefore be compared to other stories within that tradition, there are stories that foreground propaganda or social issues over Art, there are stories that value communication over personal expression and vice versa. But none of those categories intersect “The Good.” This is a ubiquitous mistake made by folks who forget that philosophy directs our attention to three discrete categories of inquiry: The True, The Good, and The Beautiful. Art aligns with the last of those three: The Beautiful. Properly speaking, Art does not belong in a discussion of either The True or The Good. Those categories are for things other than Art. So, if you concede that literature is art, then you should also concede to leaving literature out of the realm of The True and The Good.
I encourage anybody interested in reconsidering the notion of “good stories” to check out the critical work of Theodor Adorno. In particular, check out his book called Dialectic of Enlightenment, which he co-wrote with Max Horkheimer (esp. the chapter called “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception”), and also his book called Aesthetic Theory. I should preface by saying that I don’t wholeheartedly subscribe to Adorno’s position, not least because he valorizes negation and is a Marxist (yuck!), but I do think he makes some salient points worth considering about the value of “good stories” – which I will conflate here with the term “conventional realism” for the purposes of this response.
For Adorno, and this is where I’d agree with him, conventional realism is bankrupt because:
1) It atrophies the imagination
2) Instead of challenging us to think critically, it works to reinforce our prejudices
3) It does not offer alternatives to the status quo, because it reinforces the structural paradigm of the status quo
I wish I had those texts in front of me so I could quote particular passages, but I don’t. Suffice to say, conventional realism attempts to present “real life,” which is a concept that has no basis in reality.
Just as there is no such thing as “real life,” there is no such thing as a story, as Roxane puts it, “without artifice.” The idea of “clarity” is a fallacy. Are we to believe that Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral,” written in what one might argue to be “clear” prose, is not actually a work of high artifice? Furthermore, the whole notion of “clarity,” of a one-to-one correlation between the signifier on the page and the signified in “real life” is completely absurd! To believe otherwise is to have fallen asleep in 1933 and woken up yesterday, having missed out on the intellectual developments provided by deconstruction and poststructularism.
When Roxane writes “any writing that willfully (to my mind) obscures meaning” – she has already fallen into the trap of believing that meaning can be conveyed without obscurity! This is incorrect. Why? Because all communication between one subjectivity and another subjectivity is necessarily an act of obfuscation. Communication is impossible, yet we attempt it anyway, and the way we have devised our attempt to communicate is through the shitty operation of language. Language fails. Language is not reliable. Language is never enough.
What conventional realism tries to do is either ignore this reality or suppress this reality. Conventional realism is naïve enough to think that such a thing as “clarity” actually exists, when in fact it quite obviously doesn’t. (The proof of this will be in the comment section of this very post, when people attempt to communicate their ideas either for or against these words I am arranging on this cyber page.)
So I would argue that one of the reasons why people get so hostile to experimental writing is that experimental writing is pointing out the fact that language is futile – which is something that most people would rather never admit. Witness the extreme backlash against deconstruction – this is purely a reaction arising from fear, fear of the reality being exposed. We live in a world that is opaque, not clear. We live in a world where you will always misunderstand me, but that doesn’t stop me from attempting to convey my thoughts anyway.
Finally, it would be interesting to pose this argument, so I will: what if the reason Roxane remembers those Little House on the Prairie books is not because they were “good stories plainly told,” but because she read them at a point in her cognitive development when lobes of the brain responsible for building structural components hungered for input? What happened was that she read work which programmed her brain toward a particular foundational structure, which is the basis for her argument today. In effect, the argument for “clear stories” is a nostalgic (read: detrimental) desire to replicate the structural mechanisms developed at an early age.
In this way we can see how conventional realism is conservative. While experimental writing is progressive. Conventional realism desires to maintain the elements that make for “good stories,” by constructing rigid guidelines for what a “good story” either is or isn’t. While experimental writing seeks to challenge these rigid boundaries. Conventional realism is the form of hegemonic power. Experimental writing is resistance writing. Personally, I find the practice of conventional realism not only horrifically boring, but also extremely creepy and dangerous. Long live experimentalism!
Tags: aesthetic theory, conventional realism, theodor adorno
I would offer this quote from Julio Cortazar, which refers to novels but really refers to creative writing, generally: “It would seem that the usual novel misses its mark because it limits the reader to its own ambit; the better defined it is, the better the novelist is thought to be. An unavoidable detention in the varying degrees of the dramatic, the psychological, the tragic, the satirical, or the political. To attempt on the other hand a text that would not clutch the reader but which would oblige him to become an accomplice as it whispers to him underneath the conventional exposition other more esoteric directions.”
I would offer this quote from Julio Cortazar, which refers to novels but really refers to creative writing, generally: “It would seem that the usual novel misses its mark because it limits the reader to its own ambit; the better defined it is, the better the novelist is thought to be. An unavoidable detention in the varying degrees of the dramatic, the psychological, the tragic, the satirical, or the political. To attempt on the other hand a text that would not clutch the reader but which would oblige him to become an accomplice as it whispers to him underneath the conventional exposition other more esoteric directions.”
also: “Say it! There is no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in art.”
also: “Say it! There is no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in art.”
Wow. Sorta wish I wrote that (but I cannot).
Anyway, I have had decades of reading great realism stories and I am done. Now, as a teacher, I teach great realism stories and certainly undergrad students (maybe 99.4 %) write realism stories so I would be in neglect not to cover these ideas, techniques, stories.
BUT
As a reader I am not pretty much only into experimental (a rough term, but whatever).
As a teacher, I keep increasing the % of experimental in the classroom.
I want at least a decade of magic R, fabulist, unknowable crazy, lists, things that reach but fail, all that; then I might go back to realism.
maybe.
Wow. Sorta wish I wrote that (but I cannot).
Anyway, I have had decades of reading great realism stories and I am done. Now, as a teacher, I teach great realism stories and certainly undergrad students (maybe 99.4 %) write realism stories so I would be in neglect not to cover these ideas, techniques, stories.
BUT
As a reader I am not pretty much only into experimental (a rough term, but whatever).
As a teacher, I keep increasing the % of experimental in the classroom.
I want at least a decade of magic R, fabulist, unknowable crazy, lists, things that reach but fail, all that; then I might go back to realism.
maybe.
This is exciting, Christopher! My first thought is OMG! What a fantastic rebuttal. I disagree with almost everything you’ve written here but you introduce Adorno into the conversation quite nicely. The notion that there is no such thing as good or bad doesn’t sit well with me. What you propose becomes a matter of semantics and it is an intellectual fantasy to indulge in the notion that there’s no such thing as bad or good in art. There are pieces of writing I think they are bad (and this has nothing to do with whether they are conventional or experimental). My opinion is certainly subjective so when I say something is good or bad, I’m not making a statement for all mankind. I’m speaking for myself. I forget where I’m going with this.
I am absolutely sure I remember the LHOP books because they were just so fantastic, because they were good stories.
What I find interesting in your rebuttal is your comprehensive dismissal of conventional realism. In my argument, I openly acknowledge the importance of experimentation even if I am not fully able to appreciate it.
This is exciting, Christopher! My first thought is OMG! What a fantastic rebuttal. I disagree with almost everything you’ve written here but you introduce Adorno into the conversation quite nicely. The notion that there is no such thing as good or bad doesn’t sit well with me. What you propose becomes a matter of semantics and it is an intellectual fantasy to indulge in the notion that there’s no such thing as bad or good in art. There are pieces of writing I think they are bad (and this has nothing to do with whether they are conventional or experimental). My opinion is certainly subjective so when I say something is good or bad, I’m not making a statement for all mankind. I’m speaking for myself. I forget where I’m going with this.
I am absolutely sure I remember the LHOP books because they were just so fantastic, because they were good stories.
What I find interesting in your rebuttal is your comprehensive dismissal of conventional realism. In my argument, I openly acknowledge the importance of experimentation even if I am not fully able to appreciate it.
do you assign carver, tobias woolf (sp?), and barthelme? bc im starting to think that’s all anyone teaches (this coming from a recent-ish student)
do you assign carver, tobias woolf (sp?), and barthelme? bc im starting to think that’s all anyone teaches (this coming from a recent-ish student)
hi, roxane :) i would say that while it ‘makes sense’ to think of your use of the word ‘good’ re: art as ‘simply’ subjective, ‘obviously,’ it is nonetheless a much more political word usage than, say, ‘nice’ (that is, by implication there is some objective standard for art, when there simply isn’t)
hi, roxane :) i would say that while it ‘makes sense’ to think of your use of the word ‘good’ re: art as ‘simply’ subjective, ‘obviously,’ it is nonetheless a much more political word usage than, say, ‘nice’ (that is, by implication there is some objective standard for art, when there simply isn’t)
but i guess the ideas embedded in such a position are much more important than being the Semantics Police for Art Discussion on the Internet, obviously. so whatevs :)
but i guess the ideas embedded in such a position are much more important than being the Semantics Police for Art Discussion on the Internet, obviously. so whatevs :)
I teach one Carver flash, two barthelme. I have never taught Tobias. It really doesn’t matter what white guy realists a teacher introduces, it’s about all you teach around those.
Believe me, every university student in the world is sick of The Things He Carried. But it’s fine for the classroom. Just back it with Peter Markus, then seg to G Stein.
I teach one Carver flash, two barthelme. I have never taught Tobias. It really doesn’t matter what white guy realists a teacher introduces, it’s about all you teach around those.
Believe me, every university student in the world is sick of The Things He Carried. But it’s fine for the classroom. Just back it with Peter Markus, then seg to G Stein.
I agree that most conventionally realistic books are shit, but 95% of this post consists solely of silly postmodern dogma. ‘Good’ is pretty obviously shorthand for ‘beautiful’ in relation to art, and the circles people are willing to run themselves into in order to avoid this fact is kind of bewildering. There is absolutely nothing wrong with submitting yourself to the fictive dream—in fact, I submit that a wariness to do this is indicative of a dull personality. If you can read Shakespeare without succumbing to the poetic dream, then you are quite the unimaginative bloke.
The idea that clarity is impossible is absurd. Heck, the idea that clarity even means “one-to-one correlation between the signifier on the page and the signified in “real life”” is absurd. Who the heck believes that every word we read signifies some real-life image?
“Communication is impossible, yet we attempt it anyway,” – ugh
I agree that most conventionally realistic books are shit, but 95% of this post consists solely of silly postmodern dogma. ‘Good’ is pretty obviously shorthand for ‘beautiful’ in relation to art, and the circles people are willing to run themselves into in order to avoid this fact is kind of bewildering. There is absolutely nothing wrong with submitting yourself to the fictive dream—in fact, I submit that a wariness to do this is indicative of a dull personality. If you can read Shakespeare without succumbing to the poetic dream, then you are quite the unimaginative bloke.
The idea that clarity is impossible is absurd. Heck, the idea that clarity even means “one-to-one correlation between the signifier on the page and the signified in “real life”” is absurd. Who the heck believes that every word we read signifies some real-life image?
“Communication is impossible, yet we attempt it anyway,” – ugh
if i am (by some strange magic) one day a creative writing prof, i will teach something like the following:
—-Tao Lin, “Should,” http://storychord.blogspot.com/
—-Djuna Barnes, “A Night Among the Horses”
—-J.D. Salinger, “A Perfect Day for Bananafish”
—-James Joyce, “The Dead”
—-Julio Cortazar, “A Yellow Flower”
Something like that = )
if i am (by some strange magic) one day a creative writing prof, i will teach something like the following:
—-Tao Lin, “Should,” http://storychord.blogspot.com/
—-Djuna Barnes, “A Night Among the Horses”
—-J.D. Salinger, “A Perfect Day for Bananafish”
—-James Joyce, “The Dead”
—-Julio Cortazar, “A Yellow Flower”
Something like that = )
and maybe miranda july’s “the shared patio” or something, bc i think it could ‘reach’ ‘certain’ students.
and something by DFW
and maybe miranda july’s “the shared patio” or something, bc i think it could ‘reach’ ‘certain’ students.
and something by DFW
I’ve had more time to percolate and I have to say it’s just so crazy to me that “conventional realism” is so maligned. I think it represents a perspective that is completely out of touch with logic.
isn’t it fair to say that what’s considered “conventional realism” now was at one point in time “experimentalism?” and that elements of the thing you so righteously defend now will one day become that which you purport to loathe?
why bother? go write something. if it’s worth reading people will read it.
I’ve had more time to percolate and I have to say it’s just so crazy to me that “conventional realism” is so maligned. I think it represents a perspective that is completely out of touch with logic.
isn’t it fair to say that what’s considered “conventional realism” now was at one point in time “experimentalism?” and that elements of the thing you so righteously defend now will one day become that which you purport to loathe?
why bother? go write something. if it’s worth reading people will read it.
i would like to see you guys do an ichat or something, maybe something moderated, because i’ve agreed with both of you at different points in my stylistic pendulum swing
i would like to see you guys do an ichat or something, maybe something moderated, because i’ve agreed with both of you at different points in my stylistic pendulum swing
“So I would argue that one of the reasons why people get so hostile to experimental writing is that experimental writing is pointing out the fact that language is futile.”
This seems reductive to me, and plenty of experimental writing is less about the insufficiencies of language than it is concerned with the experience of reading, of interacting with specific discourses under peculiar and acute conditions, with the aim of doubling / trebling / blurring (self-)consciousness in such a way that the reader is granted access to some new notion of what subjectivity is, after all. (Not pretty, often.)
i’d say more like “communication is fleeting and mysterious” :)
why is being completely out of touch with logic inherently bad? seems to me that much of the world operates that way
“So I would argue that one of the reasons why people get so hostile to experimental writing is that experimental writing is pointing out the fact that language is futile.”
This seems reductive to me, and plenty of experimental writing is less about the insufficiencies of language than it is concerned with the experience of reading, of interacting with specific discourses under peculiar and acute conditions, with the aim of doubling / trebling / blurring (self-)consciousness in such a way that the reader is granted access to some new notion of what subjectivity is, after all. (Not pretty, often.)
i’d say more like “communication is fleeting and mysterious” :)
why is being completely out of touch with logic inherently bad? seems to me that much of the world operates that way
i’d also say “beautiful” as a word is much more ‘in tune’ with your “surrender” thing than ‘good’ is. the former, appreciation and love; the latter, judgment/approval in a formal sense.
i’d also say “beautiful” as a word is much more ‘in tune’ with your “surrender” thing than ‘good’ is. the former, appreciation and love; the latter, judgment/approval in a formal sense.
[…] ” Against Good Stories: A Rebuttal” – Christopher Higgs By crowles This post at HTMLGIANT from Christopher Higgs captures a lot of the ideas I’ve been trying to put into words around “realism/story-telling” vs. avant-garde writing. Although the whole post is a must-read there are some good quotes: “If anything, it is the conventional realist who has scorn for the audience because they pande… […]
i have a feeling it has to do with the plodding pace of the prose in many “conventional realism” stories and the use of ‘imprecise’ or ‘unnecessary’ language. one can ‘look past that’ and still enjoy such a story, in a way, though.
Hmmm, yeah, I could see that. Most things are sort of intriguingly mysterious when you really examine the hell out of them. But flat-out declaring communication impossible is essentially a platitude, and obviously untrue.
but i feel you. for example, alice munro is pretty conventional, and i’ve enjoyed her stories.
i have a feeling it has to do with the plodding pace of the prose in many “conventional realism” stories and the use of ‘imprecise’ or ‘unnecessary’ language. one can ‘look past that’ and still enjoy such a story, in a way, though.
Hmmm, yeah, I could see that. Most things are sort of intriguingly mysterious when you really examine the hell out of them. But flat-out declaring communication impossible is essentially a platitude, and obviously untrue.
but i feel you. for example, alice munro is pretty conventional, and i’ve enjoyed her stories.
Yeah. He basically took the essence of ‘experimental writing’ and manhandled it into conforming w/ his thesis.
Yeah. He basically took the essence of ‘experimental writing’ and manhandled it into conforming w/ his thesis.
well yeah, i’m agreeing with you there. i have definitely communicated with people. in various ways.
well yeah, i’m agreeing with you there. i have definitely communicated with people. in various ways.
Two points that possibly you could clarify — even if, as you say, clarity doesn’t exist.
1) “Communication is impossible” — this seems to be self-evidently wrong, since people are constantly communicating things to each other, and the majority of the messages appear to get through just fine. Restaurants are filled with people who get hamburgers when they order hamburgers. So you must mean some more rarefied form of communication, and if so, what is it that’s failing to be communicated? Is every single love letter met with total incomprehension? Is every single insult misunderstood to be a compliment?
2) “Real life is a concept that has no basis in reality.” Not that easy to fathom, either — perhaps proof that clarity really doesn’t exist, at lest not locally. Evidently you think there is such a thing as reality, which is in fact real, but “real life” isn’t a concept that exists in it. So what quality about “real life” is unreal, as opposed to what’s real in reality?
Two points that possibly you could clarify — even if, as you say, clarity doesn’t exist.
1) “Communication is impossible” — this seems to be self-evidently wrong, since people are constantly communicating things to each other, and the majority of the messages appear to get through just fine. Restaurants are filled with people who get hamburgers when they order hamburgers. So you must mean some more rarefied form of communication, and if so, what is it that’s failing to be communicated? Is every single love letter met with total incomprehension? Is every single insult misunderstood to be a compliment?
2) “Real life is a concept that has no basis in reality.” Not that easy to fathom, either — perhaps proof that clarity really doesn’t exist, at lest not locally. Evidently you think there is such a thing as reality, which is in fact real, but “real life” isn’t a concept that exists in it. So what quality about “real life” is unreal, as opposed to what’s real in reality?
i mean, beckett’s writing is pretty damn gloomy, understandably, but he seems to have communicated with people in real life. and there are acknowledgments in his writing of those fleeting moments: “To be together again, after so long, who love the sunny wind, the windy sun, in the sun, in the wind, that is perhaps something, perhaps something.” from “Watt”
‘Nice’ is a loaded word too though – it betrays an allegiance to a certain kind of overblown relativism, and it shows that you’re not willing to express what you believe to be true. (Instead of suspecting an artwork to be great and then interrogating your own beliefs and assumption to see if you have justification for calling the work ‘great,’ you simply say – it seems great, but I’m sure others think differently – it must all be subjective—It’s just ‘nice’!)
i mean, beckett’s writing is pretty damn gloomy, understandably, but he seems to have communicated with people in real life. and there are acknowledgments in his writing of those fleeting moments: “To be together again, after so long, who love the sunny wind, the windy sun, in the sun, in the wind, that is perhaps something, perhaps something.” from “Watt”
‘Nice’ is a loaded word too though – it betrays an allegiance to a certain kind of overblown relativism, and it shows that you’re not willing to express what you believe to be true. (Instead of suspecting an artwork to be great and then interrogating your own beliefs and assumption to see if you have justification for calling the work ‘great,’ you simply say – it seems great, but I’m sure others think differently – it must all be subjective—It’s just ‘nice’!)
i’m pretty sure the new yorker regularly prints stories that are…… i don’t know what they are, but they’re not experimental in any time period. they’re just……..
i’m pretty sure the new yorker regularly prints stories that are…… i don’t know what they are, but they’re not experimental in any time period. they’re just……..
Completely. The tropes afforded by conventional realism are totally legit, and if a writer wants to take that strain of writing as the foundation of their, there is no problem with that. -Conventionally- realistic pieces are the pain in the arse. Even within conventional realism, the age-old tropes must be made fresh. (I like Munro too, or at least the little I’ve read.)
their work*
Completely. The tropes afforded by conventional realism are totally legit, and if a writer wants to take that strain of writing as the foundation of their, there is no problem with that. -Conventionally- realistic pieces are the pain in the arse. Even within conventional realism, the age-old tropes must be made fresh. (I like Munro too, or at least the little I’ve read.)
their work*
seems like an OK point, ryan. but, and not to be obnoxious, but i think if one is a ‘genuinely’ nice person, whatever that may mean to you, one means a lot by the word ‘nice.’ and the fact that such an understanding is dependent on understanding and empathy on the part of both the commenter and whomever may hear him or her is partly what is so….nice about it.
seems like an OK point, ryan. but, and not to be obnoxious, but i think if one is a ‘genuinely’ nice person, whatever that may mean to you, one means a lot by the word ‘nice.’ and the fact that such an understanding is dependent on understanding and empathy on the part of both the commenter and whomever may hear him or her is partly what is so….nice about it.
whereas the overhearer overhearing you saying “this is good,” well that depends on the overhearer deciding, “all right, i ‘respect’ this person, or this person ‘knows better than me,’ and thus has made the ‘correct’ judgment”
whereas the overhearer overhearing you saying “this is good,” well that depends on the overhearer deciding, “all right, i ‘respect’ this person, or this person ‘knows better than me,’ and thus has made the ‘correct’ judgment”
but yeah, i’m lost in Semantic Land now, whatever……..!
but yeah, i’m lost in Semantic Land now, whatever……..!
i’ve taught the tao lin story and the students liked it the most of everything we read that semester. i don’t like the dead or any of joyce’s stories much, but i’ve taught them, too. and also i’ve taught miranda july, which also people enjoyed and had a lot to say about. that was a long time ago now, back when i wasn’t just an adjunct in composition.
all that was meant to say: i like your choices, especially for a younger group of students.
i’ve taught the tao lin story and the students liked it the most of everything we read that semester. i don’t like the dead or any of joyce’s stories much, but i’ve taught them, too. and also i’ve taught miranda july, which also people enjoyed and had a lot to say about. that was a long time ago now, back when i wasn’t just an adjunct in composition.
all that was meant to say: i like your choices, especially for a younger group of students.
@”Real life is a concept that has no basis in reality.” lol!
@”Real life is a concept that has no basis in reality.” lol!
Hmmm, I don’t know if I agree with you there. Many discussion of aesthetic quality turn out that way, yes, but usually that’s due to certain constraints of discussion—usually, there aren’t enough works that both commentators are intimate with, and there’s not enough time in the world to read everything that some other blogger has read in order to hash things out with them.
Which is why much of this flows better in real life. I have a buddy who I sit down with every week, we snag a poem, and we hash out whether we think it’s good—what works, what doesn’t, etc. Aesthetic judgements should ideally always be followed or preceded by the thought-out and imaginative analysis of certain successful tropes, but this is something that takes a lot of time and a lot of space. You either need a buddy and a few hours and a mug of coffee, or you need to type up a longform essay—not always practical. Shorter-form aesthetic judgements are a kind of “feeling your way about,” sensing and react to a necessarily lower-depth kind of opinion from others. It’s still valuable, though. And hopefully not an act of pompousness.
The correct response to ‘this is good’ is a curious ‘How so?’, I think.
And yes, nice totally is an effective word, and people mean things when they say it. I say it a lot. I meant to restrict the discussion to the sense of ‘nice’ that pops up in aesthetic discussions.
Hmmm, I don’t know if I agree with you there. Many discussion of aesthetic quality turn out that way, yes, but usually that’s due to certain constraints of discussion—usually, there aren’t enough works that both commentators are intimate with, and there’s not enough time in the world to read everything that some other blogger has read in order to hash things out with them.
Which is why much of this flows better in real life. I have a buddy who I sit down with every week, we snag a poem, and we hash out whether we think it’s good—what works, what doesn’t, etc. Aesthetic judgements should ideally always be followed or preceded by the thought-out and imaginative analysis of certain successful tropes, but this is something that takes a lot of time and a lot of space. You either need a buddy and a few hours and a mug of coffee, or you need to type up a longform essay—not always practical. Shorter-form aesthetic judgements are a kind of “feeling your way about,” sensing and react to a necessarily lower-depth kind of opinion from others. It’s still valuable, though. And hopefully not an act of pompousness.
The correct response to ‘this is good’ is a curious ‘How so?’, I think.
And yes, nice totally is an effective word, and people mean things when they say it. I say it a lot. I meant to restrict the discussion to the sense of ‘nice’ that pops up in aesthetic discussions.
gotcha, ryan. your approach sounds like a good approach =)
gotcha, ryan. your approach sounds like a good approach =)
i’m glad stephen and ryan were able to patch things up here
i’m glad stephen and ryan were able to patch things up here
isn’t it touching? ;)
isn’t it touching? ;)
One problem is that “realism”–like, “MFA”–has become shorthand for many things.
One problem is that “realism”–like, “MFA”–has become shorthand for many things.
ok, cool, thanks
ok, cool, thanks
the fascist thing is close to how i think about it. and segueing back to something ken was saying about art drifting away from human experience, all falls in line with that i think my interest in ___ stems from a deep-seeded cyncism, that most people/writers are full of empty rhetoric and if someone is speaking too clearly, they are trying to make me feel comfortable in order to sell me a car, or a box of girl scout cookies, or a new religion. They are trying to force their idea/image into my head via skullfuck. Art where the communicative path is at its most obscure, its most nonhuman, approaches a kind of honesty that is trying to subvert the innate baseness of humanity.
the fascist thing is close to how i think about it. and segueing back to something ken was saying about art drifting away from human experience, all falls in line with that i think my interest in ___ stems from a deep-seeded cyncism, that most people/writers are full of empty rhetoric and if someone is speaking too clearly, they are trying to make me feel comfortable in order to sell me a car, or a box of girl scout cookies, or a new religion. They are trying to force their idea/image into my head via skullfuck. Art where the communicative path is at its most obscure, its most nonhuman, approaches a kind of honesty that is trying to subvert the innate baseness of humanity.
Wow, comments blew up rather quickly. Very cool. Provoking discussion is the name of the game.
I don’t have a heap of time right now to get back to everybody, will try later this evening. But to answer miafan’s two questions:
1) “Communication is impossible” — perhaps it would have helped to clarify (haha, you see!) what I meant by that statement. One way of thinking about the act of communication (there are of course various ways of thinking about this) is to think about it in terms of one subjectivity (me) attempting to manifest outwardly an articulation privy solely to myself. Because another subjectivity (you) are not me, then there is no way for me to authentically, clearly, communicate my subjective conceptualization. To put it another way: I see the color green the way I see it, which is not the same way you see it, but nevertheless we can agree on the relative likeness of the color green. I can attempt to describe it to you, but will never be able to convey my experience of green to you. This point is THE point. Conventional realism asks us to ignore this “fact”, to play make believe, to imagine that we both see the same color green, that we both conceptualize green the same way, when in “reality” we do not. We each see different shades, hues, temperatures of green. My point above, I think!, was to point out this disconnect. Experimentalism inherently calls into question the parameters set forth by conventional realism, else how would we recognize it as experimental?
2) “Real life is a concept that has no basis in reality.” — this is exactly the kind of paradox suppressed by conventional realism and engendered by experimentalism. Paradox is seen as the enemy of conventional realism because..this leads to a whole other gambit of Aristotelian value systems…suffice to say, consistency is valued by conventional realism, while paradox is valued by experimentalism. In other words, that you would write “Not that easy to fathom” is exactly the point. It shouldn’t be easy to fathom. “Easy to fathom” is what conventional realism relies upon. But my argument is: “Easy to fathom” should be the enemy of all thinking people.
Your final question, embedded in your #2 question, is a good one: “So what quality about “real life” is unreal, as opposed to what’s real in reality?” You have basically posed one of the central ontological questions. If I could answer that question, I’d have out-thought Heidegger. Just thinking about out-thinking Heidegger is both cool and humbling.
More later. Thanks to everybody for the engaged comments!!
Oh wait…Roxane…”I think it represents a perspective that is completely out of touch with logic.” — Ouch! Now I’m a crazy person for presenting a different position!?! Wow, way to shut down conversation! Have you been talking to my therapist? :)
Wow, comments blew up rather quickly. Very cool. Provoking discussion is the name of the game.
I don’t have a heap of time right now to get back to everybody, will try later this evening. But to answer miafan’s two questions:
1) “Communication is impossible” — perhaps it would have helped to clarify (haha, you see!) what I meant by that statement. One way of thinking about the act of communication (there are of course various ways of thinking about this) is to think about it in terms of one subjectivity (me) attempting to manifest outwardly an articulation privy solely to myself. Because another subjectivity (you) are not me, then there is no way for me to authentically, clearly, communicate my subjective conceptualization. To put it another way: I see the color green the way I see it, which is not the same way you see it, but nevertheless we can agree on the relative likeness of the color green. I can attempt to describe it to you, but will never be able to convey my experience of green to you. This point is THE point. Conventional realism asks us to ignore this “fact”, to play make believe, to imagine that we both see the same color green, that we both conceptualize green the same way, when in “reality” we do not. We each see different shades, hues, temperatures of green. My point above, I think!, was to point out this disconnect. Experimentalism inherently calls into question the parameters set forth by conventional realism, else how would we recognize it as experimental?
2) “Real life is a concept that has no basis in reality.” — this is exactly the kind of paradox suppressed by conventional realism and engendered by experimentalism. Paradox is seen as the enemy of conventional realism because..this leads to a whole other gambit of Aristotelian value systems…suffice to say, consistency is valued by conventional realism, while paradox is valued by experimentalism. In other words, that you would write “Not that easy to fathom” is exactly the point. It shouldn’t be easy to fathom. “Easy to fathom” is what conventional realism relies upon. But my argument is: “Easy to fathom” should be the enemy of all thinking people.
Your final question, embedded in your #2 question, is a good one: “So what quality about “real life” is unreal, as opposed to what’s real in reality?” You have basically posed one of the central ontological questions. If I could answer that question, I’d have out-thought Heidegger. Just thinking about out-thinking Heidegger is both cool and humbling.
More later. Thanks to everybody for the engaged comments!!
Oh wait…Roxane…”I think it represents a perspective that is completely out of touch with logic.” — Ouch! Now I’m a crazy person for presenting a different position!?! Wow, way to shut down conversation! Have you been talking to my therapist? :)
I would also suggest that sometimes those who are breaking the rules (in experimental literature) don’t know the rules in the first place. Like abstract art, it’s nice to know what you are abstracting from–it allows you as a writer to develop an operating principle and style that is true to itself, if not to convention. And a narrative that is clear and traditional is by definition easier to grasp (at least its most apparent meaning); by using conventional narrative techniques, sometimes you are showing more courage than you might by being experimental. After all, you are exposing your feelings, and your heart, and you are vulnerable. Not so much when the reader is grasping for the first level of meaning.
Hoorah, Roxane.
I would also suggest that sometimes those who are breaking the rules (in experimental literature) don’t know the rules in the first place. Like abstract art, it’s nice to know what you are abstracting from–it allows you as a writer to develop an operating principle and style that is true to itself, if not to convention. And a narrative that is clear and traditional is by definition easier to grasp (at least its most apparent meaning); by using conventional narrative techniques, sometimes you are showing more courage than you might by being experimental. After all, you are exposing your feelings, and your heart, and you are vulnerable. Not so much when the reader is grasping for the first level of meaning.
Hoorah, Roxane.
Can you expand on what “logic” means in your sentence?
Can you expand on what “logic” means in your sentence?
oof. reading that ten minutes later, i dont know if i really think that. maybe i do. i think what i need to understand is we are only talking about communication via art. communication via nonfic and discussions here are where i am open to other ideas and etc. but art is for noncom. its for breathing.
Yes, I think you make a good point. If you took a bare-bones Lish-edited Carver story to Elizabethan England they would think it was totally wacky.
That’s why I said in Roxanne’s original thread that I totally disagree that conventional realism is in any way “stripped of the bullshit” or “without artifice.”
Like I said, it is just as full of artifice, but it is artifice that we have become habituated to through repetition.
oof. reading that ten minutes later, i dont know if i really think that. maybe i do. i think what i need to understand is we are only talking about communication via art. communication via nonfic and discussions here are where i am open to other ideas and etc. but art is for noncom. its for breathing.
Yes, I think you make a good point. If you took a bare-bones Lish-edited Carver story to Elizabethan England they would think it was totally wacky.
That’s why I said in Roxanne’s original thread that I totally disagree that conventional realism is in any way “stripped of the bullshit” or “without artifice.”
Like I said, it is just as full of artifice, but it is artifice that we have become habituated to through repetition.
or atleast comming something previously not-commed or in a way not previously wayed.
or atleast comming something previously not-commed or in a way not previously wayed.
“After all, you are exposing your feelings, and your heart, and you are vulnerable. ”
I don’t get your logic. Why does using traditional, standard techniques expose your heart and make you vulnerable but doing something different and risky not do that? Seems counter intuitive, wouldn’t doing something different make your more vulnerable?
“After all, you are exposing your feelings, and your heart, and you are vulnerable. ”
I don’t get your logic. Why does using traditional, standard techniques expose your heart and make you vulnerable but doing something different and risky not do that? Seems counter intuitive, wouldn’t doing something different make your more vulnerable?
http://agrammar.tumblr.com/post/487413695/a-new-catatonic-realism
http://agrammar.tumblr.com/post/487413695/a-new-catatonic-realism
actualy, i’d like to hear from ken re this. if the art one prefers drifts from human experience, does that mean one has atleast a tinge of distaste, or dissatisfaction of humanity in general? i go here by deduction
I didn’t say you were a crazy person, Christopher but I do think that your unilateral perspective is completely out of touch, particularly in terms of the manner in which you expressed your argument. You wrote a thoughtful post but it is full of big words. I mean… referencing Adorno is not accessible and is not in touch. I feel like you could get these ideas across without the intellectual fireworks but I also think maybe that’s your style and I do respect that.
Your perspective was pretty one-sided. You don’t even try to see any merit in conventional realism. I think that approach is shutting the conversation down far more than my saying that the perspective you espouse is out of touch. Also your perspective is not synonymous with you as a person. And again, as I said in my first response, OMG! Exciting!
actualy, i’d like to hear from ken re this. if the art one prefers drifts from human experience, does that mean one has atleast a tinge of distaste, or dissatisfaction of humanity in general? i go here by deduction
I didn’t say you were a crazy person, Christopher but I do think that your unilateral perspective is completely out of touch, particularly in terms of the manner in which you expressed your argument. You wrote a thoughtful post but it is full of big words. I mean… referencing Adorno is not accessible and is not in touch. I feel like you could get these ideas across without the intellectual fireworks but I also think maybe that’s your style and I do respect that.
Your perspective was pretty one-sided. You don’t even try to see any merit in conventional realism. I think that approach is shutting the conversation down far more than my saying that the perspective you espouse is out of touch. Also your perspective is not synonymous with you as a person. And again, as I said in my first response, OMG! Exciting!
not if that doing-something-different allows a veil of opacity to hide behind, is i think what he means.
not if that doing-something-different allows a veil of opacity to hide behind, is i think what he means.
Still, I find the idea that conventional narrative is automatically full of honest feelings and vulnerable heart-displaying to be—let us say—not accurate.
Still, I find the idea that conventional narrative is automatically full of honest feelings and vulnerable heart-displaying to be—let us say—not accurate.
Ricky I do agree with this that sometimes there is courage in tradition.
Ricky I do agree with this that sometimes there is courage in tradition.
That was a McCain campaign slogan, right?
(just joshing!)
That was a McCain campaign slogan, right?
(just joshing!)
alan
i’d be careful teaching what the students “like”
that is a way wrong road, IMO
alan
i’d be careful teaching what the students “like”
that is a way wrong road, IMO
BTW i much prefer this conversation to the MFA one.
Helluva day for HTML forum though
BTW i much prefer this conversation to the MFA one.
Helluva day for HTML forum though
LOL
LOL
Although I agree with Chris more than Roxanne, I’m not sure I buy that all or even most philosophers would agree with this:
“But none of those categories intersect “The Good.” This is a ubiquitous mistake made by folks who forget that philosophy directs our attention to three discrete categories of inquiry: The True, The Good, and The Beautiful. Art aligns with the last of those three: The Beautiful. Properly speaking, Art does not belong in a discussion of either The True or The Good. Those categories are for things other than Art. So, if you concede that literature is art, then you should also concede to leaving literature out of the realm of The True and The Good.“
Working on a response, now. Thanks for the provocative thinking. We agree in senses.
Although I agree with Chris more than Roxanne, I’m not sure I buy that all or even most philosophers would agree with this:
“But none of those categories intersect “The Good.” This is a ubiquitous mistake made by folks who forget that philosophy directs our attention to three discrete categories of inquiry: The True, The Good, and The Beautiful. Art aligns with the last of those three: The Beautiful. Properly speaking, Art does not belong in a discussion of either The True or The Good. Those categories are for things other than Art. So, if you concede that literature is art, then you should also concede to leaving literature out of the realm of The True and The Good.“
Working on a response, now. Thanks for the provocative thinking. We agree in senses.
Yeah. The downtime got people all bottled. Maybe it should be routine.
Yeah. The downtime got people all bottled. Maybe it should be routine.
i agree with you actually. i dont think its good to equate by default conventional narrative to visceral reading experiences (or in this case that there is going to be something more personal about it w/r/t the writer), nor should experimental be equated to intellectual. i also dont think the purpose of opacity is as something to hide behind.
i agree with you actually. i dont think its good to equate by default conventional narrative to visceral reading experiences (or in this case that there is going to be something more personal about it w/r/t the writer), nor should experimental be equated to intellectual. i also dont think the purpose of opacity is as something to hide behind.
its only unilateral within the sphere of ‘literature = art’ if we say that litearture can also be entertainment, etc. then there is value in conventional realism maybe. i dont want to speak for chris though, but that was my understanding.
its only unilateral within the sphere of ‘literature = art’ if we say that litearture can also be entertainment, etc. then there is value in conventional realism maybe. i dont want to speak for chris though, but that was my understanding.
i agree with a lot of yor stuff here, chris, except i have problems with “consistency is valued by conventional realism, while paradox is valued by experimentalism.” well, we could get lost in what exactly the terms mean, but really, a good (oops) realist story, in my book, also deals with paradox, ambivilence, etc. it may be the touchstone of what i mean by good in any story, that ability to hold two (or more) meanings at once. b/c, really, by your own terms, a realist story is really a metaphor for reality, and so contains metaphors, that is, poetic constructions. the value of these is their holding of multiple truths.
i agree with a lot of yor stuff here, chris, except i have problems with “consistency is valued by conventional realism, while paradox is valued by experimentalism.” well, we could get lost in what exactly the terms mean, but really, a good (oops) realist story, in my book, also deals with paradox, ambivilence, etc. it may be the touchstone of what i mean by good in any story, that ability to hold two (or more) meanings at once. b/c, really, by your own terms, a realist story is really a metaphor for reality, and so contains metaphors, that is, poetic constructions. the value of these is their holding of multiple truths.
The preface was a bit long and a bit of a slog to read. Get into your argument sooner, Mister!
The preface was a bit long and a bit of a slog to read. Get into your argument sooner, Mister!
What are the rules?
What are the rules?
” To put it another way: I see the color green the way I see it, which is not the same way you see it, but nevertheless we can agree on the relative likeness of the color green. I can attempt to describe it to you, but will never be able to convey my experience of green to you. This point is THE point.”
What you’re advocating here is a kind of self-defeating skepticism. It’s basically intellectual infantilism, and not a sound foundation for real discussion.
I’m interested in hearing how you are so sure that I do not see the color green in the same way you do.
” To put it another way: I see the color green the way I see it, which is not the same way you see it, but nevertheless we can agree on the relative likeness of the color green. I can attempt to describe it to you, but will never be able to convey my experience of green to you. This point is THE point.”
What you’re advocating here is a kind of self-defeating skepticism. It’s basically intellectual infantilism, and not a sound foundation for real discussion.
I’m interested in hearing how you are so sure that I do not see the color green in the same way you do.
Before I take the next couple of hours to read through all the comments, I just have to say bravo. Lucid, clear — and a really great companion to Roxane’s piece, outlining the two sides of this dilemma. I find myself feeling more at home in the experimental camp, but I really really appreciate having such provocative pieces to read. Nice work to both of you.
Before I take the next couple of hours to read through all the comments, I just have to say bravo. Lucid, clear — and a really great companion to Roxane’s piece, outlining the two sides of this dilemma. I find myself feeling more at home in the experimental camp, but I really really appreciate having such provocative pieces to read. Nice work to both of you.
The more I look at the picture for this post the more I’m sure I’m seeing some horrific group of unfathomable Outer Gods, their demonic bodies built of matter not of this earth, twisted into mindless forms and all dancing in terrible unison around the screams of Azathoth, the Blind Idiot God of the inner core.
The more I look at the picture for this post the more I’m sure I’m seeing some horrific group of unfathomable Outer Gods, their demonic bodies built of matter not of this earth, twisted into mindless forms and all dancing in terrible unison around the screams of Azathoth, the Blind Idiot God of the inner core.
This is a very serious and difficult topic for me.
“Finally, it would be interesting to pose this argument, so I will: what if the reason Roxane remembers those Little House on the Prairie books is not because they were “good stories plainly told,” but because she read them at a point in her cognitive development when lobes of the brain responsible for building structural components hungered for input? What happened was that she read work which programmed her brain toward a particular foundational structure, which is the basis for her argument today. In effect, the argument for “clear stories” is a nostalgic (read: detrimental) desire to replicate the structural mechanisms developed at an early age.”
–We call this: structuralism.
“In this way we can see how conventional realism is conservative. While experimental writing is progressive. Conventional realism desires to maintain the elements that make for “good stories,” by constructing rigid guidelines for what a “good story” either is or isn’t. While experimental writing seeks to challenge these rigid boundaries. Conventional realism is the form of hegemonic power. Experimental writing is resistance writing. Personally, I find the practice of conventional realism not only horrifically boring, but also extremely creepy and dangerous. Long live experimentalism!”
–There is no hegemony as such. There is no resistance as such. We is power, we is resistance. By negating power and affirming resistance, you are affirming the very dialectic: the projection of a fiction, with _pretensions to reality_, which Deleuze classifies as the mantra of the man of ressentiment. It says, You are evil, therefore I am good. You qualify “there is no such thing” with “there is its reaction as such.”
Realism is real-ism. Even Aristotle knew the bounds of mimesis: “In terms of Greek tragedy, this would mean that the story’s direct as well as its universal meaning is revealed by the chorus, which does not imitate and whose comments are pure poetry, whereas the intangible identities of the agents in the story, since they escape all generalization and therefore all reification, can be conveyed only through an imitation of their acting” (Arenndt’s The Human Condition). An imitation of, in Arendt’s terms, natality, which refers and to and re-acts an origin before the Fall–this repetition of the prediscursive origin becomes “violent” when it seeks to turn the impossible possible, to unveil and represent, eradicate, contain language as such, the undifferentiated language prior to the guiltiness of being (which, as Derrida rightly points out time and time again, is itself contaminated and not “as such”). This re-presentation occurs in the utopian dream which alienates the work of art from the “realness of the real,” which requires the latter to take on a transcendental condition. This humanism dehumanizes. This violence to the origin occurs at the “non-center” of an “experimentalism” which believes itself to be separate from the Sublime and not infused with it–which takes language at its word.
Experimentalism is dead. Long live experimentalism.
This is a very serious and difficult topic for me.
“Finally, it would be interesting to pose this argument, so I will: what if the reason Roxane remembers those Little House on the Prairie books is not because they were “good stories plainly told,” but because she read them at a point in her cognitive development when lobes of the brain responsible for building structural components hungered for input? What happened was that she read work which programmed her brain toward a particular foundational structure, which is the basis for her argument today. In effect, the argument for “clear stories” is a nostalgic (read: detrimental) desire to replicate the structural mechanisms developed at an early age.”
–We call this: structuralism.
“In this way we can see how conventional realism is conservative. While experimental writing is progressive. Conventional realism desires to maintain the elements that make for “good stories,” by constructing rigid guidelines for what a “good story” either is or isn’t. While experimental writing seeks to challenge these rigid boundaries. Conventional realism is the form of hegemonic power. Experimental writing is resistance writing. Personally, I find the practice of conventional realism not only horrifically boring, but also extremely creepy and dangerous. Long live experimentalism!”
–There is no hegemony as such. There is no resistance as such. We is power, we is resistance. By negating power and affirming resistance, you are affirming the very dialectic: the projection of a fiction, with _pretensions to reality_, which Deleuze classifies as the mantra of the man of ressentiment. It says, You are evil, therefore I am good. You qualify “there is no such thing” with “there is its reaction as such.”
Realism is real-ism. Even Aristotle knew the bounds of mimesis: “In terms of Greek tragedy, this would mean that the story’s direct as well as its universal meaning is revealed by the chorus, which does not imitate and whose comments are pure poetry, whereas the intangible identities of the agents in the story, since they escape all generalization and therefore all reification, can be conveyed only through an imitation of their acting” (Arenndt’s The Human Condition). An imitation of, in Arendt’s terms, natality, which refers and to and re-acts an origin before the Fall–this repetition of the prediscursive origin becomes “violent” when it seeks to turn the impossible possible, to unveil and represent, eradicate, contain language as such, the undifferentiated language prior to the guiltiness of being (which, as Derrida rightly points out time and time again, is itself contaminated and not “as such”). This re-presentation occurs in the utopian dream which alienates the work of art from the “realness of the real,” which requires the latter to take on a transcendental condition. This humanism dehumanizes. This violence to the origin occurs at the “non-center” of an “experimentalism” which believes itself to be separate from the Sublime and not infused with it–which takes language at its word.
Experimentalism is dead. Long live experimentalism.
I’d like to say, great post Chris. Very interesting and clearly articulated–just have some qualms with it.
I’d like to say, great post Chris. Very interesting and clearly articulated–just have some qualms with it.
Yes, I can. What I mean is that it’s irrational to summarily dismiss the entirety of a thing. That to me feels hugely illogical, that there’s not one example of conventional realism that isn’t creepy or horrifically boring.
Yes, I can. What I mean is that it’s irrational to summarily dismiss the entirety of a thing. That to me feels hugely illogical, that there’s not one example of conventional realism that isn’t creepy or horrifically boring.
Yes I would agree with that. Thought you were saying something else.
Yes I would agree with that. Thought you were saying something else.
[…] admittedly provocative prompt that got Roxane thinking and talking, and me thinking and talking, which lead to Chris’s rebuttal. So pardon me for this sensuous and likely embryonic blab. I’ll also adopt the third person […]
Lincoln, although you jest, you have hit the nail on the head.
Roxane, I am a little bit in shock from your response to my post, especially this: “You wrote a thoughtful post but it is full of big words. I mean… referencing Adorno is not accessible and is not in touch. I feel like you could get these ideas across without the intellectual fireworks…”
What!?! I halfway think you’re kidding, but I can’t be sure because — as I have tried to point out, communication is a slippery practice — but if you were being serious, holy cow! That smacks of the conservative values valorized (championed? liked a whole bunch?) by conventional realism, and therefore speaks directly to the point I was trying to make.
“Full of big words” — are you serious! From one near-PhD to another, are you serious? I find that position, which is synonymous with the whole Fox News anti-intellectual position, i.e. “let’s dumb it down for the masses,” i.e. “let’s act like big words are scary” i.e. “let’s make sure we say it in a way that everybody can understand” to be really condescending. Do you really think people can’t understand big words? That’s a pretty contemptuous attitude to have of our audience.
I prefer to consider our audience to be intellectual beings, thinking creatures, lovers of words and language and thought, people who do not seek reduction, do not seek “small words,” do not seek to be spoken down to, do not seek to be pandered to, do not seek to be considered unable to think about or talk about Adorno.
This is very much indicative of the difference between experimental writing and conventional realism: experimental writing believes in the intelligence of the reader, while conventional realism believes the reader is incapable of handling “big words.”
I’m harping on this, I know, but chastising someone for “using big words” is an epic fail, Roxane. Seriously. We, as teachers at least, have an obligation to foster and encourage the proliferation of knowledge, not shut it down. Our job is not to reduce communication to monosyllabic grunts. Our job is to spread knowledge, build knowledge, add to knowledge. Our job is to help others to become smarter. How exactly are we supposed to do that if using big words equals fireworks?
Yikes!
Sorry I went off on that point, but it really threw me for a loop to read that response.
re: my argument being the one to shut down conversation because it was one-sided. You’re right, I was being one-sided. I could and probably should have addressed ways in which conventional realism has value: in particular, I think it is important for students to learn the rules before breaking the rules, i.e. know thy enemy, but as I mentioned in the introduction to the post, I was writing off the cuff, without preparation or revision, so my response was more of a reader’s response type of reaction to your post than a well-thought out rebuttal. So I must apologize for the lack of attention given to the relative merits of the opposition in my post. I could have done better on that front.
Okay, I better exit. Guess I will try to respond to some other folks now.
Again, thanks to everybody for the conversation!
(I just read through this comment before hitting submit comment and counted the times I used the word or a variation of the word “seriously” — looks like maybe 7 times? ick! sorry!)
Lincoln, although you jest, you have hit the nail on the head.
Roxane, I am a little bit in shock from your response to my post, especially this: “You wrote a thoughtful post but it is full of big words. I mean… referencing Adorno is not accessible and is not in touch. I feel like you could get these ideas across without the intellectual fireworks…”
What!?! I halfway think you’re kidding, but I can’t be sure because — as I have tried to point out, communication is a slippery practice — but if you were being serious, holy cow! That smacks of the conservative values valorized (championed? liked a whole bunch?) by conventional realism, and therefore speaks directly to the point I was trying to make.
“Full of big words” — are you serious! From one near-PhD to another, are you serious? I find that position, which is synonymous with the whole Fox News anti-intellectual position, i.e. “let’s dumb it down for the masses,” i.e. “let’s act like big words are scary” i.e. “let’s make sure we say it in a way that everybody can understand” to be really condescending. Do you really think people can’t understand big words? That’s a pretty contemptuous attitude to have of our audience.
I prefer to consider our audience to be intellectual beings, thinking creatures, lovers of words and language and thought, people who do not seek reduction, do not seek “small words,” do not seek to be spoken down to, do not seek to be pandered to, do not seek to be considered unable to think about or talk about Adorno.
This is very much indicative of the difference between experimental writing and conventional realism: experimental writing believes in the intelligence of the reader, while conventional realism believes the reader is incapable of handling “big words.”
I’m harping on this, I know, but chastising someone for “using big words” is an epic fail, Roxane. Seriously. We, as teachers at least, have an obligation to foster and encourage the proliferation of knowledge, not shut it down. Our job is not to reduce communication to monosyllabic grunts. Our job is to spread knowledge, build knowledge, add to knowledge. Our job is to help others to become smarter. How exactly are we supposed to do that if using big words equals fireworks?
Yikes!
Sorry I went off on that point, but it really threw me for a loop to read that response.
re: my argument being the one to shut down conversation because it was one-sided. You’re right, I was being one-sided. I could and probably should have addressed ways in which conventional realism has value: in particular, I think it is important for students to learn the rules before breaking the rules, i.e. know thy enemy, but as I mentioned in the introduction to the post, I was writing off the cuff, without preparation or revision, so my response was more of a reader’s response type of reaction to your post than a well-thought out rebuttal. So I must apologize for the lack of attention given to the relative merits of the opposition in my post. I could have done better on that front.
Okay, I better exit. Guess I will try to respond to some other folks now.
Again, thanks to everybody for the conversation!
(I just read through this comment before hitting submit comment and counted the times I used the word or a variation of the word “seriously” — looks like maybe 7 times? ick! sorry!)
Hahahahaha. Touché :)
Hahahahaha. Touché :)
‘I’m interested in hearing how you are so sure that I do not see the color green in the same way you do.’
We don’t. Talk to linguists or cognitive scientists. Our perception of color can also be wildly altered by language.
‘I’m interested in hearing how you are so sure that I do not see the color green in the same way you do.’
We don’t. Talk to linguists or cognitive scientists. Our perception of color can also be wildly altered by language.
Hahah. It’s from the kid’s show Yo Gabba Gabba!
http://yogabbagabba.com/#
Hahah. It’s from the kid’s show Yo Gabba Gabba!
http://yogabbagabba.com/#
Chris I was being partly facetious, partly serious in that I don’t think intellectualism requires big words. Here you are chastising me for simply not understanding or being familiar with some of the stuff you’re talking about. Is that any better? I am a passionate advocate of education and the proliferation of knowledge. I am not saying we should grunt monosyllabically but I am saying that there were parts of this that I simply did not understand. I’m very comfortable admitting this. I said nothing of our audience. I am talking about myself. Come on…
Chris I was being partly facetious, partly serious in that I don’t think intellectualism requires big words. Here you are chastising me for simply not understanding or being familiar with some of the stuff you’re talking about. Is that any better? I am a passionate advocate of education and the proliferation of knowledge. I am not saying we should grunt monosyllabically but I am saying that there were parts of this that I simply did not understand. I’m very comfortable admitting this. I said nothing of our audience. I am talking about myself. Come on…
Lord! What unspeakable dreamscape of horrors is this! It must be the astral projections of some mindless, child-god trapped in the sunken city of R’lyeh!
Lord! What unspeakable dreamscape of horrors is this! It must be the astral projections of some mindless, child-god trapped in the sunken city of R’lyeh!
Also, I like fireworks.
Also, I like fireworks.
I’m not convinced. Let’s hear you explain it.
I’m not convinced. Let’s hear you explain it.
It might useful to point out a difference between the kind of straight color seen, and the meanings and connotations a color evokes in different people.
It might useful to point out a difference between the kind of straight color seen, and the meanings and connotations a color evokes in different people.
I, too, thought you meant something else. Which only goes to prove my bloody point! Hooray for the utter unclarity of language!
But this notion that it is “illogical” to conceive of “summarily dismiss[ing] the entirety of a thing” is a fallacy. I could give you a gang of examples where summarily dismissing the entirety of thing is completely logical…
The New Jersey Nets?
The fact that the state of Florida is drastically cutting the education budget?
The third Matrix film?
Dollar World?
Come on, there are a billion things that we can logically dismiss in their entirety.
I, too, thought you meant something else. Which only goes to prove my bloody point! Hooray for the utter unclarity of language!
But this notion that it is “illogical” to conceive of “summarily dismiss[ing] the entirety of a thing” is a fallacy. I could give you a gang of examples where summarily dismissing the entirety of thing is completely logical…
The New Jersey Nets?
The fact that the state of Florida is drastically cutting the education budget?
The third Matrix film?
Dollar World?
Come on, there are a billion things that we can logically dismiss in their entirety.
Also, why is it somehow always “better” to expose your heart and be vulnerable? Why can’t I write a good story without doing so?
Also, why is it somehow always “better” to expose your heart and be vulnerable? Why can’t I write a good story without doing so?
Earnest dialectic discussion is even more important than the proliferation of knowledge. Nothing I’ve seen from Chris indicates to me that he is interested in that. So far it has been an exercise in dogmatically reiterated tired postmodern truisms. . . .
I’m with Chris, but why did you attach “Nets” to New Jersey?
Earnest dialectic discussion is even more important than the proliferation of knowledge. Nothing I’ve seen from Chris indicates to me that he is interested in that. So far it has been an exercise in dogmatically reiterated tired postmodern truisms. . . .
I’m with Chris, but why did you attach “Nets” to New Jersey?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/10/051026082313.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/10/051026082313.htm
Also, a linguistics major at Reed recently told me about a society who’s conception of green contained ~40x more shades than were recognizable to you and me. They’re range of green was wider, simply put.
I think the “know the rules” thing is also trite. It is more important to be intimately familiar with whatever tradition/traditions you are working within than to know any arbitrary set of rules. (I know that “know the rules before you break them” sometimes implies this, but often it doesn’t, and it’s definitely misleading.)
Also, a linguistics major at Reed recently told me about a society who’s conception of green contained ~40x more shades than were recognizable to you and me. They’re range of green was wider, simply put.
I think the “know the rules” thing is also trite. It is more important to be intimately familiar with whatever tradition/traditions you are working within than to know any arbitrary set of rules. (I know that “know the rules before you break them” sometimes implies this, but often it doesn’t, and it’s definitely misleading.)
I like to think I personhandled rather than manhandled ;) — but you are right. Plenty of experimental writing does plenty of other things. But for the purposes of our conversation, I went with that claim. You make equally good claims, Slowstudies.
I like to think I personhandled rather than manhandled ;) — but you are right. Plenty of experimental writing does plenty of other things. But for the purposes of our conversation, I went with that claim. You make equally good claims, Slowstudies.
Why “Marxism (yuck!)”? Objection to the political theory or the literary theory? I’m not a Marxist in either sense, but I do find the Marxist part of Adorno fairly central to his theoretical work. But that could just be my take, and you’re miles above my level, theory-wise. Your thoughts?
Key quote: ‘These experiments show that color is defined by our experience in the world, and since we all share the same world, we arrive at the same definition of colors.’
Same definition. Color, or our perception of it/what we communicate as color, relies totally on language.
See also: gestalt shifts.
agreed.
Why “Marxism (yuck!)”? Objection to the political theory or the literary theory? I’m not a Marxist in either sense, but I do find the Marxist part of Adorno fairly central to his theoretical work. But that could just be my take, and you’re miles above my level, theory-wise. Your thoughts?
Key quote: ‘These experiments show that color is defined by our experience in the world, and since we all share the same world, we arrive at the same definition of colors.’
Same definition. Color, or our perception of it/what we communicate as color, relies totally on language.
See also: gestalt shifts.
agreed.
“Know the rules” does not really relate to fiction int he same way as art. In art, you can try to recreate something so that it appears as it does in real-life. So that you could hold a photo next to a painting and someone could not tell the difference. Then you may learn to abstract from that.
There is no parallel for writing really. If you ask 10 people to describe a person’s face, we could all do it in radically different ways, none of which would be anymore accurate than the other. Writing isn’t tied to a “sense” like art is (vision) basically.
“Know the rules” does not really relate to fiction int he same way as art. In art, you can try to recreate something so that it appears as it does in real-life. So that you could hold a photo next to a painting and someone could not tell the difference. Then you may learn to abstract from that.
There is no parallel for writing really. If you ask 10 people to describe a person’s face, we could all do it in radically different ways, none of which would be anymore accurate than the other. Writing isn’t tied to a “sense” like art is (vision) basically.
if writing isn’t about the reader/audience, what is it about?
if writing isn’t about the reader/audience, what is it about?
by writing, i mean both “experimental” and not.
by writing, i mean both “experimental” and not.
Hey Amber,
I’m not much for politics in general. I will say that I like what Adorno does to Marxism, taking the focus away from economy and putting it on culture. I also like his position viz Lukács — boy oh howdy, if you want to see someone on the side of the avant garde take on someone on the side of realism, look for Adorno’s attack on Lukács! That dude (Lukács) was all about realism — a real hardcore Stalinist — Stalin, of course, outlawed all art that was not proletariat art (i.e. social realism) because he felt it was detrimental to the state.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg as to my going yuck at Marxism. Look at what Mao did: blow up the universities, intellectuals are the devil, etc. Ouch! Not for me.
But I guess I do “like” Marxism in the Zizekian way (have you seen the Zizek documentary? It is absolutely awesome! In it is this scene where they go to Z’s house and right when they walk in they see this Stalin poster and Z goes off about why he puts it up, basically to antagonize visitors). I like provocation. I’m usually nervous about it, shy about it. But I like it.
Not sure if I answered your question! :)
Hey Amber,
I’m not much for politics in general. I will say that I like what Adorno does to Marxism, taking the focus away from economy and putting it on culture. I also like his position viz Lukács — boy oh howdy, if you want to see someone on the side of the avant garde take on someone on the side of realism, look for Adorno’s attack on Lukács! That dude (Lukács) was all about realism — a real hardcore Stalinist — Stalin, of course, outlawed all art that was not proletariat art (i.e. social realism) because he felt it was detrimental to the state.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg as to my going yuck at Marxism. Look at what Mao did: blow up the universities, intellectuals are the devil, etc. Ouch! Not for me.
But I guess I do “like” Marxism in the Zizekian way (have you seen the Zizek documentary? It is absolutely awesome! In it is this scene where they go to Z’s house and right when they walk in they see this Stalin poster and Z goes off about why he puts it up, basically to antagonize visitors). I like provocation. I’m usually nervous about it, shy about it. But I like it.
Not sure if I answered your question! :)
Ken, I don’t think you can justifiably draw that conclusion from that article. The article states that we are all equipped with differing optical hardware (which seems obvious), yet because of a correcting mechanism in our brains, we all see yellow as yellow. The brain, as best it can, makes up for variant hardware. And then they concluded that you can fuck with this correcting mechanism by basically ‘confusing’ the optical hardware. I’ve yet to see how you can conclude that what we perceive as color depends totally on language.
Moreover, Chris’s point is essentially a philosophic one, and no amount of empiric science will help us here. He is claiming that -whatever- experience of the color green I have, it is IMPOSSIBLE for me to accurately convey to you the specifics of my experience. This claim has more to do with your philosophic conceptions of experience and communication—the act of ‘conveying’—than it does optical hardware.
The tough thing about radical skepticism, though, is that it’s impossible to actually make a point using it without your argument collapsing into itself. At some point you must admit that we seem to be able to convey things to each other with a considerable degree of accuracy. I would like to see Chris prove otherwise.
This is all similar to the old “I can never convey to you the true nature of the pain I am experiencing” question. Pretty obviously you can, unless you’re so caught up in skepticism that you insist on having some essential ‘true nature’ to your pain that has never been experienced by anyone else.
Ken, I don’t think you can justifiably draw that conclusion from that article. The article states that we are all equipped with differing optical hardware (which seems obvious), yet because of a correcting mechanism in our brains, we all see yellow as yellow. The brain, as best it can, makes up for variant hardware. And then they concluded that you can fuck with this correcting mechanism by basically ‘confusing’ the optical hardware. I’ve yet to see how you can conclude that what we perceive as color depends totally on language.
Moreover, Chris’s point is essentially a philosophic one, and no amount of empiric science will help us here. He is claiming that -whatever- experience of the color green I have, it is IMPOSSIBLE for me to accurately convey to you the specifics of my experience. This claim has more to do with your philosophic conceptions of experience and communication—the act of ‘conveying’—than it does optical hardware.
The tough thing about radical skepticism, though, is that it’s impossible to actually make a point using it without your argument collapsing into itself. At some point you must admit that we seem to be able to convey things to each other with a considerable degree of accuracy. I would like to see Chris prove otherwise.
This is all similar to the old “I can never convey to you the true nature of the pain I am experiencing” question. Pretty obviously you can, unless you’re so caught up in skepticism that you insist on having some essential ‘true nature’ to your pain that has never been experienced by anyone else.
You totally answered it. Damn. Yes. I totally agree about political Marxism–art is only proletarian and propaganda, intellectuals frowned on–and I mostly find the literary theory deadly limiting and dull. Especially Lukacs and the like. Like you, I’ve always found Adorno’s Marxism more tempered and interesting, relating like you say to the cultural. Plus from his background it seems like such a natural response. I have NOT seen the Zizek documentary but will have to check it out, definitely. Sounds awesome.
Thanks for the thoughtful answer!
You totally answered it. Damn. Yes. I totally agree about political Marxism–art is only proletarian and propaganda, intellectuals frowned on–and I mostly find the literary theory deadly limiting and dull. Especially Lukacs and the like. Like you, I’ve always found Adorno’s Marxism more tempered and interesting, relating like you say to the cultural. Plus from his background it seems like such a natural response. I have NOT seen the Zizek documentary but will have to check it out, definitely. Sounds awesome.
Thanks for the thoughtful answer!
A few quick points here:
1 “I see the color green the way I see it, which is not the same way you see it.” How do you know this for a fact? I can agree that there may not be any way of proving subjective experiences of color are the same, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t the same. (As Chesterton once observed, “Just because I am ignorant about something, it doesn’t follow that I am being deceived.”) You could actually make the case that the indirect evidence points the other way: pretty much everyone’s eyes and brains are hardwired identically, people across different cultures often find the same color combinations visually pleasing; just about everyone who stands in front of a wall of paint chips experiences the color patterns as harmonious and orderly; when people cannot “correctly” arrange colored tiles in a spectrum, it’s almost always because they have something objectively wrong with their sight, like genetically-caused colorblindness. None of which is conclusive, but it does suggest that your assumption that the subjective experience of color CANNOT be the same could simply be overintellectualized pomo skepticism.
2) I’ve reread your second point several times and I have to say I don’t find it paradoxical. It just seems confused. On the one hand, you want to argue that there’s no such thing as “real life;” on the other, you want to assume there is some kind of bedrock “reality” against which the concept of real life is found wanting. When I ask you to explain the difference, you invoke a vague air of mystery, genuflect in the direction of Heidegger, and sneak out of the room. I’m also increasingly irked by this straw man of “conventional realism” and would prefer to have specific examples. And I’d feel better if people seemed to be a bit more familiar with the examples in the classic book on the subject, Auerbach’s “Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Culture.” (If somebody did talk about it upthread, I apologize.)
A few quick points here:
1 “I see the color green the way I see it, which is not the same way you see it.” How do you know this for a fact? I can agree that there may not be any way of proving subjective experiences of color are the same, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t the same. (As Chesterton once observed, “Just because I am ignorant about something, it doesn’t follow that I am being deceived.”) You could actually make the case that the indirect evidence points the other way: pretty much everyone’s eyes and brains are hardwired identically, people across different cultures often find the same color combinations visually pleasing; just about everyone who stands in front of a wall of paint chips experiences the color patterns as harmonious and orderly; when people cannot “correctly” arrange colored tiles in a spectrum, it’s almost always because they have something objectively wrong with their sight, like genetically-caused colorblindness. None of which is conclusive, but it does suggest that your assumption that the subjective experience of color CANNOT be the same could simply be overintellectualized pomo skepticism.
2) I’ve reread your second point several times and I have to say I don’t find it paradoxical. It just seems confused. On the one hand, you want to argue that there’s no such thing as “real life;” on the other, you want to assume there is some kind of bedrock “reality” against which the concept of real life is found wanting. When I ask you to explain the difference, you invoke a vague air of mystery, genuflect in the direction of Heidegger, and sneak out of the room. I’m also increasingly irked by this straw man of “conventional realism” and would prefer to have specific examples. And I’d feel better if people seemed to be a bit more familiar with the examples in the classic book on the subject, Auerbach’s “Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Culture.” (If somebody did talk about it upthread, I apologize.)
Great post, and great comments.
It still feels silly to me that I might have to choose one side or the other. To do so is to necessarily reduce both sides to caricatures of themselves. That seems unimaginative and profoundly anti-intellectual.
I keep coming back to this statement, which seems to be the foundation of Chris’s argument, “philosophy directs our attention to three discrete categories of inquiry: The True, The Good, and The Beautiful. Art aligns with the last of those three: The Beautiful. Properly speaking, Art does not belong in a discussion of either The True or The Good.” This seems to me to be fascistic in the same way that Chris declares “conventional realism” to be fascistic. Even if we do accept the above categories of inquiry, why CAN’T Art relate to the True and the Good? For that to be true, then it seems to me you have to posit that Art communicates nothing at all beyond pure aesthetics, and, even further, that communication is impossible. I simply can’t agree with that.
I like experimental writing. I like writing that fucks with my head and leaves me confused. But I think Chris’s argument goes beyond literature, beyond stories, and what we’re really talking about here is whether the world exists in a way that can be comprehended, and whether those experiences dealing with comprehension can then be communicated. The answer is no. The answer is yes. And both “experimental” writing and “conventional realism,” when functioning at their highest possible levels, should be grappling with this.
Great post, and great comments.
It still feels silly to me that I might have to choose one side or the other. To do so is to necessarily reduce both sides to caricatures of themselves. That seems unimaginative and profoundly anti-intellectual.
I keep coming back to this statement, which seems to be the foundation of Chris’s argument, “philosophy directs our attention to three discrete categories of inquiry: The True, The Good, and The Beautiful. Art aligns with the last of those three: The Beautiful. Properly speaking, Art does not belong in a discussion of either The True or The Good.” This seems to me to be fascistic in the same way that Chris declares “conventional realism” to be fascistic. Even if we do accept the above categories of inquiry, why CAN’T Art relate to the True and the Good? For that to be true, then it seems to me you have to posit that Art communicates nothing at all beyond pure aesthetics, and, even further, that communication is impossible. I simply can’t agree with that.
I like experimental writing. I like writing that fucks with my head and leaves me confused. But I think Chris’s argument goes beyond literature, beyond stories, and what we’re really talking about here is whether the world exists in a way that can be comprehended, and whether those experiences dealing with comprehension can then be communicated. The answer is no. The answer is yes. And both “experimental” writing and “conventional realism,” when functioning at their highest possible levels, should be grappling with this.
Thanks, Alec! I should say, I’m not going to be able to answer you as fully as I’d like because I have some stuff to get prepared for tomorrow, but I did want to address your thoughtful response, if only briefly this evening.
You are absolutely right to point out that my performance above is a presentation of dialectic opposition. When the goal is to spark conversation, I tend to rely on setting up this type of field because it has proven to be an effective technique — I mean in terms of it being a pedagogical rhetorical approach. Your point re: Deleuze is spot on.
I love these lines: “Experimentalism is dead. Long live experimentalism.”
Thanks, Alec! I should say, I’m not going to be able to answer you as fully as I’d like because I have some stuff to get prepared for tomorrow, but I did want to address your thoughtful response, if only briefly this evening.
You are absolutely right to point out that my performance above is a presentation of dialectic opposition. When the goal is to spark conversation, I tend to rely on setting up this type of field because it has proven to be an effective technique — I mean in terms of it being a pedagogical rhetorical approach. Your point re: Deleuze is spot on.
I love these lines: “Experimentalism is dead. Long live experimentalism.”
this this this yes support
this this this yes support
mr higgs i have a question:
you have spoken in many places about your insistence that literate be absent of a politic. i understand this to a degree, as alain robbe-grillet & the nouveaux romanciers also were blatantly insistent upon this idea, but hasn’t time prove that that is the element of their ‘theory’ that has failed? Post 68 writing (at least in France) grew almost specifically out of the Noveau Roman, as I’m sure you can agree, but the writing became politicized, and arguably, far more “experimental.” Guyotat, an author you’ve gone on record as loving/praising/appreciating, is a very political writer, both at the level of the signifier and at the level of content. Does this mean that when you appreciate something like Guyotat you are intentionally deluding any political force it has?
At the same time you have declared that you have an ostensibly “privileged” background, and that basically you are more or less alright with this. So if you are dismissing the politic for pure reasons of “I have no reason to care about this,” that strikes me as far more ‘fascistic’ than any sort of realist writing, and I am fairly vehemently against the realist mode.
mr higgs i have a question:
you have spoken in many places about your insistence that literate be absent of a politic. i understand this to a degree, as alain robbe-grillet & the nouveaux romanciers also were blatantly insistent upon this idea, but hasn’t time prove that that is the element of their ‘theory’ that has failed? Post 68 writing (at least in France) grew almost specifically out of the Noveau Roman, as I’m sure you can agree, but the writing became politicized, and arguably, far more “experimental.” Guyotat, an author you’ve gone on record as loving/praising/appreciating, is a very political writer, both at the level of the signifier and at the level of content. Does this mean that when you appreciate something like Guyotat you are intentionally deluding any political force it has?
At the same time you have declared that you have an ostensibly “privileged” background, and that basically you are more or less alright with this. So if you are dismissing the politic for pure reasons of “I have no reason to care about this,” that strikes me as far more ‘fascistic’ than any sort of realist writing, and I am fairly vehemently against the realist mode.
i mean the absent jab at marxism in your post adds nothing to your argument, yet you deemed it necessary?
i mean the absent jab at marxism in your post adds nothing to your argument, yet you deemed it necessary?
writing
writing
[…] Dear Everybody and Normal People Don’t Live Like This. It turned into quite the wide-ranging discussion some of which I did not really understand. I found that discussion very interesting though. […]
haven’t had time to read the comment thread yet, so apologies for any repetition.
Chris, I feel like the end of your post veers into a binary you wisely avoided in your similar conversation with Kyle Minor. It’s interesting you yuck marxism because this part: “Conventional realism is the form of hegemonic power. Experimental writing is resistance writing.” sounds like some old-school revolutionary polemic. As though innovation is somehow wholly separate from convention — here I’d point to all of A D Jameson’s excellent pieces on derivation in “innovative” writing.
Also — I understand why using Roxane’s Little House on the Prairie makes it easier to communicate your point, but I’m a little uncomfortable w/ anybody telling somebody else the “real reason” they’ve taken pleasure in a text in a way that invalidates or dismisses whatever that person articulated.
haven’t had time to read the comment thread yet, so apologies for any repetition.
Chris, I feel like the end of your post veers into a binary you wisely avoided in your similar conversation with Kyle Minor. It’s interesting you yuck marxism because this part: “Conventional realism is the form of hegemonic power. Experimental writing is resistance writing.” sounds like some old-school revolutionary polemic. As though innovation is somehow wholly separate from convention — here I’d point to all of A D Jameson’s excellent pieces on derivation in “innovative” writing.
Also — I understand why using Roxane’s Little House on the Prairie makes it easier to communicate your point, but I’m a little uncomfortable w/ anybody telling somebody else the “real reason” they’ve taken pleasure in a text in a way that invalidates or dismisses whatever that person articulated.
njsdfj izix9gh 78GhvbdejGHveKHGk wsdkjb sdkj3i i34if 034*%^HB934BN E9H EBJKSK BJEhbe bb eue iwelkwo3l;ew;n
nwe9b39dsf o;34jt iGIiIB E
E4R
EWIRB9!(!(#@(!
IFBIFDBFIS iwbwrbw wio9nwln weln 3o0sdbuew gfhwooq028er 39y 49y 43gb7345owm wtl;t;;,l,;”..
seriously,
wait – can i say that –
am i saying what i mean / meant
to say, huh? [i like the feeling of having my thumb up my ass, especially when i’m sitting down
in the shower.]
the post was interesting as far as better understanding the beliefs of an “experimentalist” or postmodern, etc, like reading a pamphlet I’ve been handed while walking into the subway.
I doubt Christ can be engaged any more thoughtfully than my imagined subway zealot.
huh what? did i jsut, what, communocato somethintgosiofh 34LWN/ 3E ,.SD.a/.,/,./sd
sdfkln34nuion3n asu i3 4 34t
rg nsdfvi sd
sd.sd,f,s
……………………………..
.er,.,
we;wl;e,k
2p019nj
M KDA
AKE WF
WEKWKKW
TO0O3N4
Qklwn;’
‘.
wf
wr3
njsdfj izix9gh 78GhvbdejGHveKHGk wsdkjb sdkj3i i34if 034*%^HB934BN E9H EBJKSK BJEhbe bb eue iwelkwo3l;ew;n
nwe9b39dsf o;34jt iGIiIB E
E4R
EWIRB9!(!(#@(!
IFBIFDBFIS iwbwrbw wio9nwln weln 3o0sdbuew gfhwooq028er 39y 49y 43gb7345owm wtl;t;;,l,;”..
seriously,
wait – can i say that –
am i saying what i mean / meant
to say, huh? [i like the feeling of having my thumb up my ass, especially when i’m sitting down
in the shower.]
the post was interesting as far as better understanding the beliefs of an “experimentalist” or postmodern, etc, like reading a pamphlet I’ve been handed while walking into the subway.
I doubt Christ can be engaged any more thoughtfully than my imagined subway zealot.
huh what? did i jsut, what, communocato somethintgosiofh 34LWN/ 3E ,.SD.a/.,/,./sd
sdfkln34nuion3n asu i3 4 34t
rg nsdfvi sd
sd.sd,f,s
……………………………..
.er,.,
we;wl;e,k
2p019nj
M KDA
AKE WF
WEKWKKW
TO0O3N4
Qklwn;’
‘.
wf
wr3
how did this get through the spam filter?
how did this get through the spam filter?
although we all see yellow as yellow, we do not see it as the same shade of yellow. i’m color blind and when my girlfriend asks me to grab certain things i sometimes don’t know what she means.
but yes, i know what yellow is. however the relative cool or warmth of the yellow, the relative shade of the yellow, and the yellow in relation to the colors around it, all of these are things that eye perceives slightly differently based on all sorts of things.
i am saying that, being colorblind, my perception of color is different than most of those around me.
and to ignore the idea of shade and the fact that we all perceive shades differently and although we can agree that what we see is yellow we are not likely to agree on which shade of yellow it is, and while this may seem moot and silly to pick it apart like that it is still i think important to acknowledge that we are never entirely certain as to what exactly, specifically, a thing is that we are seeing, this does not mean that we cannot understand it, or that we should not try to show the yellow as we see it and allow for people to then view the yellow as they see it.
all this is also a metaphor for writing, but we were talking about color, and this thing, and i am colorblind, so i said this.
although we all see yellow as yellow, we do not see it as the same shade of yellow. i’m color blind and when my girlfriend asks me to grab certain things i sometimes don’t know what she means.
but yes, i know what yellow is. however the relative cool or warmth of the yellow, the relative shade of the yellow, and the yellow in relation to the colors around it, all of these are things that eye perceives slightly differently based on all sorts of things.
i am saying that, being colorblind, my perception of color is different than most of those around me.
and to ignore the idea of shade and the fact that we all perceive shades differently and although we can agree that what we see is yellow we are not likely to agree on which shade of yellow it is, and while this may seem moot and silly to pick it apart like that it is still i think important to acknowledge that we are never entirely certain as to what exactly, specifically, a thing is that we are seeing, this does not mean that we cannot understand it, or that we should not try to show the yellow as we see it and allow for people to then view the yellow as they see it.
all this is also a metaphor for writing, but we were talking about color, and this thing, and i am colorblind, so i said this.
So I’m not the only one who thinks that most children’s shows (especially Barney) have a Lovecraftian air.
So I’m not the only one who thinks that most children’s shows (especially Barney) have a Lovecraftian air.
Look at pox-bespeckled one-eyed abomination coated in bright red blood!
And what is that tri-horned fiend of shaggy hideous green fur? If I didn’t know better, I would swear it was Shub-Niggurath, The Black Ram of The Forest With A Thousand Ewe.
Look at pox-bespeckled one-eyed abomination coated in bright red blood!
And what is that tri-horned fiend of shaggy hideous green fur? If I didn’t know better, I would swear it was Shub-Niggurath, The Black Ram of The Forest With A Thousand Ewe.
I can’t escape Yo Gabba Gabba at home or on the internets
thanks chris
I can’t escape Yo Gabba Gabba at home or on the internets
thanks chris
[…] April 1, 2010 by Ethel Rohan At HTMLGIANT, I read Roxane Gay’s post here and Chistopher Higg’s rebuttal here. […]
Hey Tim,
Your point about the difference between this post and my conversation with Kyle (that in the previous I attempted to avoid the binary) is a good one. But the interesting thing is: that conversation with Kyle garnered only 30 comments, whereas this post has generated nearly one hundred and thirty. If the goal is to spark more conversation, then this leads me to believe that the most effective rhetorical approach is the polemical rather than the congenial. After posting that conversation with Kyle, I received no emails from readers. After posting this rebuttal, I received a half dozen emails from people responding to the post.
Adam’s BO posts on innovation/experimentation are awesome! And as I mentioned in a comment above, I realize in retrospect that I should have done more to qualify many of my statements and should have done a better job acknowledging the productive aspects of convention.
I absolutely did not mean to dismiss anything Roxane said — which is why I carefully worded that paragraph on LHOTP slash cognitive science as a “what if.” Wasn’t trying to expose any kind of “real reason” just opening up a discussion, raising questions, etc.
Anyways, thanks for your response!
Hey Tim,
Your point about the difference between this post and my conversation with Kyle (that in the previous I attempted to avoid the binary) is a good one. But the interesting thing is: that conversation with Kyle garnered only 30 comments, whereas this post has generated nearly one hundred and thirty. If the goal is to spark more conversation, then this leads me to believe that the most effective rhetorical approach is the polemical rather than the congenial. After posting that conversation with Kyle, I received no emails from readers. After posting this rebuttal, I received a half dozen emails from people responding to the post.
Adam’s BO posts on innovation/experimentation are awesome! And as I mentioned in a comment above, I realize in retrospect that I should have done more to qualify many of my statements and should have done a better job acknowledging the productive aspects of convention.
I absolutely did not mean to dismiss anything Roxane said — which is why I carefully worded that paragraph on LHOTP slash cognitive science as a “what if.” Wasn’t trying to expose any kind of “real reason” just opening up a discussion, raising questions, etc.
Anyways, thanks for your response!
More thoughts this morning —
I think the people that are responding negatively to the intellectual language in this post — like roxane above — aren’t doing so out of anti-intellectualism. I think they’re reacting more to what feels like a dismissiveness in tone (Rather than taking a position or making an argument, Ethel Rohan in her personal blog really beautifully articulated what feelings she felt yesterday reading this post) and the post’s theoretical language is sophisticated, the argument is dichotomous and what it promotes seems really monolithic.
I also think a statement like “realism reinforces our prejudices and the structural paradigms of the status quo,” makes sense as an abstraction — and in terms of the potentialities of “innovative” or “experimental” writing — but you lose me w/ the either/or shit — I think “on the ground,” individuals lived experiences of texts are a lot more complex and plenty of folks have had their prejudices or complicity in paradigms challenged by “realist” texts. I’d argue that what many of us gravitate toward in the realist texts we dig isn’t so much an evocation of “reality” — because there’s a lot of “realist” stuff I like, and I’m just as critical of a transcendent or objective notion of reality as you, although I do believe in situated, contingent, contextual, material truths — as one of lived experience, and the notion of a text that hides its artifice in such a way that my own experiences and the experiences of a character on the page sort-of fuse or commingle (not saying texts that expose their artifice don’t also sometimes do this, but I think there is a particular way or ways it happens in “realism”) still often resonates for me, and I think once readers are “hooked” by this “fictive dream,” there are ways they can be challenged and moved that are particular to that form/forms. The notion that “realism” never challenges readers seems silly to me. And also, seems like there is plenty of “realism” that pushes the boundaries of its own form and is very conscious of language and the sentence.
Seems like people read Roxane’s post as a manifesto when she has now articulated multiple times that it was more an effort to understand why she dug these two texts (the Landis and the Kimball) as compared w/ other texts she’s read recently and did not so dig. I feel like anybody w/ any knowledge of Roxane’s work in this community should know her tastes are eclectic and she’d never forward her preference for a particular kind of writing at the expense of others. This is Roxane fucking Gay — she is anything but dull, complacent or unchallenging.
Also — I feel like the polemicism in your post ignores the dialectic between the types of writing in question and all the wonderful and exciting ways “experimental” and “innovative” writers use conventional tropes and patterns as tools in their innovations. Think abt a book like Lily Hoang’s “Changing” — it is aesthetially beautiful, concerned w/ rhythm and acoustics, its layout challenges the reader by involving them in the writing (Which direction should I read the text?), the translator’s self-conscious translation calls attention to the book’s artifice, it is a hybrid text re: poetry vs prose… but its innovation is also derived from an ancient form, the i-ching, and it is concerned with such issues as family, intimacy, generationality, immigrant identity, gender, individual experience, and I think not to experience all these elements together in their wholeness (if that’s even possible??) would be a shallower experience.
I’ll probably catch some heat for saying this, but I think the notion of an experimental literature that transcends all particularities of lived experience (individual’s “reality”), including tradition and convention (and the role these things play in shaping individuals’ meaning-making strategies and perceptions of the world) is one that’s maybe only imaginable for white men who do not live w/ a daily consciousness of their embodied, material “difference.” I think the exercise of forwarding a singular aesthetic philosophy in opposition to others is often a masculinist project, whereas many marginalized folks are more accustomed to code-switching, double or otherwise multiple-consciousness(es), tricksterism, improvisation, pulling what we like from various knowledge systems if and when it feels like it works.
More thoughts this morning —
I think the people that are responding negatively to the intellectual language in this post — like roxane above — aren’t doing so out of anti-intellectualism. I think they’re reacting more to what feels like a dismissiveness in tone (Rather than taking a position or making an argument, Ethel Rohan in her personal blog really beautifully articulated what feelings she felt yesterday reading this post) and the post’s theoretical language is sophisticated, the argument is dichotomous and what it promotes seems really monolithic.
I also think a statement like “realism reinforces our prejudices and the structural paradigms of the status quo,” makes sense as an abstraction — and in terms of the potentialities of “innovative” or “experimental” writing — but you lose me w/ the either/or shit — I think “on the ground,” individuals lived experiences of texts are a lot more complex and plenty of folks have had their prejudices or complicity in paradigms challenged by “realist” texts. I’d argue that what many of us gravitate toward in the realist texts we dig isn’t so much an evocation of “reality” — because there’s a lot of “realist” stuff I like, and I’m just as critical of a transcendent or objective notion of reality as you, although I do believe in situated, contingent, contextual, material truths — as one of lived experience, and the notion of a text that hides its artifice in such a way that my own experiences and the experiences of a character on the page sort-of fuse or commingle (not saying texts that expose their artifice don’t also sometimes do this, but I think there is a particular way or ways it happens in “realism”) still often resonates for me, and I think once readers are “hooked” by this “fictive dream,” there are ways they can be challenged and moved that are particular to that form/forms. The notion that “realism” never challenges readers seems silly to me. And also, seems like there is plenty of “realism” that pushes the boundaries of its own form and is very conscious of language and the sentence.
Seems like people read Roxane’s post as a manifesto when she has now articulated multiple times that it was more an effort to understand why she dug these two texts (the Landis and the Kimball) as compared w/ other texts she’s read recently and did not so dig. I feel like anybody w/ any knowledge of Roxane’s work in this community should know her tastes are eclectic and she’d never forward her preference for a particular kind of writing at the expense of others. This is Roxane fucking Gay — she is anything but dull, complacent or unchallenging.
Also — I feel like the polemicism in your post ignores the dialectic between the types of writing in question and all the wonderful and exciting ways “experimental” and “innovative” writers use conventional tropes and patterns as tools in their innovations. Think abt a book like Lily Hoang’s “Changing” — it is aesthetially beautiful, concerned w/ rhythm and acoustics, its layout challenges the reader by involving them in the writing (Which direction should I read the text?), the translator’s self-conscious translation calls attention to the book’s artifice, it is a hybrid text re: poetry vs prose… but its innovation is also derived from an ancient form, the i-ching, and it is concerned with such issues as family, intimacy, generationality, immigrant identity, gender, individual experience, and I think not to experience all these elements together in their wholeness (if that’s even possible??) would be a shallower experience.
I’ll probably catch some heat for saying this, but I think the notion of an experimental literature that transcends all particularities of lived experience (individual’s “reality”), including tradition and convention (and the role these things play in shaping individuals’ meaning-making strategies and perceptions of the world) is one that’s maybe only imaginable for white men who do not live w/ a daily consciousness of their embodied, material “difference.” I think the exercise of forwarding a singular aesthetic philosophy in opposition to others is often a masculinist project, whereas many marginalized folks are more accustomed to code-switching, double or otherwise multiple-consciousness(es), tricksterism, improvisation, pulling what we like from various knowledge systems if and when it feels like it works.
Hey magick mike,
The jab at Marxism, as you put it, was meant as both a moment of levity and to signal to the reader my distaste for Marxism as an ideology. If I’m going to begin spouting Adorno, but don’t subscribe to Adorno’s political leanings, it seems to me that I need to make a gesture toward that disassociation, lest some reader come along and begin foisting accusations about me being Marxist or whatever. I’m not a Marxist, don’t care for Marxism, and I wanted the readers to know that although I was conjuring the words and thoughts of a Marxist, I was not endorsing that aspect of his thought. Whether that adds or subtracts from my argument is unclear to me.
Anyways, in terms of Guyotat, I read him for his prose stylings, despite his political bent — similar to how I read Adorno despite my distaste for his political leanings. In a way, I guess I just try to look past what I consider to be their shortcomings (i.e. political commitments).
Hope that answer works! Thanks for the question.
Hey magick mike,
The jab at Marxism, as you put it, was meant as both a moment of levity and to signal to the reader my distaste for Marxism as an ideology. If I’m going to begin spouting Adorno, but don’t subscribe to Adorno’s political leanings, it seems to me that I need to make a gesture toward that disassociation, lest some reader come along and begin foisting accusations about me being Marxist or whatever. I’m not a Marxist, don’t care for Marxism, and I wanted the readers to know that although I was conjuring the words and thoughts of a Marxist, I was not endorsing that aspect of his thought. Whether that adds or subtracts from my argument is unclear to me.
Anyways, in terms of Guyotat, I read him for his prose stylings, despite his political bent — similar to how I read Adorno despite my distaste for his political leanings. In a way, I guess I just try to look past what I consider to be their shortcomings (i.e. political commitments).
Hope that answer works! Thanks for the question.
I hear ya.
You and Roxane are both a lot less rigid than you positioned yourselves in the conversation (or than the conversation positioned you).
I understand what you’re saying abt polemic more effectively igniting conversation. I think this is a reality but also one that depresses me because I’m not sure conversations that start oppositional or as two-sided debate ever transition into something more complex that moves the conversation forward into a richer or more transformative space.
…But I’m a gooey feminist processor-type.
Hey Joseph,
Thanks for your comment.
Yeah, you’ve got a good point about paradox being embedding in reality, thus being implicit in realist writing. I think what I was trying to get at with the whole consistency vs. paradox thing partly has to do with the concept of Aristotelian unity (or consistency) — which could also be synonymous with the Greek concept of cosmos vs. the Greek concept of chaos, a kind of resistance to Aristotelian unity or consistency. In other words, it isn’t a matter of reality being non-paradoxical, but rather the presentation of verisimilitude by the realist writer that is devoid of paradox, even in its attempt to convey paradox, by the very manner in which the paradox is being presented. Wow, that was a mouthful. Basically, the fact that a text “deals with paradox” is different, in my mind, than a text that “presents paradox” — one is observing (realist) and one is performing (experimental), one is passive (realist) and one is active (experimental).
I hear ya.
You and Roxane are both a lot less rigid than you positioned yourselves in the conversation (or than the conversation positioned you).
I understand what you’re saying abt polemic more effectively igniting conversation. I think this is a reality but also one that depresses me because I’m not sure conversations that start oppositional or as two-sided debate ever transition into something more complex that moves the conversation forward into a richer or more transformative space.
…But I’m a gooey feminist processor-type.
Hey Joseph,
Thanks for your comment.
Yeah, you’ve got a good point about paradox being embedding in reality, thus being implicit in realist writing. I think what I was trying to get at with the whole consistency vs. paradox thing partly has to do with the concept of Aristotelian unity (or consistency) — which could also be synonymous with the Greek concept of cosmos vs. the Greek concept of chaos, a kind of resistance to Aristotelian unity or consistency. In other words, it isn’t a matter of reality being non-paradoxical, but rather the presentation of verisimilitude by the realist writer that is devoid of paradox, even in its attempt to convey paradox, by the very manner in which the paradox is being presented. Wow, that was a mouthful. Basically, the fact that a text “deals with paradox” is different, in my mind, than a text that “presents paradox” — one is observing (realist) and one is performing (experimental), one is passive (realist) and one is active (experimental).
Do you mean there is no shitty writing? There sure is.
Do you mean there is no shitty writing? There sure is.
hm, the use of ‘passive’ and ‘active’ here is fascinating.
hm, the use of ‘passive’ and ‘active’ here is fascinating.
A relatively minor point, but Lukacs, while most definitely a supporter of realism in literature, was not a strong supporter of the Stalinist state policy of “socialist realism.” Lukacs was more about what he called “critical realism” (sort of a late-bourgeois realism that is aware of its own devices and historical position), and his chief examplar was Thomas Mann (whom other people would consider a modernist). And Lukacs made a number of points about modernist literature that are quite interesting and valid as long as you put a plus where he put a minus.
Also, Adorno doesn’t exhaust the number of Marxist writers and thinkers who championed modernism, from Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, and Bertolt Brecht all the way up to Freddy Jameson and Zizek, etc. Personally (and politically), I wouldn’t say “Marxism (yuck!)” but Stalinism (yuck!). Marx would have vomited if he’d seen what Stalin did to communism in all fields, including culture.
A relatively minor point, but Lukacs, while most definitely a supporter of realism in literature, was not a strong supporter of the Stalinist state policy of “socialist realism.” Lukacs was more about what he called “critical realism” (sort of a late-bourgeois realism that is aware of its own devices and historical position), and his chief examplar was Thomas Mann (whom other people would consider a modernist). And Lukacs made a number of points about modernist literature that are quite interesting and valid as long as you put a plus where he put a minus.
Also, Adorno doesn’t exhaust the number of Marxist writers and thinkers who championed modernism, from Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, and Bertolt Brecht all the way up to Freddy Jameson and Zizek, etc. Personally (and politically), I wouldn’t say “Marxism (yuck!)” but Stalinism (yuck!). Marx would have vomited if he’d seen what Stalin did to communism in all fields, including culture.
Chris writes: ‘The idea of “clarity” is a fallacy. Are we to believe that Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral,” written in what one might argue to be “clear” prose, is not actually a work of high artifice?’
An excellent example in this case, not least because “Cathedral” is substantially a work of plagiarism, lifted from D.H. Lawrence’s story, “The Blind Man.” So it’s more about intertextuality than some sentimental “human moment” with a wise blind guy.
Chris writes: ‘The idea of “clarity” is a fallacy. Are we to believe that Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral,” written in what one might argue to be “clear” prose, is not actually a work of high artifice?’
An excellent example in this case, not least because “Cathedral” is substantially a work of plagiarism, lifted from D.H. Lawrence’s story, “The Blind Man.” So it’s more about intertextuality than some sentimental “human moment” with a wise blind guy.
Wrong!
Wrong!
Robert E. Howard and Lovecraft in the same week! This must be what heaven is like…
Robert E. Howard and Lovecraft in the same week! This must be what heaven is like…
[…] that way. Case in point: Christopher Higgs offers a rebuttal to Roxane Gay’s article here. Leave a Comment No Comments Yet so far Leave a comment RSS feed for comments on this post. […]
Your critical response to Roxane Gay’s post was a really good story, Christopher! Perhaps someday–when you finally decide to break free from the academic bonds of compositional conservatism–you, too, can write a critical response unfamiliar with the strategies, tendencies, and styles associated with what you call “conventional realism.” But, until that day, I guess your writing will remain something of a “scattershot” of disorganized and improvisational marks employing fashionable philosophic terms to further the goals of capitalist ideology.
In other words, I guess what I’m saying is: do you wanna go on a date?
Your critical response to Roxane Gay’s post was a really good story, Christopher! Perhaps someday–when you finally decide to break free from the academic bonds of compositional conservatism–you, too, can write a critical response unfamiliar with the strategies, tendencies, and styles associated with what you call “conventional realism.” But, until that day, I guess your writing will remain something of a “scattershot” of disorganized and improvisational marks employing fashionable philosophic terms to further the goals of capitalist ideology.
In other words, I guess what I’m saying is: do you wanna go on a date?
I call a referendum on exclamation marks, just this post. You are allowed 3 more for 2010.
I call a referendum on exclamation marks, just this post. You are allowed 3 more for 2010.
well, in some ways i think that at this point in history a text that is aware of its performance is less radical than one that isn’t. but in the end i always come back to the trump of talent. talent makes all forms right.
well, in some ways i think that at this point in history a text that is aware of its performance is less radical than one that isn’t. but in the end i always come back to the trump of talent. talent makes all forms right.
@Steven Pine:
You make some fascinating points here, and I absolutely adore your writing style, but I must mention just two things.
1) It’s *3o0sdbeuw*, not *3o0sdbuew*.
2) A comma is needed after “034*%^HB934BN”.
Sorry, don’t mean to be snarky. It’s just that I kinda got a thing for correct punctuation and spelling.
@Steven Pine:
You make some fascinating points here, and I absolutely adore your writing style, but I must mention just two things.
1) It’s *3o0sdbeuw*, not *3o0sdbuew*.
2) A comma is needed after “034*%^HB934BN”.
Sorry, don’t mean to be snarky. It’s just that I kinda got a thing for correct punctuation and spelling.
Haha!
Haha!
Just curious. Do you consider the work of Sam Lipsyte “conventional realism”? More specifically his latest novel “The Ask”. It isn’t experimental work, but when I read it I feel like I’m reading something experimental, at least on a sentence per sentence basis. So, where does satire stand in all of this? Great satire seems to bridge these two arguments. Sam’s work, to me, seems to flourish because of his use of conventional realism. Maybe it’s used as a prop to toss jokes at, but it seems like it must be steeped in conventional realism for it to work as well as it does. Because of Sam’s use of language his conventional structure and story lines are as cutting edge as it gets, at least in my uneducated opinion.
Just curious. Do you consider the work of Sam Lipsyte “conventional realism”? More specifically his latest novel “The Ask”. It isn’t experimental work, but when I read it I feel like I’m reading something experimental, at least on a sentence per sentence basis. So, where does satire stand in all of this? Great satire seems to bridge these two arguments. Sam’s work, to me, seems to flourish because of his use of conventional realism. Maybe it’s used as a prop to toss jokes at, but it seems like it must be steeped in conventional realism for it to work as well as it does. Because of Sam’s use of language his conventional structure and story lines are as cutting edge as it gets, at least in my uneducated opinion.
I like what you’ve pointed out here. Lipsyte’s language is like a tightrope sharp and exact enough to excise the bunions off the walker’s feet. My simile might be the no sleep talking, but the point stands. Sentence by sentence, The Ask levels the pigeons’ separate domiciles of experimental versus conventional; they live communally after.
I like what you’ve pointed out here. Lipsyte’s language is like a tightrope sharp and exact enough to excise the bunions off the walker’s feet. My simile might be the no sleep talking, but the point stands. Sentence by sentence, The Ask levels the pigeons’ separate domiciles of experimental versus conventional; they live communally after.
Today, I woke, much like other days. But this day would be different. The sun shone faintly through the blinds, rippling faint fingers of light across my kitchen table as I fixed myself my daily joe. There wasn’t much to see in the Times; riots in Bangladesh, war overseas in Iraq, the same old same old. But today, today could be different.
I repaired to my faded blue Barcalounger for some R&R. Nothing worth watching on the tube today, I thought. Janey would be coming home soon, any day now. My brow faintly crinkled. I set aside the newspaper. It would be another day, just another day, after all.
Today, I woke, much like other days. But this day would be different. The sun shone faintly through the blinds, rippling faint fingers of light across my kitchen table as I fixed myself my daily joe. There wasn’t much to see in the Times; riots in Bangladesh, war overseas in Iraq, the same old same old. But today, today could be different.
I repaired to my faded blue Barcalounger for some R&R. Nothing worth watching on the tube today, I thought. Janey would be coming home soon, any day now. My brow faintly crinkled. I set aside the newspaper. It would be another day, just another day, after all.
you can’t “prove” there’s shitty or bad writing. you can say that it exists, of course. i’m just suggesting that there are more constructive or nice ways of relating to/talking about art, that are humble and forthright in their subjectivity (as opposed to cocky in their imaginary objectivity).
you can’t “prove” there’s shitty or bad writing. you can say that it exists, of course. i’m just suggesting that there are more constructive or nice ways of relating to/talking about art, that are humble and forthright in their subjectivity (as opposed to cocky in their imaginary objectivity).
furthermore, why does “shitty writing” need to be called out as such? what does that accomplish? you will say to preserve, in order to differentiate it from “good writing,” but a more honest thing to say would be: it makes me insecure to consider the relativity of the world and of art
furthermore, why does “shitty writing” need to be called out as such? what does that accomplish? you will say to preserve, in order to differentiate it from “good writing,” but a more honest thing to say would be: it makes me insecure to consider the relativity of the world and of art
stephen,
I don’t understand why you always insist that those who seek to judge the effectiveness of a piece of writing are somehow running from their insecurities. And honestly, it comes off as kind of underhanded and sleazy, as if anyone who disagrees w/ you must be in deep denial. The truth is that not everybody is convinced that aesthetics is wholly subjective.
Plus, there are plenty of good reasons to attempt to judge a piece of writing’s effectiveness. One is that it trains your mind, teaches you to think in a concentrated and detailed way. Two is that is teaches you, as a reader, to better appreciate authentic imaginative genius, even if the style/message/etc. of the writing lies outside your personal taste. Further, I think it makes you more open to the sublime. As a reader you learn to reject cheap gimmicks and phony exercises in tone in favor of the deep pleasures, the pleasures of reading that can make you feel capacious and fulfilled for days and days afterward.
And of course, if you happen to be a writer, learning to judge the effectiveness of a work has tremendous subconscious benefits to your own writing.
stephen,
I don’t understand why you always insist that those who seek to judge the effectiveness of a piece of writing are somehow running from their insecurities. And honestly, it comes off as kind of underhanded and sleazy, as if anyone who disagrees w/ you must be in deep denial. The truth is that not everybody is convinced that aesthetics is wholly subjective.
Plus, there are plenty of good reasons to attempt to judge a piece of writing’s effectiveness. One is that it trains your mind, teaches you to think in a concentrated and detailed way. Two is that is teaches you, as a reader, to better appreciate authentic imaginative genius, even if the style/message/etc. of the writing lies outside your personal taste. Further, I think it makes you more open to the sublime. As a reader you learn to reject cheap gimmicks and phony exercises in tone in favor of the deep pleasures, the pleasures of reading that can make you feel capacious and fulfilled for days and days afterward.
And of course, if you happen to be a writer, learning to judge the effectiveness of a work has tremendous subconscious benefits to your own writing.
i see where you’re coming from, ryan, and i don’t mean to fault anyone or dissuade anyone from thinking whatever they wish. i certainly don’t mean to be underhanded or sleazy.
i would say rather that i wish that we could all love each other and love what is lovable in each other’s art (of course that is naive and childish to the untrained eye). if we put more effort into loving and less effort into hierarchies and ‘definitive judgments and criticisms,’ we would appreciate even more in every piece of art, from the ‘simplest,’ the most ‘amateur,’ to the most ‘complex,’ the most ‘accomplished.’
cheers,
i see where you’re coming from, ryan, and i don’t mean to fault anyone or dissuade anyone from thinking whatever they wish. i certainly don’t mean to be underhanded or sleazy.
i would say rather that i wish that we could all love each other and love what is lovable in each other’s art (of course that is naive and childish to the untrained eye). if we put more effort into loving and less effort into hierarchies and ‘definitive judgments and criticisms,’ we would appreciate even more in every piece of art, from the ‘simplest,’ the most ‘amateur,’ to the most ‘complex,’ the most ‘accomplished.’
cheers,
I consider evaluation an act of love. I assume that everybody would like to produce something great, and then I go from there. I make no exception in that—I will never assume that anyone is happy with less than they deserve, either in art or in life (and everyone deserves to live greatly, to create powerfully). IMO, the alternative is kind of insidious: that certain people -wouldn’t- like to fully realize themselves in their art, or in their life. This entails perhaps outrageously high expectations, yes, but when I meet a person and find out what they are like, when I come to know them, I consistently find it impossible to expect anything but. Most everyone I meet seems to me immeasurably powerful—nothing would makes me happier than to seem them exert their power.
I consider evaluation an act of love. I assume that everybody would like to produce something great, and then I go from there. I make no exception in that—I will never assume that anyone is happy with less than they deserve, either in art or in life (and everyone deserves to live greatly, to create powerfully). IMO, the alternative is kind of insidious: that certain people -wouldn’t- like to fully realize themselves in their art, or in their life. This entails perhaps outrageously high expectations, yes, but when I meet a person and find out what they are like, when I come to know them, I consistently find it impossible to expect anything but. Most everyone I meet seems to me immeasurably powerful—nothing would makes me happier than to seem them exert their power.
yes, ryan, but what one ‘deserves’ is nebulous, and ‘full realization in art’ is nebulous, because ‘what someone is like’ is nebulous most of all, and you shall never know quite what another is like, only move closer to understanding by listening to them, being with them, and looking at their art with an open mind, an empty mind, void of hierarchies. then you shall know some strange power, and you will have NO CONTROL over its value or how others perceive it.
yes, ryan, but what one ‘deserves’ is nebulous, and ‘full realization in art’ is nebulous, because ‘what someone is like’ is nebulous most of all, and you shall never know quite what another is like, only move closer to understanding by listening to them, being with them, and looking at their art with an open mind, an empty mind, void of hierarchies. then you shall know some strange power, and you will have NO CONTROL over its value or how others perceive it.
I have no idea what you are trying to tell me right now, stephen. I sincerely think that you may be confused.
If you are saying that authentic self-realization through art is a cloudy thing or hard to perceive, then I disagree whole-heartedly. It is perhaps the easiest thing in the world to spot if, like you say, you are reading with an open mind + exposed soul. The sublime sense of celebration is overwhelming and involuntary, when it happens. [It’s the same thing in life, too. A spilling exuding sense of joy is there, in the person, and you’d have to be almost blind to miss it.]
I’m not convinced that’s what you’re saying, though. What are you stating I have no control over? (Was I even asserting control over anything?—Don’t think I was?)
I have no idea what you are trying to tell me right now, stephen. I sincerely think that you may be confused.
If you are saying that authentic self-realization through art is a cloudy thing or hard to perceive, then I disagree whole-heartedly. It is perhaps the easiest thing in the world to spot if, like you say, you are reading with an open mind + exposed soul. The sublime sense of celebration is overwhelming and involuntary, when it happens. [It’s the same thing in life, too. A spilling exuding sense of joy is there, in the person, and you’d have to be almost blind to miss it.]
I’m not convinced that’s what you’re saying, though. What are you stating I have no control over? (Was I even asserting control over anything?—Don’t think I was?)
i am not confused. and i mean no offense. i am referring to someone else’s realization, which is what i thought we were discussing. you may have an easy time determining your self-realization, but your perception of someone else’s realization through art is highly subjective and, to some degree, irrelevant to that other person. i’m glad you have found communion in sublime celebrations, and i agree that artists can touch us and move us and we feel as if we are sharing something with them. but we were discussing the passing of judgment, deciding what is good or bad or ‘the best that this other artist can accomplish.’ i submit to you that only that other person knows if they have accomplished what they are capable of doing or what they meant to do. i would direct you to how my comment moves from ‘art criticism’ to ‘social relations, generally.’
i am not confused. and i mean no offense. i am referring to someone else’s realization, which is what i thought we were discussing. you may have an easy time determining your self-realization, but your perception of someone else’s realization through art is highly subjective and, to some degree, irrelevant to that other person. i’m glad you have found communion in sublime celebrations, and i agree that artists can touch us and move us and we feel as if we are sharing something with them. but we were discussing the passing of judgment, deciding what is good or bad or ‘the best that this other artist can accomplish.’ i submit to you that only that other person knows if they have accomplished what they are capable of doing or what they meant to do. i would direct you to how my comment moves from ‘art criticism’ to ‘social relations, generally.’
the power over which you have no control, if you so choose, is the power of someone else’s expression and how others besides either of you two perceive that power. if one relinquishes the role of gatekeeper, in however arbitrary a capacity (read: HTMLGIANT comments section), one may become more at peace and also give that other artist more freedom. as soon as ‘objective judgment’ and hierarchies come into play, someone’s artistic freedom is being curtailed, even if only in the minds of you and however many others.
the power over which you have no control, if you so choose, is the power of someone else’s expression and how others besides either of you two perceive that power. if one relinquishes the role of gatekeeper, in however arbitrary a capacity (read: HTMLGIANT comments section), one may become more at peace and also give that other artist more freedom. as soon as ‘objective judgment’ and hierarchies come into play, someone’s artistic freedom is being curtailed, even if only in the minds of you and however many others.
but i understand how ‘making aesthetic judgments’ TO YOU, may be no worse than saying ‘i like, seems sweet,’ which might be what i would say if i liked something. so let’s just call it a day, huh?
but i understand how ‘making aesthetic judgments’ TO YOU, may be no worse than saying ‘i like, seems sweet,’ which might be what i would say if i liked something. so let’s just call it a day, huh?
[…] How I never miss an opportunity to come across as a rotten pretentious elitist who loves the sound of his own voice yet can’t seem to talk about anything of interest or importance other than worn out concepts like experimental writing? […]
[…] about Carver and realism and this post on good stories. Thinking about using tomorrow’s class on Carver to interrogate my own interests in realism […]
epilepsy in canines
Against Good Stories: A Rebuttal | HTMLGIANT