June 13th, 2009 / 5:33 pm
Snippets
Snippets
Ken Baumann—
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Ken, gonna hijack this post a little, because I want to respond to something you said in a now inactive thread. You: “Yeah, I desire that too, to ‘change the form.’ I think that’s a purely aesthetic desire, and one I sideline to the self-imposed responsibilities of storytelling: Make people feel, care, feel less lonely, enlighten.” And then you added: “‘Purely aesthetic’, which is to say that it is the fetishization of ‘new’ in art, which is exciting as hell, but often pretty insular. And I’m not disparaging against it, just saying that I think the basic underpinnings of art are more important to me.”
I think that this insularity you’re speaking of is pretty widespread in certain schools of contemporary fiction, but all that really says is that a lot of writing is (as ever!) kinda bad. The writers I love most, Melville, Proust, Didion, DFW, Jane Bowles, Sebald, Dostoevsky, and on and on, all made radical changes to the novel — to the way we understand novels, and to the field of possibilities for writers who follow — yet they offer social context and heart, and would surely all live up to the responsibilities of storytelling, as you outline them.
Even writing that is shorn of most social context, and is insular, or “trapped in the skull” (which is more how I conceptualize it) can be deeply moving: late Beckett is doesn’t have a recognizable world with recognizable human relationships, yet it hits me right in my heart. Same goes for contemporary writers like Gary Lutz, the Lish of “Peru,” and Ben Marcus.
Ken, gonna hijack this post a little, because I want to respond to something you said in a now inactive thread. You: “Yeah, I desire that too, to ‘change the form.’ I think that’s a purely aesthetic desire, and one I sideline to the self-imposed responsibilities of storytelling: Make people feel, care, feel less lonely, enlighten.” And then you added: “‘Purely aesthetic’, which is to say that it is the fetishization of ‘new’ in art, which is exciting as hell, but often pretty insular. And I’m not disparaging against it, just saying that I think the basic underpinnings of art are more important to me.”
I think that this insularity you’re speaking of is pretty widespread in certain schools of contemporary fiction, but all that really says is that a lot of writing is (as ever!) kinda bad. The writers I love most, Melville, Proust, Didion, DFW, Jane Bowles, Sebald, Dostoevsky, and on and on, all made radical changes to the novel — to the way we understand novels, and to the field of possibilities for writers who follow — yet they offer social context and heart, and would surely all live up to the responsibilities of storytelling, as you outline them.
Even writing that is shorn of most social context, and is insular, or “trapped in the skull” (which is more how I conceptualize it) can be deeply moving: late Beckett is doesn’t have a recognizable world with recognizable human relationships, yet it hits me right in my heart. Same goes for contemporary writers like Gary Lutz, the Lish of “Peru,” and Ben Marcus.
Mark, thanks for the hijack. I’ve been hoping to talk to you about this.
I agree with your assessment of Melville & Co., as well as Beckett and Lutz and Marcus etc, but I wonder what came first for them? The story or the structure, or both at once?
To speak of my own experience, the novel I’m trying to get published now was conceived of in idea/story/character terms first, and then structure was figured and executed later on, closer to the event of writing. Same thing with my next planned book: Story first, and then expanding upon the themes I want present in the story I devised a structure that I hope is innovative, as I hope the structure of my first novel is.
And maybe I’ll sound like a douchebag in saying this, but I think that for most of us all talking so dedicatedly about storytelling, the act of storytelling, and the generation of stories, comes sort of naturally. Now I don’t mean ‘naturally’ like, Oh lemme sit down at the computer and pump out a brilliant novel in a week, but that we all generate story regularly. It’s the expansion and fully realization of the idea, and the subsequent expression that’s hard work. What I’m trying to get at: I’m guessing most of us here often think first about stories, something that moves you to move, before we concern ourselves with alteration of form.
?
Mark, thanks for the hijack. I’ve been hoping to talk to you about this.
I agree with your assessment of Melville & Co., as well as Beckett and Lutz and Marcus etc, but I wonder what came first for them? The story or the structure, or both at once?
To speak of my own experience, the novel I’m trying to get published now was conceived of in idea/story/character terms first, and then structure was figured and executed later on, closer to the event of writing. Same thing with my next planned book: Story first, and then expanding upon the themes I want present in the story I devised a structure that I hope is innovative, as I hope the structure of my first novel is.
And maybe I’ll sound like a douchebag in saying this, but I think that for most of us all talking so dedicatedly about storytelling, the act of storytelling, and the generation of stories, comes sort of naturally. Now I don’t mean ‘naturally’ like, Oh lemme sit down at the computer and pump out a brilliant novel in a week, but that we all generate story regularly. It’s the expansion and fully realization of the idea, and the subsequent expression that’s hard work. What I’m trying to get at: I’m guessing most of us here often think first about stories, something that moves you to move, before we concern ourselves with alteration of form.
?
Also: Doesn’t the late, skull-marooned Beckett have a relationship with himself?
I know I haven’t experienced any story that is totally devoid of relationship. What would that be at all? I’m not saying that you must first think in terms of relationships, or ‘real human relationships’ at all.
Also: Doesn’t the late, skull-marooned Beckett have a relationship with himself?
I know I haven’t experienced any story that is totally devoid of relationship. What would that be at all? I’m not saying that you must first think in terms of relationships, or ‘real human relationships’ at all.
yeah, it’s difficult to chicken-and-egg that one, but (at least I think this is how it works for me) i often start with a sentence in my head, then put another one after it, and so on, which process dictates the story, such as it is, through the logic of the prose. Or i’ll get a few sentences and a voice will start to emerge, and I’ll throw a plot-idea i’ve had into the grinder of that emergent voice. So I think my “process” (or whatever) might be quite different from yours?
As for your observation below, yeah, you’re right. i phrased that “relationships” thing inartfully. I think all I meant is that if we have at one side of an imaginary diagram Alice Munro or Richard Ford, we could put late Beckett and the Hamsun of “Hunger” and the DFW of “The Depressed Person” and fiending-for-pot chapter of “IJ” at the other end, and tag the Munro/Ford side “maps social relationships” and the Beckett, et. al., side “trapped in own damn skull.” (Which is not exactly fair to the social side — esp. Munro, whose protagonists are often very trapped in the skull in weird and interesting ways, but allow me a strawman version of her, or the sake of this point.)
But yeah, there are relationships in all of those, just different types of relationships.
I guess for me insular (literally: of, relating to, or constituting an island; islanded) is not the right word for the type of fiction you were disparaging, since we’re all more or less islanded and trapped in the skull, and thus insular writing opens onto some pretty fundamental human truths. I’d suggest instead: antiseptic. There are writers whose work does amazing thing with sentences, but I don’t love it or read it much, because it doesn’t hit my heart. The Stein I’ve read (which isn’t much), Robbe-Grillet (again, not much, because I just don’t keep reading stuff that isn’t “metabolically my rhythm”) would fall into this category, for me. And Stein’s Tender Buttons, for instance, is a work that comes as close as anything I can think of to having zero relationships whatsoever, apart from the word-to-word and sentence-to-sentece relationships. Of course, that’s the fundamental relationship in all writing, but you take it to that extreme endpoint and I just don’t give a damn anymore.
yeah, it’s difficult to chicken-and-egg that one, but (at least I think this is how it works for me) i often start with a sentence in my head, then put another one after it, and so on, which process dictates the story, such as it is, through the logic of the prose. Or i’ll get a few sentences and a voice will start to emerge, and I’ll throw a plot-idea i’ve had into the grinder of that emergent voice. So I think my “process” (or whatever) might be quite different from yours?
As for your observation below, yeah, you’re right. i phrased that “relationships” thing inartfully. I think all I meant is that if we have at one side of an imaginary diagram Alice Munro or Richard Ford, we could put late Beckett and the Hamsun of “Hunger” and the DFW of “The Depressed Person” and fiending-for-pot chapter of “IJ” at the other end, and tag the Munro/Ford side “maps social relationships” and the Beckett, et. al., side “trapped in own damn skull.” (Which is not exactly fair to the social side — esp. Munro, whose protagonists are often very trapped in the skull in weird and interesting ways, but allow me a strawman version of her, or the sake of this point.)
But yeah, there are relationships in all of those, just different types of relationships.
I guess for me insular (literally: of, relating to, or constituting an island; islanded) is not the right word for the type of fiction you were disparaging, since we’re all more or less islanded and trapped in the skull, and thus insular writing opens onto some pretty fundamental human truths. I’d suggest instead: antiseptic. There are writers whose work does amazing thing with sentences, but I don’t love it or read it much, because it doesn’t hit my heart. The Stein I’ve read (which isn’t much), Robbe-Grillet (again, not much, because I just don’t keep reading stuff that isn’t “metabolically my rhythm”) would fall into this category, for me. And Stein’s Tender Buttons, for instance, is a work that comes as close as anything I can think of to having zero relationships whatsoever, apart from the word-to-word and sentence-to-sentece relationships. Of course, that’s the fundamental relationship in all writing, but you take it to that extreme endpoint and I just don’t give a damn anymore.
Hmm. Thinking back the last novel began with a sentence, two sentences, actually, and then from that a voice came. And the one before that. Well, damn it. I’m confused. We’re similar, or at least more similar than I thought, which would be most appropriate to my argument and a notion I’ll cling to.
I meant that the search for ‘new’ was insular, not the art itself produced out of that search. Show me a book that isn’t inherently insular and I’ll show you a book with teeth. Meaning: I want to be part of the search party, but my constant ego-checks make me afraid of becoming too obsessed with fancy ideas that get writers off and leave the majority of patrons out in the cold: Language, Structure, etc. And I don’t want to abandon pleasures of the form in the name of pop sensibility, but I respect the artists that appeal to both sides of the aisle, artists like Stanley Kubrick, Cormac McCarthy, etc.
I feel like I’ve talked a lot without saying much. If I had more time I would write a shorter response.
Hmm. Thinking back the last novel began with a sentence, two sentences, actually, and then from that a voice came. And the one before that. Well, damn it. I’m confused. We’re similar, or at least more similar than I thought, which would be most appropriate to my argument and a notion I’ll cling to.
I meant that the search for ‘new’ was insular, not the art itself produced out of that search. Show me a book that isn’t inherently insular and I’ll show you a book with teeth. Meaning: I want to be part of the search party, but my constant ego-checks make me afraid of becoming too obsessed with fancy ideas that get writers off and leave the majority of patrons out in the cold: Language, Structure, etc. And I don’t want to abandon pleasures of the form in the name of pop sensibility, but I respect the artists that appeal to both sides of the aisle, artists like Stanley Kubrick, Cormac McCarthy, etc.
I feel like I’ve talked a lot without saying much. If I had more time I would write a shorter response.
Dude, who cares about whether the search is insular? (Doesn’t the search just mean sitting in the library and reading books?) Your ego-checks — imho — are way to early in the process. I’ve never published a book, and thus see myself as being in this sort of cool “time out,” and here’s my job, in the time out, as I see it: read as widely as possibly, and pursue with all possible fever the ones I love, reading-wise. And to write — with all possible fever — at or against or through the writers I love.
lol, this note seems a little forceful, but if there’s aggresion here, it’s not meant against you, Ken, just working all this out in my head.
So:
Do you honestly think Kubrick had a fear of people thinking he was too “fancy”? (A word that should be reserved for grandmothers, church bazaars, and those who hate art and want to dismiss it.)
The patrons came to Kubrick, by the million. And McCarthy. And Proust, and Dostoevsky — these crazy ones who both write as people trapped w/in their skulls, and as people who took on the biggest possible questions regarding the worlds they lived in, the weird ones who pushed their art, by giant step, in whole new directions: they’ve all had their millions of readers.
which is obviously not for us, or not for me, anyhow. It would be pretty safe to wager that my book, if and when it’s published, will sell three orders of magnitude down from the authors mentioned above (that’s like, um, 1,000 copies, is what I’m saying).
But (and if you’re concerned with the majority of patrons) : most all literary authors publishing at major trade houses these days, including the ones who write in totally non-offensive-to-little-ol-ladies-from-Dubuque mode, with all that promotion of these big houses behind them, are still lucky to sell 3,000 books.
So, yeah, I get wanting to reach people, but I wonder if actually worrying about reaching them, while you’re writing, might not be counterproductive?
Dude, who cares about whether the search is insular? (Doesn’t the search just mean sitting in the library and reading books?) Your ego-checks — imho — are way to early in the process. I’ve never published a book, and thus see myself as being in this sort of cool “time out,” and here’s my job, in the time out, as I see it: read as widely as possibly, and pursue with all possible fever the ones I love, reading-wise. And to write — with all possible fever — at or against or through the writers I love.
lol, this note seems a little forceful, but if there’s aggresion here, it’s not meant against you, Ken, just working all this out in my head.
So:
Do you honestly think Kubrick had a fear of people thinking he was too “fancy”? (A word that should be reserved for grandmothers, church bazaars, and those who hate art and want to dismiss it.)
The patrons came to Kubrick, by the million. And McCarthy. And Proust, and Dostoevsky — these crazy ones who both write as people trapped w/in their skulls, and as people who took on the biggest possible questions regarding the worlds they lived in, the weird ones who pushed their art, by giant step, in whole new directions: they’ve all had their millions of readers.
which is obviously not for us, or not for me, anyhow. It would be pretty safe to wager that my book, if and when it’s published, will sell three orders of magnitude down from the authors mentioned above (that’s like, um, 1,000 copies, is what I’m saying).
But (and if you’re concerned with the majority of patrons) : most all literary authors publishing at major trade houses these days, including the ones who write in totally non-offensive-to-little-ol-ladies-from-Dubuque mode, with all that promotion of these big houses behind them, are still lucky to sell 3,000 books.
So, yeah, I get wanting to reach people, but I wonder if actually worrying about reaching them, while you’re writing, might not be counterproductive?
As I’ve said, I’ve got nothing against that search, but clearly I project my own fear onto a rationale. That’s all.
Pardon my use of ‘fancy’ vs. ‘fanciful’, in the way that David Milch likes the word: Meaning only relating to the self, which is to say something in a story that isn’t an imaginative connection that the audience can make. And I’m not railing against seemingly ‘difficult’ works, or enigmatic things; I’m sitting here staring at a screen talking about form in literature. I think we agree on loving reading, writers, and writing. But I do enjoy worrying about what is seemingly fanciful in even the most complex structure I impose on/with a story, and how best to make it a connection that will more likely contain meaning for an audience, or a stronger/more effective meaning. I think that’s the great challenge of all art.
I’m guilty of being an idealist, and probably naive, but yes, I’d like to strive for millions. But then again, I’m trying to produce and direct a feature film I’ve written, and am trying to adapt The Log of The S.S. The Mrs Unguentine, and ultimately produce the film/get it made. When millions and millions of dollars are at stake, millions of potential patrons are at stake, too. Do I hope that hundreds of thousands, no, millions of people read my work. Absolutely. I’m young, idealistic, naive, and a budding megalomaniac. (Just kidding about the megalomania — even if I can eventually impose 2hrs of experience to millions, please, somebody remind me that I probably still won’t be able to take a punch)
And to be honest I don’t worry about reaching people in the creation of art, it’s only when talking out loud about it that those ideas come into play. It’s a pretty cycle: To escape the despair of implications of Art as Product, I make more art.
As I’ve said, I’ve got nothing against that search, but clearly I project my own fear onto a rationale. That’s all.
Pardon my use of ‘fancy’ vs. ‘fanciful’, in the way that David Milch likes the word: Meaning only relating to the self, which is to say something in a story that isn’t an imaginative connection that the audience can make. And I’m not railing against seemingly ‘difficult’ works, or enigmatic things; I’m sitting here staring at a screen talking about form in literature. I think we agree on loving reading, writers, and writing. But I do enjoy worrying about what is seemingly fanciful in even the most complex structure I impose on/with a story, and how best to make it a connection that will more likely contain meaning for an audience, or a stronger/more effective meaning. I think that’s the great challenge of all art.
I’m guilty of being an idealist, and probably naive, but yes, I’d like to strive for millions. But then again, I’m trying to produce and direct a feature film I’ve written, and am trying to adapt The Log of The S.S. The Mrs Unguentine, and ultimately produce the film/get it made. When millions and millions of dollars are at stake, millions of potential patrons are at stake, too. Do I hope that hundreds of thousands, no, millions of people read my work. Absolutely. I’m young, idealistic, naive, and a budding megalomaniac. (Just kidding about the megalomania — even if I can eventually impose 2hrs of experience to millions, please, somebody remind me that I probably still won’t be able to take a punch)
And to be honest I don’t worry about reaching people in the creation of art, it’s only when talking out loud about it that those ideas come into play. It’s a pretty cycle: To escape the despair of implications of Art as Product, I make more art.
Well, the fears and anxieties of film making are a whole ‘nother thing. (I know that world a bit, if only in bitterness: labored with greatest expectations at the screenwriting thing for several years, and the only pay job that came out of it was a rewrite on a real bad Lifetime movie.) Beware of projecting film/tv anxieties on literature, in a way that could limit your writing. Cos that’s two totally different sets of weirdness. The millions of dollars anxiety is totally legit for producing/directing, but that has nothing to do with your novel. (Also, I feel like the strong personalities who win in Hollywood, and produce durable and maybe even great art, are conscious of and manage the money/lives/jobs they’ve been entrusted with, but also have a “fuck it guys we’re going with my vision” thing.)
Am not familiar w/”The Log of The…” but I see on Amazon that the wonderful Deb Unferth blurbed it (and so did Ed Park!), so clearly I need to pick it up.
Good luck on directing the film! That’s exciting.
I suspect you can take a punch. And art is always a product, if people pay money for it, or skirt paying and download it or whatever, but, ya know, whatev: it’s “the way we live now” (and have time out of mind, since way before either of us were born (‘cept the downloading)).
Well, the fears and anxieties of film making are a whole ‘nother thing. (I know that world a bit, if only in bitterness: labored with greatest expectations at the screenwriting thing for several years, and the only pay job that came out of it was a rewrite on a real bad Lifetime movie.) Beware of projecting film/tv anxieties on literature, in a way that could limit your writing. Cos that’s two totally different sets of weirdness. The millions of dollars anxiety is totally legit for producing/directing, but that has nothing to do with your novel. (Also, I feel like the strong personalities who win in Hollywood, and produce durable and maybe even great art, are conscious of and manage the money/lives/jobs they’ve been entrusted with, but also have a “fuck it guys we’re going with my vision” thing.)
Am not familiar w/”The Log of The…” but I see on Amazon that the wonderful Deb Unferth blurbed it (and so did Ed Park!), so clearly I need to pick it up.
Good luck on directing the film! That’s exciting.
I suspect you can take a punch. And art is always a product, if people pay money for it, or skirt paying and download it or whatever, but, ya know, whatev: it’s “the way we live now” (and have time out of mind, since way before either of us were born (‘cept the downloading)).
Well, we’ll see what I can do with my work w/r/t ‘new’. I certainly am working on that auteur attitude.
Can’t wait for you to read Unguentine. It comes from the Lish days at Knopf. That is a truly innovative and emotionally powerful story. Exactly what I’m interested in.
Well, we’ll see what I can do with my work w/r/t ‘new’. I certainly am working on that auteur attitude.
Can’t wait for you to read Unguentine. It comes from the Lish days at Knopf. That is a truly innovative and emotionally powerful story. Exactly what I’m interested in.
When you google “Unguentine” “Knopf” one of the first things that comes up is Ben Marcus’ essay on it for this Dalkey Archive journal called “Context” (which publication I’ve never heard of). Anyhow, you and Ben Marcus are clearly in agreement about this book being awesome.
When you google “Unguentine” “Knopf” one of the first things that comes up is Ben Marcus’ essay on it for this Dalkey Archive journal called “Context” (which publication I’ve never heard of). Anyhow, you and Ben Marcus are clearly in agreement about this book being awesome.