April 14th, 2011 / 11:05 pm
Snippets

Vice has an excerpt from James Frey’s forthcoming The Final Testament of the Holy Bible. I loved Bright Shiny Morning so I’m really looking forward to this book. (Thanks for the heads up, Sean Doyle)

90 Comments

  1. postitbreakup

      I mean, I guess we can always have the debate about separating an author from their life, but… seriously… how can an indie-oriented blog support James Frey after his shittiness http://nymag.com/arts/books/features/69474/ here…

  2. Henry Vauban

      If I had to guess, I would say that Roxane actually means what she is saying and is at the same time aware that promoting Frey could lead to a lot of hits/comments.

  3. Jscho

      lol…. r u serious

  4. SteampunkFurrySciFiFart

      Unless it is written by a different James Frey who isn’t a completely awful writer, don’t see why you are excited.

      (_|_)===3

  5. Franklin Goodish

      “….big, bad James Frey” bahaha gotta admire a guy who can say that with the smell of oprah’s balls still in his mouth

  6. Franklin Goodish

      eh, in his nose. um, or taste in his mouth. sorry, i’m too busy to worry about this kind of shit. i’m working on a super secret book about aliens trying to find the ORIGINAL magna charta and BLOW IT THE FUCK UP. and now, jimmy, i am NOT going to pay you the $75,000 you put in the contract OR let you put a Stedman mask on me and fuck me like they do on the Discovery Channel

  7. Franklin Goodish

      and, DON’T EVEN question me about “Charta” – you’ll see that the original was written at the Chart House and the “h”, due to a scarcity of ink, was dropped just before it was published

  8. Mr. Fake Name

      Oh, Roxane, you are soooooooooo controversial. This is just wild! I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say, “Oh, Roxane, you are sooooooooo controversial. This is just wild!”

  9. SteampunkFurrySciFiFart

      Big, bad James Frey… who sat there whining as Oprah farted all over him.

  10. Ryan Call
  11. JimR

      What did you love about Bright Shiny Morning?

  12. postitbreakup

      Since I just realized that people might not click the link, I wanted to clarify that I’m talking about his “fiction factory” exploiting young writers and not the bogus memoir Oprah thing

  13. postitbreakup

      Since I just realized that people might not click the link, I wanted to clarify that I’m talking about his “fiction factory” exploiting young writers and not the bogus memoir Oprah thing

  14. Franklin Goodish

      what she does to Stedman in the outhouse is NOTHING compared to the sharting big bad jimmy took. it was perverse.

  15. Franklin Goodish

      loooooong pause as Roxane grabs the book and then the microphone: “Everything” – cue up some Stillwater and we’re all set.

  16. Franklin Goodish

      I knew what you meant but I clicked on the link and now I REALLY know. Wow, that is horrible. I often kicked myself for not having the balls to get an mfa and instead “sell soul” to work as a suit…but reading things like that and smelling the desperation of those MFA students makes me pleased and in the mood to sit on my deck and appreciate my little lot in life.

  17. Franklin Goodish

      hmm, not pleased vis-a-vis their desperation, just pleased I didn’t get my mfa.

  18. deadgod
  19. deadgod
  20. deadgod

      I thought John want to be ‘just “Jon”‘. Or Johan “Joan”. It was a tumultuous day at Runnysnot.

  21. deadgod

      – and don’t even question me about “ed”.

  22. Franklin Goodish

      well played, sir (I assume you are a sir, not sure why)

  23. STaugustine

      What’s all this talk about the “death of the novel”? As long as people with little taste enjoy books of little value by writers of zero talent… ! BIG-ASS PIPELINE OF LITCHA!!!

  24. dole

      somebody saw Dark Days

  25. Roxane

      I loved how it was told episodically. I loved the families the novel focused on. The approach Frey took in Bright Shiny Morning, I know, wasn’t the most original approach but he had an idea and he was so consistent with it and I thought he handled it well. I loved the odd details throughout and there was a lot of hear to the writing. I’ve read it a few times now and I love it more each time. It has surprised me, really. I don’t love all of Frey’s work but this book< I find outstanding.

  26. Roxane

      This makes no sense.

  27. Roxane

      I meant what I said but had not considered a lot of hits/comments because this was just a snippet, not a full blown exegesis on James Frey.

  28. Roxane

      We’ve talked about his fiction factory here. I even wrote about it myself. That has little bearing on whether or not I’ll read this book which, as far as I know, he wrote himself, and not via his fiction factory.

  29. Roxane

      We’ve talked about his fiction factory here. I even wrote about it myself. That has little bearing on whether or not I’ll read this book which, as far as I know, he wrote himself, and not via his fiction factory.

  30. Roxane

      It’s fortunate that taste is subjective.

  31. SteampunkFurrySciFiFart

      If he wrote it himself is it written in his horrible style.
      Horrible style.
      So Fucking horrible and lazy.
      Takes no time to write.
      Like some mother fucking frat boy who read one Hemingway story and his momma gave him cookie.
      One cookie.
      ONE MOTHER FUCKING COOKIE.
      The pain.
      The pain.
      The pain.
      Of reading James Frey.

  32. Roxane

      Well I think the concept of the book is really interesting. I’m still looking forward to it. The great thing about books is that you don’t have to buy or read the books you don’t want to read so you won’t have to suffer the pain of reading James Frey. Silver lining.

  33. Jimmy Chen

      is that supposed to be a dong? odd way of rendering it. the accepted way is:

      UU===D

  34. SteampunkFurrySciFiFart

      Don’t tell me what I can or can’t do. Mother fucking people always telling me what I can do.
      Fucking momma and daddy and and school teaching you nothing and a fucking job with some motherfucking boss going blah blah blah and bills and neighbors and some kind of bullshit church and having a good credit score and a mortgage and getting married with kids and some kind of mysterious motherfucking retirement plan that don’t ever let you do nothing but put more in and get none back.
      Fucking mommy and daddy.
      Fucking mommy.
      Mommy.
      FUCK!
      Mommy why the fuck did I have to join a frat and do coke once and go to jail for like three hours.
      Lie is pain. Life is pain for James Frey.
      Fucking mommy.
      FUCK ME MOMMY!

  35. STaugustine

      “Fortunate” for crap, definitely.

  36. SteampunkFurrySciFiFart

      Are you trying to tell us that your dong comes out of the bottom of your left testicle?

  37. Roxane

      Haha

  38. Jimmy Chen

      superscripting the shaft would thin it out, and we are in the business of satisfaction

  39. SteampunkFurrySciFiFart

      Mine was a steampunk fart being expelled through fictional technology from a anthropomorphic fox’s butt.

  40. deadgod

      I doesn’t am to be seeing it

      B===D-

      yikes! – a little crud creeping out of that’n

      R===D

      lance that sack! free the seed!

      OO===D

      linear elephantiasis

      B=={D

      uncut

      B===D

      according to hem, it looks bigger in a mirror

      B===D )

      ‘houston, we are approaching zero locking bay’

      B===>
      …..B=>
      B===>
      …..B=>
      …….B>
      …..B=>
      …….B>
      B===>
      …….B>

      [‘that was quick‘] [zzz]

  41. Jimmy Chen

      i wanna sleep next to deadgod and decide if there will be more

  42. Jimmy Chen

      i wanna sleep next to deadgod and decide if there will be more

  43. Sean

      Jimmy Chen is one of the last humorists on earth. Not funny or clever, a humorist. Dorothy Parker would fuck Jimmy Chen. Not fuck him up (she would that, too) but FUCK him. Sex. But damn us all if Chen dies without making money off his wit. That WILL be tragedy. Go Mark Twain, Jimmy Chen. Twain knew being funny meant $$$$$. It is rare and glow as uranium to be funny, not blar reality show funny or pun in headline funny or even a good ol’ pratfall (damn, I miss pratfalls–dude who brings pratfalls back will make GaGa look like an insect), but uranium funny. And uranium costs. Mark Twain went all Mark Twain on his own self. Jimmy Chen needs to go all Jimmy Chen.

  44. deadgod

      B===D }
      …B===>
      …….B=>
      ..B===}
      …….B=>
      ………B>
      …….B=}
      ………B>
      …B===}
      ………B>
      B===D ,}

      …UU….UU
      ……….~~

      [zzz]

  45. Ufa

      This reminds me of the first day of film school. We went around the class and everyone gave an example of the kind of movies that had inspired them to want to go to film school and this girl said, ‘Ghostbusters.’ At first we thought she was joking, and then we figured out she wasn’t. And we felt bad for her. That’s how I feel right now, how I feel for Roxane. I feel bad for her. That she would read a book by James Frey and get pleasure out of it. Aesthetic pleasure. Because he’s a bad writer. Not even a mediocre writer. He’s just plain bad. It’s like someone telling you that they’ve been listening to the new album by some random American Idol loser/contestant and it’s really, really good. I mean, what do you say to that, other than, You obviously don’t like music, do you? And spare me your discourse on taste and low and high culture and elitism. A chunk of shit slapped in between two slices of artisan Rosemary-Parmesan bread is still a shit sandwich.

  46. Roxane

      Don’t feel bad for me. I don’t really give a damn what anyone thinks about my taste in books. I could play the “my literary tastes are more pedigreed than yours” dicksizing game all night long but I’ll not waste your time or mine. I also enjoy American Idol and Ghostbusters was awesome. Feel bad for yourself and the need to judge what others enjoy and for not having the good sense to recognize the excellence of Ghostbusters. That’s just too too much.

  47. Kyle Minor

      Roxane, I like Ghostbusters, too. I also like Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, reruns of Cheers, and the occasional meal at the Olive Garden. Last week I bought a shirt at JC Penney. I’m kind of excited because my father wants to go to a Triple-A baseball game next time he comes to visit. Probably while he’s here, we’ll drink some Coca-Cola and listen to Paul McCartney. I hope we will.

      There’s a difference between being sophisticated enough to make fine distinctions about things and being frightenedly pseudo-sophisticated in a manner that requires the aspiring sophisticate to erect a big wall between what’s in and what’s out, and then tell everybody to get on one side or the other. The writers I admire the most have spent their lives saturated in high things and low things, and they sure as hell don’t run from pleasure for fear of being labeled a philistine. Roxane, I admire you for being honest about what you like instead of playing the holier-than-thou game that this chorus of anonymous commenters is playing. Last week I re-read parts of Finnegan’s Wake that I wanted to re-read. This week I read a few pages of Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October. I admired the way he described the nuclear submarines.

  48. Kyle Minor

      And: I know, I know: Finnegans Wake. Sometimes I typo, too, philistinely.

  49. SteampunkFurrySciFiFart

      (__)==3

  50. postitbreakup

      I’m not saying he WROTE it with the fiction factory. I’m saying somebody who takes advantage of writers maybe shouldn’t be read on principle… People want to boycott shit like Amazon for exploiting writers, but will read WRITERS who exploit writers (which to me seems an even worse crime, like cannibalism or something)?

  51. postitbreakup

      I went and looked up your article now. “He knows this and is comfortable with exploiting that desperation by creating a Ponzi scheme or a lottery, where he dangles the hope of commercial success in the faces of the relatively hopeless.” So… you are defensively, provocatively promoting someone who by your own words “exploits the desperation” of your fellow artists. Seems bizarre.

      And I’m not even talking about someone like Polanski or whatever, where maybe they did something in their past and can we still read/watch their work, etc etc… This is a writer who is actively, continually, unapologetically making a business out of exploiting the community I thought this blog was for, and you wanna promote his new book? What the hell…?

  52. postitbreakup

      Thanks for posting those, I had only read about it elsewhere.

      I think the comparison to BEE is interesting. I know it was referring to James’s memoir scandal moreso, but I think it brings up a good point anyway. See, I can stand BEE, no matter how douchey his persona or if he makes hateful comments or whatever, because it’s all posturing and words, so I can read his books anyway. But Frey’s exploitation is wayyyyy beyond being a douchey twitterer/interviewee.

  53. Roxane

      Lots of people take advantage of writers. Let’s not act as if James Frey invented the practice. Here’s the thing, I’m not even that familiar with Frey’s canon. I was certainly not so familiar with him beyond knowing he got in trouble with Oprah and lied about his memoir as to realize that people had such strong feelings about his work. I wasn’t promoting his book though if I like the book, I will. I was noting that an excerpt of his work is now up at Vice and that I want to read the book. This is a very common practice around here, sharing such information, for writers who are well known and less than well known. I also named one book of his that I love. I do love that book and I don’t feel bad about it and I don’t think I have to take all this flack for it. Still, you have a problem with Frey and my providing a goddamned link to an excerpt from his book, fine, we’re each entitled to our opinions. It never crossed my mind that this would be an issue. I guess that was the cold medicine I was on. I don’t feel I should boycott Frey’s work because of his stupid business practices just as I don’t want to boycott Amazon. I find the fiction factory pretty troubling (wrote about it, briefly, here: http://htmlgiant.com/behind-the-scenes/lets-get-real/) but as long as we’re talking about adults who can read, which I assume writers in MFA programs are, if you read that contract and sign it, you should take some responsibility for doing so. The terms of that contract are revolting. I don’t care how starry eyed or unschooled an MFA student is. There’s nothing about that contract that makes sense for a writer. Some of the responsibility has to fall on our shoulders. It’s unfortunate and disturbing that Frey is so craven as to come up with the fiction factory but he did it because he understands writers will always be willing to sell their souls to the devil for a taste of literary fame and fortune and maybe a more productive conversation would be about a literary culture that compels young writers to consider signing this contract. I also tend to believe we should be able to talk about writers both as writers and people. Lots of writers are assholes but that doesn’t mean their work can’t be appreciated.

  54. postitbreakup

      “Lots of writers are assholes but that doesn’t mean their work can’t be appreciated.” This is what I addressed below about BEE, I just think Frey is a different case, because he’s going beyond being an asshole or committing some other kind of crime, he’s hurting writers.

      I also, now that you’ve mentioned it–even though I feel pretty stupid being embroiled in this now and should have just scrolled past they Frey thing in the first place–can’t not add that I think blaming the writers for signing the contract is pretty harsh considering these people’s apparent desperate circumstances, lack of job opportunities after an MFA, etc–I mean, yeah, “they got themselves into it” by trying to be writers and then getting an MFA I guess, but they were trying to do their art so I would rather have sympathy for them than say ‘well now you’re so poor and desperate that you’re willing to sign anything so I’m going to fault you for signing it vs. feeling bad that you’re poor and desperate”…

      …..On the other hand, though, I guess I would blame somebody for getting drunk and behind the wheel when they got in an accident, even if it was in pursuit of their happiness, vs. feeling bad for them about their car accident the way I feel bad for the MFAers who uh.. wrote themselves into a corner and now are signing away whatever they can to get out. Yet on the other other hand, if someone drank and got raped, I would feel bad for them whether they were lulled into it by their initial choice to drink or not. Hm. I don’t know. I’m over it, this has drifted too far away. Sorry for even posting initially, now.

  55. Roxane

      Look, I said writers should accept some responsibility, not all, and of course I am sympathetic to the plight of MFAs but it’s not as if people are choosing between the fiction factory and starvation. Writers do not join the fiction factory to escape poverty. That is not the kind of choice being made here as far as I can tell, nor are people joining the fiction factory to make art. And bringing rape into the equation is so… out of line. You cannot equate rape with signing a fiction factory contract. Anyway, I too have little else to say on the matter. It’s bizarre to get here from saying I like one book but such is the way of the Internet.

  56. postitbreakup

      I guess I should have included a better thesis statement. I was not comparing rape to the fiction factory. I was saying that, while I was upset about the contract signing, when I looked at another, different case–the use of alcohol and then something bad happening–I have mixed feelings and would sympathize with people sometimes but not other times. I was actually trying to say that it’s understandable how I could see the contract thing as exploitation and you couldn’t, when even I myself, who try to be consistent like I think everyone does, can have two opposite opinions about the “drinking and then something bad happening” situation. Everyone draws their own boundaries, like you were saying above how taste is subjective. That’s what I was saying. I’m sorry if I’m not expressing myself super skillfully, as I mentioned I’m exhausted, and I’m actually done with this conversation, but I wouldn’t ever compare a fiction factory to rape.

  57. postitbreakup

      I guess I should have included a better thesis statement. I was not comparing rape to the fiction factory. I was saying that, while I was upset about the contract signing, when I looked at another, different case–the use of alcohol and then something bad happening–I have mixed feelings and would sympathize with people sometimes but not other times. I was actually trying to say that it’s understandable how I could see the contract thing as exploitation and you couldn’t, when even I myself, who try to be consistent like I think everyone does, can have two opposite opinions about the “drinking and then something bad happening” situation. Everyone draws their own boundaries, like you were saying above how taste is subjective. That’s what I was saying. I’m sorry if I’m not expressing myself super skillfully, as I mentioned I’m exhausted, and I’m actually done with this conversation, but I wouldn’t ever compare a fiction factory to rape.

  58. postitbreakup

      *a better thesis statement than “hm. I don’t know”, i mean. which i know is not at all a good thesis statement but you’ll just have to take my word for it (or not, i guess) that i was trying to say “it’s complicated and contradictory” and not “fiction factory=rape”

  59. postitbreakup

      *a better thesis statement than “hm. I don’t know”, i mean. which i know is not at all a good thesis statement but you’ll just have to take my word for it (or not, i guess) that i was trying to say “it’s complicated and contradictory” and not “fiction factory=rape”

  60. Roxane

      Gotcha.

  61. Roxane

      Gotcha.

  62. postitbreakup

      I actually really appreciate that. And in retrospect, I know I should have just gone and found the old fiction factory post and posted a comment there since it didn’t have to do with this one. Just very off my game from a truly terrible few weeks. Hence my wildly trailing, non-sequituring mind.

      To be actually a little on topic for once on this post, I did try to read “Million Little Pieces”. The sentence thing got to me, but I have a personal issue about having a hard time with unorthodox punctuation, I read too much tone into it (can’t read a certain author’s quotation marks, for example). But from the excerpt I looked at on this new novel, I didn’t notice the periods as much and it does sound like an interesting project. It seems like a secular/non-evangelically didactic (and therefore, to me, way more interesting) version of this book I tried to read when I was Christian called Eli. I like the concept of putting a messiah in a modern age.

      Anyway, I’m gonna crash now, but I appreciated the “gotcha.”

  63. STaugustine

      Amen. One of the cultural illnesses of late capitalism is the consumerist delusion that knowing what one likes is a form of cultural expertise; not knowing the difference between film-as-art and film-as-populist-entertainment-craft is the kind of ignorance this delusion generates. Liking “Ghostbusters” and taking it *seriously* as Art are easily separable states (I liked “Ghostbusters” as simple fun though it’s hard to imagine needing to see it twice, unless children are involved)… but there’s an army of consumers out there who won’t know what I’m talking about and their ignorance sometimes makes them hostile: no biggie. Until they start flooding the film business. At which point the possibility of many new films, deeper than “Ghostbusters”, coming out, recedes into the nostalgic recollection of a Golden Age. Which is where we’re at.

      And this syndrome threatens the practice of Literature-as-Art. Of course taste is subjective. That’s a given. But if that were the aesthetic-arguments-escape-hatch that some (eg Roxanne) seem to think it is, there’d be no place for cultural criticism. “De gustibus non est disputandum” needs a Godwin’s law for litblogs.

      Reading-and-writing-as-entry-level-therapy is a useful thing until it crowds out the whole spectrum of uses. Which is what is happening.

      And “Feel bad for yourself and the need to judge what others enjoy!!!” could be a banner in a mob of the narcissistically-ignorant. You aren’t being judged as a human (ie broader category of) for liking a piece-of-shit-writing… but as a practitioner of Lit. By all means, own your ignorance but have the good sense to protect the rest of us from it. Contrary to what we’ve been cynically led to believe, the narcissistic pride in ignorance is not empowering. Why not burn down the Louvre because you can’t fucking paint?

      And @ Kyle: the argument is not between “high” and “low”; it’s between “exquisite” and “shit” and about the common practice of asserting that the difference between the two is merely a matter of taste. “High” and “low” (in your comment) are social registers, not levels of technique. Here, have a look at this painting by an elephant… right next to Guernica. The ten-year-old in the audience prefers the painting by the elephant. So what?

      But @ Ufa: Roxanne *is* right: don’t feel bad for her: she’s in the majority. The majority usually wins. Feel bad for Lit.

  64. Yikes

      Or-

      The snob manifesto

      (PS – not a fan of Frey. But much less of a fan of elitist assholes like SAugustine)

      To take the analogy further

      Youre like the kid on the first day of filmschool who cites a whole bunch of deathly dull arthouse movies as his favorite, hasnt seen most of them, and spends the next 3 years unsuccessfully trying to get laid.

  65. STaugustine

      But that’s just it: you haven’t taken any “analogy” further because you’re unable to; you’re lashing out, in the dull old standard witless way, because the idea that some cultural artifacts are *much* finer, and deserving of serious critique, than other artifacts, threatens you (for obvious reasons); let me guess the “arthouse” movies you consider “dull”…! Laugh. Stupid shits from your army have already essentially wiped out the modern market for decent films and now you’re working on Lit. Bravo, Doofie!

      If wanting to preserve a little corner in the “cultural conversation” for material that isn’t aimed at dim-bulb teens is a sign of snobbery, I’m the fucking Mengele of Snobs and proud of it. Only in *this* analogy, the cattle cars are headed for Disney World and I didn’t even have to force your stupid asses on it.

      Love,

      Josef

  66. will c.

      I keep ending back at this horrible website somehow. Wow, James Frey? I threw Bright Shiny Morning away. I knew there was pretense to this rag of a site. Thanks for keeping that true!

  67. Sean

      Who in the fuck doesn’t like Ghostbusters?

  68. Sean

      Stedman is a Ball State Graduate. Applebees or Chilis, hmmmm

  69. SteampunkFurrySciFiFart

      You guys deleted my response that was mostly just quoting the (completely awful) writing in the very link in the thread post?

  70. Roxane

      My name is spelled with one n.

      The thing is, I’m not making a statement about literature or cultural criticism by casually mentioning one book I liked. I did not begin to suggest this book was art or “literature.” I’ve discussed countless books on this site, at length, throwing out the necessary big words to establish my credibility as a critic as well as my level of taste. Your fairly mean-spirited and hysterical response inflates a casual statement unnecessarily and makes irresponsible assumptions. The practice of literature as art, whatever that means, is not under threat because I can appreciate both James Joyce and James Frey. It is under threat by people who are so narrow minded in their thinking as to make erroneous assumptions and grandiose statements about art and literature based on paltry evidence.

  71. Roxane

      It is actually the project that interests me most, much the same way I am interested in this recent (though certainly not new) trend of literature that rises, in some way, out of scripture/religious canon–Adam Novy’s The Avian Gopels, Joshua Cohen’s Witz, Adam Levin’s The Instructions. At some point, I’ll probably post about all these books and how they inform one another because I think there’s an interesting connective thread there. Anyway.

  72. STaugustine

      @Roxannnnne:

      “The practice of literature as art, whatever that means, is not under threat because I can appreciate both James Joyce and James Frey.”

      What you *think* you’re capable of appreciating isn’t my concern. And there are worse things than being “mean-spirited” (if you wander a short distance from your engagement with Lit-as-Therapy you might notice this one day).

      As for “big words”… uh… sure. Whatever you say.

      And re: “credibility”: no.

  73. SteampunkFurrySciFiFart

      I, for one, couldn’t care less if Roxane or anyone else reads a James Frey book. Read whatever you want. But I do think it is odd that she finds it odd that people would have a negative reaction to talking about a really really bad mainstream author who can’t write, is most famous for being such a bad writer that he had to sell a crappy novel as a memoir to get people to buy it, who has such low literary aspirations that he spends is time co-writing crappy young adult genre books, and who, I may have forgotten to mention, is a really bad writer.

      This board caters to people interested in the indie lit world and, theoretically, embraces challenging and innovative writing. If this was an underground noise rock messageboard and someone posted about how excited they were for the new Limp Bizkit CD, they’d have to expect some blowback as well.

  74. SteampunkFurrySciFiFart

      I, for one, couldn’t care less if Roxane or anyone else reads a James Frey book. Read whatever you want. But I do think it is odd that she finds it odd that people would have a negative reaction to talking about a really really bad mainstream author who can’t write, is most famous for being such a bad writer that he had to sell a crappy novel as a memoir to get people to buy it, who has such low literary aspirations that he spends is time co-writing crappy young adult genre books, and who, I may have forgotten to mention, is a really bad writer.

      This board caters to people interested in the indie lit world and, theoretically, embraces challenging and innovative writing. If this was an underground noise rock messageboard and someone posted about how excited they were for the new Limp Bizkit CD, they’d have to expect some blowback as well.

  75. Roxane

      It’s actually fine, blow away. I did not know people consider Frey a bad writer. Lesson learned. And while this site indeed embraces challenging and innovative writing, there are also regular discussions of Gucci Mane. This site is not any one thing and the contributors reflect a diversity of thought.

  76. SteampunkFurrySciFiFart

      Hey, I’m not saying you shouldn’t post about it or that the crticisms are right or wrong. Only that you gotta expect negative reactions for promoting someone like Frey.

      Also, there is no way that James Frey could ever, in a million years, come up with a line as good as “My watch so stupid icy I can’t even tell the time.”

  77. What’s wrong with liking what other people like? | HTMLGIANT

      […] couple days ago, Roxane posted something about how she likes James Frey and a riot broke out. I wonder: are we supposed to dislike things just because the majority of the American people like […]

  78. deadgod

      Kyle, it’s not simply a matter of co-existence in a Library of Every Book; the point some have raised in this conversation is that exposure is power, and uncritical, or critically soft-hearted (?), exposure is misused power.

      I still like Alistair MacLean (a preteen enthusiasm that lasted many re-readings through, say, high school), but I distinguish that ‘appreciation’ from the one I feel/think for Joyce. The “distinction” between the two is not “fine”, nor would insisting on it be ‘frightened’ (though it might end up being stated dogmatically, ha ha), and nor is an “elitism” completely “subjectively” grounded.

      I doubt if it’s useful to sneer at someone for getting pleasure from Frey – the thread would have been more photo and less thermo if it were full of examples of Frey’s art-crimes (and political-economic sleaze) and less with dudgeon leveled at a briefly-expressed enjoyment of one of his books. (I read maybe 50 pages of the madeupmoir after its fraudulence was outed; too dire to check out from the library and finish, in my view.)

      The blogicle is just a “snippet” and a link, but if some particular snippet is a supportive shout-out of a writer even one willing voice considers to be worthless, that antagonism is going to be heard. If a contributor had snipped a derogation – ‘hey, lookit how lousy this is, hardy har har’ – of [egad] Beckett, or [gadzooks] Wallace — boom would go the thread, no?

      I think this thread’s competition between elitisms is normal, healthy: ‘engagement of disposition towards ultimate questions (including those of ‘craft’) vs. pulpy sensation of such an engagement’ versus ‘heartfelt “love” vs. pseudo-sophisticated snobbery’. I’d choose the former register of authenticity, and welcome the disdain of the anti-snobbery snobs.

  79. deadgod

      Not having any personal contact with either of them, I don’t care if Frey or Ellis is creepy – though I entitle myself (?) to judging them for being creepy, ha ha ha. Being a straight-up liar about ‘memory’ is, what, a Bad Sign, but, as has been claimed in occult exculpation of Frey, almost every memoir has factual-accuracy problems. Reading should be about the sentences, structure, image/emotion/thought – the life (or scorn for life!) that a book enables resonantly. For me, Ellis is too – way too – infrequently glib to carry his sour Tragedy of Emotion in a Cold, Cruel World act, and, from the little I’ve read, Frey’s ambition To Change the Lives of Readers is left ridiculous by his, eh, talent.

  80. deadgod

      – you should have quoted from the first page of Infinite Jest or Richard Yates.

  81. Kyle Minor

      deadgod, I think that if the criticism had been leveled in the thoughtful register you just offered, it might have been met with conversation of the sort your response opens up. But what happened here was Roxane posted one sentence about a book that interested her, without making any claims to its literary veracity or whatever, and people immediately responded with personal attacks, broadsides against arguments she didn’t make, news from freshman-ish ha-has from film school, and drawings of penises. If I’m going to be a snob about something, it’s probably discourse of that base sort, and I find it a little bit sad that this is the way the self-appointed guardians of high literary culture frame their attacks. If you want to claim the high ground in these areas, you probably ought to have the critical wheels to frame an argument with sufficient authority that your high ground credentials are vetted by even a middling intellect such as me. If you want to talk smart, I mean, you probably ought to talk your smart talk smartly.

      For whatever it’s worth, I’m not a fan of James Frey. I am a fan of Roxane Gay, and also of civility.

  82. Mickey Malone

      hey, let’s slum it at walmart this weekend. they are having a sale on “magic hour” by kristin hannah – the superior hannah? and the new judds retrospective should also be a couple bucks off. it’s just such a Thrill to go there, you know? There. kind of like how we felt upon leaving the matinee showing of soul surfer.

  83. deadgod

      Well, the first of the two germane sentences in the blogicle is, indeed, an innocuous intro/link to the next Frey book. – as has been said, one of the purposes of this site, one that the complainers might each usually defend.

      The second sentence in the blogicle is a declaration of eagerness for that book based on “love” for Frey’s previous novel – a recommendation of the earlier book to any fan of the declarer, in my view.

      I’m not sure what you mean by “literary veracity”. The “loved” book is a novel – A Million Little Pieces was Frey’s “veracity”, eh, experiment – , and it’s “literary” value (to some) is at least hinted at by that expression of attachment.

      – which probably is what led to the incivility that offends you: people are provoked to rudeness by extolments of writing they despise (and, ad hominem, of writers they despise). You’ll note some incivility in spurious support of Frey’s fan — it’s opinionated people (lucky us, right??), it’s the internet, it’s quarrels about taste, value, and meaning.

      You don’t enjoy phatic – even when off-topic – drawings of penises (and vaginas, you misogynistic scalawag)???

  84. Sean

      Frey is a jar of balls. Low wattage suck.

  85. Sean

      I like a lot of what Augustine is saying on this thread, though the undercurrent of some past wrong, bitterness is clouding things up for me.

      BUT

      I really find the what is art: lump of mud versus a Michelangelo sculpture argument as fascinating.

  86. Anonymous

      Seems like I’ve watched Ghostbusters every time I’ve remarried. Weird.

  87. STaugustine

      The only “bitterness” I feel is that an art-form I cherish is being fucked for future generations by lazy-assed, narcissistic, anti-intellectual products of the Entitlement Factory (and, no, I don’t mean college) who have colonized almost every square mile of the territory of this art-form.

      Talented young artist/writers are being co-opted by the leveling-out effect of the “joining” function of the hive or discouraged/confused by all the easy praise and attention given to utter shit. Very , very few are able to produce good work (and continue to grow) under these conditions. Where you might’ve gotten ten really good writers out of 1,000 wannabes, in the past, it feels more like 1-in-1,000 now. If you’re concerned about Endangered Species…

      I also have a problem with the use of the word “elitist” (implicit or explicit) in this “conversation”, because it’s being deployed as a description of some kind of ultimate evil (like “racism”)… but there are two different kinds of “elitism”. The conversation has not addressed this duality because it appears to be ignorant of it.

      The truly evil version of the word refers to a belief-system (or unconscious mindset) that would exclude certain classes/races/nationalities from the “better” things (or even from sharing space with the “higher” classes/races/nationalities).

      What I’m arguing for is the opposite: that class/race/gender/whatever shouldn’t limit anyone’s access to the full spectrum of the better things (which aren’t material or materially status-affirming). The Better Things are a multi-cultural inheritance of thousands of years’ worth of human (aesthetic) creativity. Ie you can be dirt-poor, trapped in the meanest ghetto, and have the tone and texture of your life enriched by Art (as an audience or a practitioner). That’s the way it should be (but, as we know, it’s generally not). And guess what: Lil Wayne ain’t Art in the same way a salad bowl ain’t Art (though there are some admittedly fancy salad bowls out there). Lil Wayne (and GaGa and Rhianna, et al) are Craft. They are tools to make their owners rich; they exist *only for that reason*. Without a nuanced critical framework in place, you aren’t in a position to meaningfully discriminate between an Art and a Craft (or third-way, blended genres like Film). There’s a spiritual element in Art, which humans have sacrificed their lives mastering, driven by obsessions beyond money.

      But that’s my form of “elitism”: I think there’s a place for disposable shit in our lives but we’re committing spiritual suicide if we treat the exquisite aesthetic products of lifetimes of mastery as no better than cynically-engineered commercial bullshit the primary appeal of which is that you don’t have to do any thinking to “get” it. Which leads me to the “Machiavellian dumbing-down” riff.

      If you don’t think the culture is Dumber, as a mean value, than it was about thirty years ago, you haven’t been paying attention. And if you don’t realize that this is the result of deliberate interventions, you’re naive.

      We can’t understand *anything* about the Real State of the world if we’re unwilling or unable to do lots of rather intense reading. We won’t get this info from “news” clips or from headlines or from four-paragraph “articles” on Yahoo; we damn-sure won’t get it on Twitter. The people who buy and sell our futures every day prefer us to be lazy critical thinkers, suspicious of the intellect, limitlessly open to emotional manipulation and only literate enough to follow instructions.

      Obviously, I’m not saying that Roxane *knows* that she’s doing her part to speed the Devil’s agenda along (not only by advertizing shitty Frey but by writing lazy shit herself and installing various pipelines of lazy writing); she’s just doing what everyone does, which is trying to find her place in the world. My “bitterness” comes from the fact that she’s oblivious to the damage she does and will remain so and will continue to encourage others to remain so.

  88. חורף טוב | פְריק – מגזין אלטרנטיבי

      […] מה אם המשיח היה חי היום? חי בניו-יורק. שוכב עם גברים. מפרה נשים צעירות. ממית בחסד ומבריא את החולים. מתנגד לממשלה ומגנה את הקדושה. ומה אם מדובר בספר החדש של ג'יימס פרי, מחבר מליון רסיסים קטנים ובוקר בהיר וצח? למעשה, חוץ מלעטר את כריכת הספר The Final Testament of the Holy Bible בקריקטורה של הנביא מוחמד, פריי עשה פחות או יותר כל מה שאפשר כדי לעורר את השערוריה הבאה של עולם הספרות האמריקאי. קבלו מאדרפאקינג קטע. [via HTMLGIANT] […]

  89. Yikes

      Dont flatter yourself, SAugustine, your just a grade A bore who posts long, dull posts in the comments sections of a literary blog. Dont start thinking you’re James Wood… Steve, youre just another anonymous internet bore with delusions of grandeur.

      Some of us dont have to go around trying to prove how “serious” and “intellectual” we are probably because we arent as insecure about our own place in this world as you are.

  90. STaugustine

      Can I get a hug?