Uncategorized
Reality Hunger: A conversation
I enjoyed Reality Hunger. Blake, not so much. We had an email conversation about it. Here it is.
M: So, I gave you my galley of Reality Hunger, and saw this on your Twitter feed: “fairly underwhelmed by ‘reality hunger’ — what’s so innovative about making a list of things praising innovation?” I’m not sure that’s what I thought I was reading, though—a list of praise for innovation. I think I read an argument for the synthesizing of creative disciplines. Nonfiction and fiction, say, ingesting one another—two snakes swallowing one another whole, beginning at one another’s tail. And the thesis, antithesis, synthesis structure feels less linear to me than the word “list” implies.
B: You’re correct, it’s not quite just a list of praise for innovation–though quite a bit of the book repeats something along those lines of the ingesting as you mention, and does it again, again, again. And it’s certainly not untrue: fiction, or any writing, must continually evolve, for fear of that same pattern of repetition, or at the very least no longer being interesting, or “relevant,” which I think was Mr. Shields’s major point. People get bored. Times change. Sure. My problem with the book, though, is that, well, OF COURSE. Of course things will keep changing, and of course there will be those who feign against it, making more of the same, and that in the end leads to the demise of the interest, and the morph continues etc. These are things we know.
So, then, as I was reading Reality Hunger, and agreeing with the things he said, or appropriated, or intoned, I never got the sense that he was doing something new himself. The book, at some point, became a repeating blinker for me, a “manifesto” (self styled for its form, which almost goes against the grain of its own argument), not building something wholly new or vital out of the text itself, but more just, almost, beating a dead horse. I’d much rather have seen a book that started with these ideas, and then transcended them, made something bigger, a book larger than the sum of its parts, which for me it was not at all. Many of the parts were much larger than the book itself.
There were certainly glimpses, also, where he began to do this, such as the ‘ds’ section where he began to fold in some of his personal interactions, memories, etc., but way too much of the book for me felt not like a rocketship, but some kind of pamphlet, a thing that could (and likely should) be passed out to undergrads, like “This is something that is going on.” The blurbs on the book praising it as some hallmark of the future do it a disservice in that way, I think. I think, too, that there is much more ground gained in books that begin with an important idea, such as Shields does, and then blow it out of the water, such as, recently, for me, John D’Agata’s About a Mountain, which could have easily paced in the momentum of its opening third and never transcended itself, and still been a fine book, but not really thrown the gates wide and made something that transcends time, and makes new.
M: I guess I came away from it having felt that I read, at core, a call to blur the lines, but hardly a simple one. In fact, what I read was a methodical dismantling of some very very old ideas about the nature of fiction, the nature of memoir, the nature of influence, of borrowing, of begging, and of stealing.
I wonder, too, if the sense you have of the booking repeating itself could in fact be linked not to its on the page repetitions, but the fact that it may be repeating things that exist in your own head. This may be the nature of the manifesto: that it will sometimes—very rarely—fall into the hands of someone for whom it’s radical ideas will ring so true as to seem obvious. I would ask that you consider the possibility that though this book is very much for you, it also isn’t really for you. You are a fellow traveler.
I really found Reality Hunger and the D’Agata of a piece, and I’m glad you brought it up. I think About a Mountain will have its detractors. I think Reality Hunger is an articulation—and one that a lot of people may well need—of what is happening in About a Mountain. Someone needed, I think, to gather these thoughts in this way—to pull from the culture at large and get this conversation started.
I absolutely believe that Reality Hunger asks for a deeper conversation to begin. It’s a launching pad, not a rocket ship. Maybe that’s another thing that made you hesitate. To some extent, you already have this conversation going. Reality Hunger will, I think, open the doors to the party a lot wider, and more people are bound to show up and start talking.
And how could you not get a sense of Reality Hunger‘s size from its structure? He follows so many branches, and does so with impressive thoroughness. He’s even spent time recasting the material he worked with to create this mesmerizing journey through sentences.
B: No, I agree that I’m probably not the target audience, but then when you have your blurbs on the cover from some really big and influential innovating guns, calling the book, in so many words, a game changer, and something that will be around for a long time, etc., I think it kind of assumes that the book aims not to be something like what it professes to want, but a tool toward that end. Which is totally cool, and I’m all for it, and there can only come good things most likely from people reading those branches and thinking about them and implementing them, but for me it also kind of blanks out the will toward necessity of actually reading these objects as they already exist. I was actually pretty surprised a lot of the time at the books that Shields referenced as things he likes as objects, outside the quoted sources, as they seemed not quite in league a lot of the time with what he was calling for.
It also, I think, is dangerous, in that what he’s really saying is that big books are dead. He professes to not being able to read anything that isn’t in short numbered sections, and at some point in the book says we need to learn how to write for cell phones. Cell phones? I’m sorry, I don’t care how important it may seem to certain people that art keep up with technology, but at some point this is a deflation of the process, and to me can have damaging effects. Writing for a cell phone is like training yourself to pee only in little Dixie cups in a moving car. While I’m all for the death of flabby, repeating fiction that is more concerned about narrative and answering questions than it is being something more amorphous, I also totally disagree that the terms of this expansion have to be on par with the terms of whatever iDoodad is currently being fed out, and that we only have to write in these little numbered graphs that add up to something unnameable.
If anything, for me, books are a terrain that innovate on another kind of soil than any other art form. Sure, they incorporate elements of other media, and grow in that absorption, and evolve, but Shields’s continued assertion that this can only happen under the frame of ‘lyric essay’ and ‘flash’ is off base. I found myself all throughout the reading of the book saying, “Okay, you like essays. Great.” Now what?
For me, rather than praising brevity, and the insistence of incorporating the self into one’s art over confabulation, I’d much rather attend to Brian Massumi’s idea of developing by bringing the foreign element into a body, plopping it in, and watching how it shifts the medium. This isn’t a question of attention, or shouldn’t be: it should be making interesting, fun, powerful art. And, again, while I enjoyed Shields’s book, and could see it bringing benefits to those who haven’t thought so much about escaping the undoubtedly dead scene of traditional narrative lit, I’d much rather have seen the book act less as a manual or a ‘manifesto’ and more as the kind of amorphous, transfixing objects that he calls for. This is more a syllabus, less an art.
All that said, a syllabus can be a great thing. I wish there’d been more feelers that escaped the book, transcended it, rather than a kind of diatribe. Did this book make you think of any other books you’d read, or that it pointed at, and make you reconsider them? Did it activate an awareness for forward movement in your own work that you might not have otherwise?
M: I think, really, the depth of this conversation is a good indication not of the book’s failings, but the book incredible successes. I don’t think you, Blake, would react this strongly—or reply to my defenses—in such interesting, considered, and (face it) lengthy ways if you in any way were “underwhelmed” by Reality Hunger. Books can be contended with. Some books beg for it. Sometimes a book’s greatest gift to a reader is that it causes them mixed feelings about it.
I, too, disagree when he implies that big books are dead, that lyric essay is replacing fiction. Did Reality Hunger convince me to abandon the way I write? Not completely. Will it change the way I write? I think, quite honestly, that I don’t, won’t, and can’t know. And, in fact, I think that’s part of the point and part of the book’s lesson. Legacy in art is a deeply strange thing. Influence is, as well. Because it bubbles up from a place we don’t always have conscious access to, influence happens all the time without announcing itself—without planting its standard in the center of our pages. I found something enormously satisfying about the fact that Reality Hunger acknowledges and celebrates its influences.
Re cell phone writing, yes, I understand and I sympathize, but there’s a chance we are reacting because we have our own preferred reading delivery system. Because they are already reading—and writing—novels on cell phones in Japan. I have a couple of friends who really like reading on their iPhones. And, heck man. You edit a web journal. You have published stories on other web journals. Technology already is moving writing, moving some kinds of fiction, toward compression. I don’t think that means the death of books, though. I just think it means writers need to learn to adapt to each kind of delivery system.
Have you been following David’s books over the last few years? It’s really fascinating to watch the way his creative impulses have changed.
B: I have read some of David’s books, and I think they are more interesting than this one. This book is not an object. It’s basically Postmodern Tactics for Dummies. Which, again, I’ll say can be helpful for those unaware, but is it a second coming, or even vital? No.
If anything, you could spin it back the other way. That by attempting to assemble the ‘pertinent pieces’ of all these texts are actually their own objects, he is actually destroying them? That by cutting the meaty chunks out of Markson, Didion, D’Agata, and using them to prove their own ends, rather than to make something new, in a new context, he is actually undoing some of their light? I seriously don’t understand why taking “Nonlinear. Discontinuous. Collage-like. An assemblage.” out of Markson’s book and planting it next to a bunch of other quotes essentially saying the same thing does to further the idea of blurring boundary lines. It feels like some kind of light therein is reduced, cooked down into some ‘manifestro’ (gross word). Why not write a book that actually does what he is asking for? I would say that Reality Hunger fails its own litmus test. It has little resonance outside of its demands, which are basically Shields saying he’s bored. Is that interesting? Not really. It’s prescriptive. It’s confining. A conversation, sure, but what isn’t? We could talk this way about Barry Manilow, or hair bows. Who cares?
I think it’s also potentially and unnecessarily damaging to the book itself. Why should books mimic reality television’s goals? Why should they be devised out of personal, ‘real’ terms? Why should they all be in short numbered sections? These demands are just as arbitrary and suffocating as saying all books should be narrative and with a clear time/setting/place. The imagination is young. There are many doors. And pointing at the doors, saying “I’m bored, thrill me,” is about as counteractive as any of the other modes that have made us tired.
What’s funniest to me of all in Shields’s argument, and in Zadie Smith’s recent ‘Novel Nausea’ bit, is that this comes from both of them after years and years of not following their own suddenly so pertinent advice.
I guess my main problem with the book is: his prescription in some way stifles, to me, as much as it does nod its head. We don’t need a manifesto. We need something else.
I’m not sure what to ask you back now. Does any of that make sense? Should we talk about books that actually do what Reality Hunger is pointing at, instead of just trying to define?
M: When you refer to the book as a “second coming,” are you referring to the chatter you are hearing about the book or the blurbs? I think we have to expect a little hype on the cover. We can’t blame the book for its marketing. It may be important to note just how many incredibly heavy hitters have provided blurbs, though. Seems like a big pile of people have been missing out on some of this and needed Reality Hunger to whomp them on the head. (And, honestly, you can call those people a lot of things, but “dummies” ain’t really one of them.)
I wonder what you mean when you say Reality Hunger is not an object. I mean, yes, it works as a blueprint for a kind of writing, but it does so—it seems to me—by following its own rules pretty closely. It is both description of an ideal kind of object and the object itself.
The collage stuff seems like a natural progression. Interestingly, it’s also an attempt by a writer to reaffirm his right to beg, borrow, steal, recontextualize, revitalize, re-imagine, plunder, tear up, rebuild, restore, reuse, recycle, and fuck with the familiar. And, again, I didn’t find it all that repetitive. I read the book quickly, and felt a precise, measured build up of ideas.
Aren’t you a little bored? The novel has become a clean, well-manufactured object. I have an MFA, and am not given to complaining about MFAs, but I do sometimes worry that MFA programs are making writers really good at producing well-made, pristine pieces of fiction. A little messiness would suit them. And when Shields points at the doors, and says “I’m bored, thrill me,” I say “Hear, hear. Thrill me, too.” It feels like a kick in the pants. And, yes, Shields certainly has some idea which door we should take. But it’s an interesting door. I may not take it. But I may. (Some of the editing of A Jello Horse was done after I read the collage chapter of Reality Hunger, by the way. I spent quite a bit of my last semester thinking about collage and white space, too. Wondering about it. I’ve always liked white space. I think I use it better now.)
(I think The Thing About Life Is That One Day You’ll Be Dead is very much a book under the influence of the ideas in Reality Hunger. I’ve actually, as a Seattle bookseller who has hosted Shields numerous times, been watching him evolve to Reality Hunger from his book about Ichiro, though he started on it much earlier. I have almost no opinions on Zadie Smith. She’s clearly very bright and talented, but my read on her career is that her books feel like reactions instead of a natural artistic evolution. Autograph Man as a reaction to spending time with the McSweeney’s set, On Beauty a reaction to the James Wood critique of her work.)
This might be a place to bring up About A Mountian. I would hope we can both agree that there is a connection between it and Reality Hunger. I would argue that if you are looking for an object—a book that does what Shields is suggesting books do—About A Mountain is that book. In fact, I assumed your enthusiasm for About A Mountain was evidence that you would really love Reality Hunger, too, as they feel like sibling texts to me. (Another book Shields brings up is Bluets by Maggie Nelson. I have not read this book, though. Have you?)
B: I think I can say with full confidence that in ten years no one will regard this book as something larger than itself. It seems a snapshot, and really, a rather late one, of a trend in creation, and one that doesn’t seem to need any more parading. Our attention spans are shortening? No kidding? Sure, the tactics Shields is arguing for by proxy here are often good for furthering art, but again I think at the end of the day the sum is less than its parts. The blurbs, while certainly from people I respect, make think they are lying. They’d really never thought of these things before? They hadn’t heard the end over end of the Frey and Leroy scandals? Noticed the shortening, self-focusing trend? This book isn’t a manifesto. It’s lazy: a lazy recalculation of everything anybody’s who’s been paying attention already knows. Could it help those who live in a bubble or are young and had no idea and are stuck on the idea of narrative fiction open their minds some? Sure, if those people were open to it. But I think they’d be much better served not spoonfed an assortment of ideas (however nicely arranged and culled from fine places) but, say, opening the thing itself?
The two anthologies on innovative essays that D’Agata edited for Graywolf are alive. They have bodies, the bodies are working, they exhibit their tendenices not as textbook or, jesus christ, manifesto, but as objects, exhibits, creation. Everyone should have both of those books. They are important, and not getting nearly the hype of Shields’s book because they do not demand the hype. They are.
Am I bored? God, sure, who isn’t, sometimes, but what the hell is new about being bored? Is it fat books’ problem? Or is that everybody’s so damn busy looking for an answer instead of focusing on the minute of the make. Are short collage books the answer? Are they new? No. The answer isn’t in a formula, but in making books with affect, that are more aware of themselves than they are trying to please an outside, to “entertain” a bunch of boredies. The answer is that there isn’t an answer and any trying to answer the answer with an answer is heatseeking and not heat. Bored? Fuck. I’m bored with lack of impact, with context and not meat. All this responding. With hype and babble and needing streamlining, immediacy, “reality.” I’m bored with books I can blink through and forget. I’m bored with books that want to tell me something and aren’t outside themselves at all. The problem here isn’t interiority, navel-gazing: it’s lack of it. It’s that so many seem stuck on finding the problem and not doing the business of the work.
Reality Hunger could have easily been a single page. It could have said “Read Markson. Read Wallace. Read D’Agata. Read Didion. Read Carson. Read Borges. Read Burroughs. Read Acker. Read Marcus, etc, etc. Ok, now go fuck some shit up.”
About A Mountain I definitely think is more of a step in a new direction. Saying ‘step in a new direction’ is not stepping in a new direction. And definitely Bluets, too: a huge book, page by page, which shows the power of collage. And recently, Chris Higgs’s The Complete Works of Marvin K. Mooney. And Evan Lavender-Smith’s From Old Notebooks. Those are new inventions, on the terms Shields demands, and are way more successful, I insist, as art.
The more I think about Reality Hunger, the more is pisses me off.
Hunger.
Feed yourself.
M: I’ve spent days working on, and reworking a response to this, and have nothing. I’ve erased about a thousand words.
Maybe I’ll just try this: I don’t get it, man. I liked the book. Ten years from now means shit to me. Now is what I’m interested in. Why so angry? Through a very careful and considered process of reworking and juxtaposing a few generations worth of ideas about art, Shields argues that there is a gaping hole in the literary wing of that art and because of that, the novel is less important to the culture. And he’s right. And then he offers his solution. Which he works hard to do. “Read Markson,” is nice and all—but an argument is built. And I agree with his solution to a certain extent. And I disagree to a certain extent.
Didn’t feel “alive” to you? Did to me—hell, it came to the dinner party, sat down at the table, and started a fight with the host. (Maybe this is it, though: you, Blake Butler, are not the host its starting a fight with. Maybe you just wanted a book that started a fight with you.)
And so angry that you are willing to suggest that a group of writers you personally admire would lend their reputations to the book under false pretenses? That’s kind of an un-generous assessment. Maybe they are in a bubble. Everyone’s in a bubble. You’re in a bubble. Just a different bubble. Welcome to the bubble.
Again, I liked it. And all you haters can get deez nuts.
B: Fair enough. Part of me wants to agree with you. Part of me does agree with you. And I certainly didn’t mean that the blurbers here were lying, or what have you. But ultimately this isn’t about them that’s copy speech. That’s an aside.
I guess my final thought is this: In the front of Reality Hunger, there is a note calling attention to the list of sources his publisher “forced” him to include for copyright reasons. Shields says he hopes you’ll ignore this by ripping the list out of the back of the book and thinking instead about the book as its own thing.
Instead, if you ask me, Shields should have published the book without his name on it. It should have been an anonymous letter culled and spread. The sources should be listed not line by line for where they came from, but as a syllabus without reference, giving readers the open door, if they wanted, to follow out. Or, hell, tell people to rip all his excerpting crib notes out, and keep just the source list, and read those, with great intent.
Otherwise, and I fear this is one of the things that will make the book for me become remembered as a tool and not an object, Reality Hunger is just another icon on the mount. It, like many of the things it calls for in the book, is more worried about boredom and attention, marketing and ploy, than it is the thing itself: the object that should be. You don’t go to the doctor with a broken leg to hear the doctor tell you about the way your bones over time will heal. You go to him so he’ll set the wound and let you walk around. Let’s walk.
Tags: David Shields, reality hunger
Just finished Reality Hunger yesterday, I wasn’t going to bother ’til I saw Baumer interrupt somebody else’s class at Brown by reading it, that sealed shit for me.
I agree mostly with Blake on this one. Seems ineffective to call for a thing without really trying to be that thing. I think Lincoln nailed it best over at the Rumpus likening it to Bartlett’s quotations.
I woulda been a lot more dissapointed in the book had the girl at the register given me correct change for 30 bucks instead of change for 40 bucks like she did.
Reading the book I was really curious as to whether or not Shields believed he was achieving anything like what he was calling for? That I think makes a difference.
Much of the problem with Reality Hunger is that it is completely contradictory, and not in a good enlivening way. Like, you way say Reality Hunger points in a new direction, and it does with one hand, but its other hand is pointing in an old direction. Fragments, remixing, etc. all that stuff is vital and good. But what does it have to do with “reality” or fiction vs. non-fiction, which is actually what the book spends most of its time talking about.
Or why does Shields attack “narrative” (his arguments against which are pretty silly in the first place) and thus condemn fiction while spending half the book defending memoir was some premiere artform. Is memoir not narrative?
Ultimately the book is just poorly argued. That wouldn’t in itself be a problem if the book itself was interesting, but as I said in my review, the book really just reads like Bartlett’s Famous Quotations. It fails to achieve any kind of interesting form in itself.
I still found it alright for a read, but the more I think about it the more disappointed in it I am.
I think the real central problem with the book, beyond its failure to achieve something new on its own, is that Shields completely confuses and conflates his own personal tastes with broader cultural trends. Shields could have written the book as “here is what I like and here is why you should like it” and that would be fine. But instead he wants to write it as “I’m Nostradamus and I’m diagnosing the culture and predicting the future” yet his own tastes clearly do not fall in line with the culture. The culture is not shying away from narrative films and books. Fictional works of art are not doing poorly at the box office or bestseller list.
Whoops was typing my comment before yours went up. Thanks though!
my first comment would be re: Blake’s tweet, “fairly underwhelmed by ‘reality hunger’ — what’s so innovative about making a list of things praising innovation?”: the book does not “claim” or necessarily “attempt” to be innovative. the book is a so-called manifesto, and thus it’s primary purpose is to point out and to call for innovation, not to be in and of itself, innovative (necessarily). that is, it’s more important to david shields, i feel quite comfortable presuming, that one come away from his book “hungry” for hybrid forms and the greater incorporation of “reality” into writing, moreso than he wants the reader to say, “wow, this david shields guy is very innovative in this book.” furthermore, shields is against strict copyright and believes in the free distribution and appropriation of information and artistic materials, so it would be hypocritical and nonsensical if he was seeking the validation of being himself innovative, in pursuit of validation for same.
unrelated: read that n+1 guy’s essay on reality hunger. feel like he, and it seems, “many people,” are approaching the book with a closed mind and preformed biases, gripes, attitudes, etc. disagree with him re: his dismissal of/distaste for idea of writer as hip hop dj. think it would be sweet if, in “any way,” literature became more like the hip-hop community [via “collaboration, fun, exploration of forms, less seriousness, free-associative creativity, etc.”]
re: “So, then, as I was reading Reality Hunger, and agreeing with the things he said, or appropriated, or intoned, I never got the sense that he was doing something new himself. The book, at some point, became a repeating blinker for me, a “manifesto” (self styled for its form, which almost goes against the grain of its own argument), not building something wholly new or vital out of the text itself, but more just, almost, beating a dead horse.”
I don’t think this is a dead horse for most of the literary or reading culture, Blake. the exposure this book is getting is quite mainstream, via colbert report, and so his ideas are reaching a broader audience, even if you want to quibble over there being his ideas (obviously they’re mostly appropriated) or over whether or not they’re presented in an innovative enough way for your taste (does such a book appear on a regular basis? it seems like a book with this “ambition” and receiving this much attention does not appear regularly at all, so what are you comparing it to? sure, lots of people think about these things and talk about them, and others, including yourself, may be saying much more “relevant” things about the topic in a more “innovative” way or something, but you haven’t put together a manifesto book as of yet. it seems positive or at least “potentially positive” at worst that shields has done so.
I like the idea of writer as hip-hop artist, but did not get the sense Shields knew anything about hip-hop.
seems like matthew has got my general perspective covered, so i won’t comment further. cheers, gents
seems like we agree in various ways, too, blake, you just are maybe more resistant/grumpy re: the shields book, for well-articulated reasons.
Pointing ahead and picking an choosing things from the past to inform the way forward is not contradictory. It’s precisely the way one points forward.
He refers to this as a “post-narrative” world, but I don’t think that this amounts to an attack on narrative. It’s the evolution of narrative. Are there other examples of his attack on narrative? None are coming to mind for me right now. I read the book a while back. (This conversation was had a while back, too.)
A manifesto is a public statement of purpose and is never meant to be seen as anything other than the opinions of the issuer. I took all statements to be refracted through the lens of David’s personal tastes.
Most of his ideas ARE dead horse. Everyone knows that artists should innovate and forms change, everyone seems to agree that attention spans are shrinking (although I’m not sure about that personally), etc.
A big problem with the book, IMHO, is the few ideas that aren’t just beating a dead horse are the very ideas he doesn’t actually flesh out or explain. Shields constantly says that narrative is detrimental to thought. This is an interesting idea. I think he is completely wrong, but at least it is a unique idea…. yet he doesn’t do anything to argue his point and I don’t think merely stating random things like that inspires much thought in the reader.
“It’s precisely the way one orients a way forward.” Maybe that’s better.
Sorry, I meant more that many of the things he applauds are quite stale, not that you can’t pick things from the past.
Are there other examples of his attack on narrative?
Oh yes, he says many things in the book and in interviews. Here are two:
“It’s not clear to me what narrative is supposedly revealing about the human condition. I’m drawn to literature as a form of thinking, consciousness, wisdom-seeking.”
“Nonfiction, qua label, is nothing more or less than a very flexible (easily breakable) frame that allows you to pull the thing away from narrative and toward contemplation, which is all I’ve ever wanted.”
A manifesto is a public statement of purpose and is never meant to be seen as anything other than the opinions of the issuer. I took all statements to be refracted through the lens of David’s personal tastes.
Eh, Shields makes actual claims about the cultural at large. It is an opinion to say “I like X more than Y” but it isn’t simply an opinion to say “The culture is starting to favor X over Y”
I don’t think the novel has become a clean, well-manufactured object. How can you say that? There’s some exciting, innovative stuff being published right now.
I haven’t read RH, but all the reviews seem to indicate that Shields is essentially saying “I’m bored; I’m too lazy to read long books, and fiction no longer holds my interest.” Not exactly appealing.
don’t you think the idea that “such-and-such author’s” letters or diary or random, out-of-the-canon book is “more interesting” than their more famous work is an intriguing idea? i would also argue that while a list or gathering of quotes isn’t like ground-breaking, necessarily, it still constitutes an idea-in-practice. “reality hunger” is itself the kind of book shields wants people to write, except perhaps with less manifesto-ish intellectual grandstanding, instead a more personal approach [via “the novel”/”the essay”/etc.] if he fleshes out his ideas, as you see it, than he is untrue to his ideas (if one is interested in manifesting one’s ideas as opposed to presenting them, which seems to be true of shields. and i understand where blake is coming from re: ~”other people do this in a more rigorous, crazy-artistic way [via d’agata]”, and ~”this is, like, for entry lev experimentalers,” but i don’t think that makes “reality hunger” a waste or wrong or even faulty, and i don’t see any need to like “slap it on the wrist” for that. i believe it succeeds on its own terms, and those terms are “interesting.”
Sorry, I meant more that many of the things he applauds are quite stale, not that you can’t pick things from the past.
Well, they have been sitting on the shelf for a little while. But they felt less bready and more cheesey to me. (Wow. That metaphor really fucks up my point, doesn’t it. Damn.)
“It’s not clear to me what narrative is supposedly revealing about the human condition. I’m drawn to literature as a form of thinking, consciousness, wisdom-seeking.”
“Nonfiction, qua label, is nothing more or less than a very flexible (easily breakable) frame that allows you to pull the thing away from narrative and toward contemplation, which is all I’ve ever wanted.”
Ah, yes. Thank you. I think perhaps his definition of narrative is stricter than ours. I know, for example, David is an admirer of Amy Fusselman’s book The Pharmacist’s Mate, which tells the story of a woman trying to get pregnant. What he seems to be suggesting is that the “I’m not pregnant, I’m trying to get pregnant, I’m pregnant” stuff is not as interesting as the moments when Fusselman, say, uses the page to work out the way she feels about AC/DC.
You know, the stuff that your writing instructor calls navel-gazing. The stuff the people in your workshop tell you isn’t working for them. I think that moments like those are David tweaking his friends in the academic world of creative writing.
Eh, Shields makes actual claims about the cultural at large. It is an opinion to say “I like X more than Y” but it isn’t simply an opinion to say “The culture is starting to favor X over Y”
Well, sure. But his name is still on the cover. I tend to forgive people who don’t use “I” statements because the “I” is just there hovering and it always will be. Subjectivity is a given. Even when he is picking through years and years of other people’s subjective opinions to build his own.
And from a book sales perspective, the culture does favor memoir over novel. Narrative film still sells more tickets than documentary, but he says the novel is dead, not the summer blockbuster.
Lil Shields
[insert ur writer hip-hop names here]
There certainly is some exciting, innovative stuff being published right now. But they are the exception, not the rule.
No, I don’t think Shields’s “every author’s work of non-fiction is better than their fiction” argument or “every work of fiction I like is secretly non-fiction because I say so” argument is very interesting. It feels very try-hard and I honestly just don’t believe he believes that. It seems like he is turning literature into a sporting competition and he is just searching for a way to include authors on “his team.”
I’m not sure how your comment responds to mine though? I’m saying that the few unique arguments Shields presents are not fleshed out at all in the book, they are just presented as aphorisms, sans elaboration/argument.
mine would prolly be Dirty Dierks or Tully Monsta (that’s “dirks” yall, just pick a vowel and “run with it”)
Although I do really agree with Shields about a lot of his thoughts on craft and we like similar works and techniques.
do you think they are the rule, not the exception, in memoir and essay writing though?
i was trying to respond to you here, lincoln: “it still constitutes an idea-in-practice. “reality hunger” is itself the kind of book shields wants people to write, except perhaps with less manifesto-ish intellectual grandstanding, instead a more personal approach [via “the novel”/”the essay”/etc.] if he fleshes out his ideas, as you see it, than he is untrue to his ideas (if one is interested in manifesting one’s ideas as opposed to presenting them, which seems to be true of shields.”
i may not have been clear enough for you, but i can try again if you want. basically, “aphorisms, sans elaboration/argument,” (or without, one could say, narrative machinery) IS the argument :)
therefore, his argument is manifested as opposed to “explained,” per se.
No, of course not.
But in this case, demi-puppet is asking me about an opinion I offered. I think there is a dearth of clean, well-manufactured novels. I think a lot of people have spent time learning how to produce them. I think those people can be told every once and a while that what they are doing is boring because it’s too clean and too precisely crafted. I think they would maybe benefit from spending time thinking about how a good essay or a good memoir is put together when they approach their writing.
Doesn’t that contradict with your earlier comment:
“the book does not “claim” or necessarily “attempt” to be innovative. the book is a so-called manifesto, and thus it’s primary purpose is to point out and to call for innovation, not to be in and of itself, innovative (necessarily). that is, it’s more important to david shields, i feel quite comfortable presuming, that one come away from his book “hungry” for hybrid forms and the greater incorporation of “reality” into writing, moreso than he wants the reader to say, “wow, this david shields guy is very innovative in this book.” “
shields seems to “aim his guns” at mainstream “literary fiction” as it’s genre-fied, thus he complains about narrative machinery re: his boredom. if he was to aim his guns at experimental fiction, he could plausibly say something along the lines of “where are you the writer in all of this? where is your life, where is what you care about? are you putting anything besides Word-Painter of the Year 2k10 on the line here? why do you have disdain for your audience? if you do, is that how you feel IRL, too? if so, if you disdain most people in real life, too, then why should i care about you if you care so little about me? i’m just supposed to genuflect at your writer alter?”
[…] can read more things about/by Shields here, which is totally weird, seeing as I sat down just now with the March 2006 issue in my lap, then […]
“we’re in a secret club? we’re in a secret club at age 2_ or age 3_ or age 4_???? what?”
my personal manifesto would be “i’d rather be a standup comedian than a magician. i have no trick, and even if i do, i want you to be ‘in on it.'”
That still doesn’t explain why non-fiction is inherently some kind of frame that lets you get rid of narrative, especially in a book that talks so much about memoir, or why narrative is detrimental to wisdom seeking, especially when so many philosophers use narrative.
Well, sure. But his name is still on the cover. I tend to forgive people who don’t use “I” statements because the “I” is just there hovering and it always will be. Subjectivity is a given. Even when he is picking through years and years of other people’s subjective opinions to build his own.
We seem to be misunderstanding each other. I’m saying Shields is quite literary saying things in the book that are not statements of personal preference but rather claims about the culture at large (or claims about specific parts of the culture) and that many of those claims are incorrect.
And from a book sales perspective, the culture does favor memoir over novel. Narrative film still sells more tickets than documentary, but he says the novel is dead, not the summer blockbuster.
A central part of the book is the argument that the culture at large has some kind of reality hunger and that people want more and more reality and less and less fiction in their work. I think he is incorrect, in fact I think the opposite is true.
Also, are you sure that the culture favors memoir over fiction?
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/financial-reporting/article/42695-facts–figures-2009-revised.html
The top selling books of fiction in 2009 sold more than the top selling books of non-fiction… and most of the non-fiction books are political books, not memoirs.
no it does not contradict my earlier comment, because the argument manifested isn’t innovative. it’s an existing way of doing things. it’s a way that is appealing to shields, and he offers many examples of other people in the past who have done things that caused him to have an argument (“the lyric essay type style is totes sweet!”) and then to manifest that argument in a manifesto that is itself a lyric essay. all of which is to say, it isn’t about david shields and it isn’t about innovation. it’s about a style, a blending of forms, that could roughly be called the “lyric essay,” that has existed for a long time. shields is just saying this is awesome, let’s have more of this, and doesn’t that have something to do with our hunger for “reality,” for connection, to know about other human beings, and, ultimately, to seek wisdom.
to clarify “the argument manifested” is a combination noun, maybe i should have typed “the manifested-argument” or something. i’m not saying he has an argument and it manifests in such a way, i’m saying the argument is embedded in its method of conveyance, is manifested as opposed to explained and defended and padded with qualifiers and apologies. just to be clear.
i disagree that that is all that Shields is saying!
But to the extent he says that, I agree with him (except for the hunger/reality part)
i’m certainly condensing and limiting my summary.
i think shields succeeds in a way he doesn’t realize. he subtitled the thing “a manifesto” and he’s gone about saying lyric essays are “better” than conventional lit fiction, so he’s clearly in the “i am right, you are wrong” dead-end game, but the book itself, by not explaining things so much, by not fleshing out what you wanted fleshed out, and by “stating random things” as you so charitably describe it ;) :) by doing that, he achieves something closer to a wisdom-talk that i like: writing/ideas that exist, and nothing more; emotions that are, and that’s all; a thing that is a thing and does not possess; something that IS and does not HAVE.
They’ve always been the exception.
That still doesn’t explain why non-fiction is inherently some kind of frame that lets you get rid of narrative, especially in a book that talks so much about memoir, or why narrative is detrimental to wisdom seeking, especially when so many philosophers use narrative.
The history of philosophy is a movement away from narrative as a strategy for wisdom seeking and wisdom imparting. The Book of Job, for example, attempts to explain God’s seeming indifference in narrative terms because the author(s) did not have the language to say what they wanted to say. Compare/contrast The Phenomenology of Spirit. But that’s only a digression.
His quote says that nonfiction let’s you “pull away” from narrative, though. Not get rid of it. I’m reading that to mean the that the I and the eye can pull back. The I can use the eye to explore the interior of the I. And by the “eye” I mean the instrument that the I uses on the page. The camera, if you will. Nonfiction is the I using the eye in the real world instead of the imagined world. The eye of nonfiction can’t see anything other than the real world.* That’s seems to me to be a frame that inherently let’s you get rid of narrative. “Let’s you” but doesn’t “insist you” or “whether you want it to or not” gets rid of narrative.
A central part of the book is the argument that the culture at large has some kind of reality hunger and that people want more and more reality and less and less fiction in their work. I think he is incorrect, in fact I think the opposite is true.
And as a fiction writer, and a consumer of fiction, I would like to think the opposite is true. I’m not sure it is, though.
Maybe it’s this, though. People certainly seem to claim to want more reality and less fiction. Even though so much of this “reality” is manufactured. Here’s a place where I would argue with Shields (and, as I think I mentioned, there are any number of these places in the book): maybe instead the book should be called “Reality” Hunger.
* God, that’s thorny, though. Because the I using the eye of nonfiction still starts at the I which invariably means the eye is always carrying with it the prejudices of the I.
The history of philosophy is a movement away from narrative as a strategy for wisdom seeking and wisdom imparting
I am not sure I agree with this. Many philosophers up to the present day have used narrative tactics. In fact, I think philosophers have understood more and more that straight analytic arguments are not necessarily as powerful as ones delivered by other means. Not just philosophers, thinkers of all types. This is indeed why public figures work so hard to craft their narratives, not just their arguments.
Maybe it’s this, though. People certainly seem to claim to want more reality and less fiction.
I don’t see it! Not in their art, which is what we are talking about. Thought perhaps this just becomes a semantic argument about what counts as fiction and what counts as reality.
“It’s not clear to me what narrative is supposedly revealing about the human condition. I’m drawn to literature as a form of thinking, consciousness, wisdom-seeking.”
This is my favorite David Shields quote. Not because I believe narrative should be “done away with,” per se, but because I’m very interested in thinking, consciousness, and wisdom-seeking. And I agree with Shields that many writers seem more concerned with plot, “character development,” (and I would add “showing off”/”paintin’ pretty word-pictures”/”creating a bold, lingasmic prose voice that shalt ring forth from the glimmering crags of Mt. Olitpus”) than they are with wisdom-seeking. Or with love/understanding/beauty-seeking. Or humor-seeking. Laughs r good 2.
Not just philosophers, thinkers of all types. This is indeed why public figures work so hard to craft their narratives, not just their arguments.
I think it’s exceptionally generous of you to refer to public figures and thinkers right near each other like that.
You don’t see it? In the culture at large? I think people, when asked, would tell you they prefer a true story to one made up. Whether they actually would is a question. Which, again, is why I might argue for the book being called “Reality” Hunger.
I mean, I might suggest that the uptick in religious self-identification is a desire for more fiction in one’s life, but if you ask a person of faith, it’s the “truth” or “reality” of it that appeals to them. So.
I haven’t been ignoring your comments, stephen. I think we should go with D-Shy.
as in chicago? obvs i’m not very shy :’)
interesting points, matthew, re: religious ppl/what ppl claim they want
Well Matthew, you are changing the argument a bit to talk about whether we want truth or fiction in life as in our religious beliefs. We are talking about what we want in our art and entertainment, right?
I don’t see a movement from fictional feature films to documentaries, from absurdist humor to memoirish humor, from abstract to realist art, etc.
The only art form I see where you can really make an argument about it is TV, but even that is trickier than it appears. Reality TV’s main appeal is that it is cheap to make, not that people love it more. There is a reason Jay Leno’s move was a bomb, people still hunger from scripted dramas.
David Shield’s argument on this point, to me, seems to be one part cherry picking and one part semantics*
*what I mean here is he takes stuff that I think most people would lump with fiction and claims it is somehow non-fiction, such as a TV show like Reno 911 having actors ad-lib/write their own lines instead of relying completely on pre-written scripts. I dig that stuff, but it has nothing to do with reality or not.
Could you expand on your final thought? Why would fiction writers benefit from pondering memoirs anymore than memorists would benefit from pondering the novelists’s approach?
I’m not the biggest fan of Blake’s writing here usually, but he gets it exactly right here. When the person you’re debating/arguing with resorts to “why are you angry?” or talks about “haters” geting “nutz” (however passive-aggressively ‘funny’ that was supposed to be), that person has clearly run out of things to say.
“Why not write a book that actually does what he is asking for? I would say that Reality Hunger fails its own litmus test. It has little resonance outside of its demands, which are basically Shields saying he’s bored. Is that interesting? Not really. It’s prescriptive. It’s confining.”
YES.
And even if it is true that people prefer a real story to a made up one, the question is one of movement. How is that different in 2010 than in 1980 or 1740? Shields is claiming a movement in the culture, right?
Just finished Reality Hunger yesterday, I wasn’t going to bother ’til I saw Baumer interrupt somebody else’s class at Brown by reading it, that sealed shit for me.
I agree mostly with Blake on this one. Seems ineffective to call for a thing without really trying to be that thing. I think Lincoln nailed it best over at the Rumpus likening it to Bartlett’s quotations.
I woulda been a lot more dissapointed in the book had the girl at the register given me correct change for 30 bucks instead of change for 40 bucks like she did.
Reading the book I was really curious as to whether or not Shields believed he was achieving anything like what he was calling for? That I think makes a difference.
Much of the problem with Reality Hunger is that it is completely contradictory, and not in a good enlivening way. Like, you way say Reality Hunger points in a new direction, and it does with one hand, but its other hand is pointing in an old direction. Fragments, remixing, etc. all that stuff is vital and good. But what does it have to do with “reality” or fiction vs. non-fiction, which is actually what the book spends most of its time talking about.
Or why does Shields attack “narrative” (his arguments against which are pretty silly in the first place) and thus condemn fiction while spending half the book defending memoir was some premiere artform. Is memoir not narrative?
Ultimately the book is just poorly argued. That wouldn’t in itself be a problem if the book itself was interesting, but as I said in my review, the book really just reads like Bartlett’s Famous Quotations. It fails to achieve any kind of interesting form in itself.
I still found it alright for a read, but the more I think about it the more disappointed in it I am.
I think the real central problem with the book, beyond its failure to achieve something new on its own, is that Shields completely confuses and conflates his own personal tastes with broader cultural trends. Shields could have written the book as “here is what I like and here is why you should like it” and that would be fine. But instead he wants to write it as “I’m Nostradamus and I’m diagnosing the culture and predicting the future” yet his own tastes clearly do not fall in line with the culture. The culture is not shying away from narrative films and books. Fictional works of art are not doing poorly at the box office or bestseller list.
I still like long novels, and I still like narrative. I am reading “Tin Drum” right now and really liking it. I’m not bored. I like short things too, but I don’t think one needs to die so the other can survive, necessarily. If everyone was writing short works in numbered sections, wouldn’t that get boring too? Isn’t this already being done, and isn’t it already getting kinda boring? Maybe not totally boring, but somewhat boring, hinting at an oncoming boredom?
Whoops was typing my comment before yours went up. Thanks though!
Actually, we were coming up on 3500 or so words and had decided to wrap it up in a conversation we were having outside that conversation. And we both noticed that the fact that we were arguing the merits and failures of the book was making both of us more passionately defend our positions.
Also, fuck you. Aggressive enough for you, Topher? Eat my dick. Seriously.
my first comment would be re: Blake’s tweet, “fairly underwhelmed by ‘reality hunger’ — what’s so innovative about making a list of things praising innovation?”: the book does not “claim” or necessarily “attempt” to be innovative. the book is a so-called manifesto, and thus it’s primary purpose is to point out and to call for innovation, not to be in and of itself, innovative (necessarily). that is, it’s more important to david shields, i feel quite comfortable presuming, that one come away from his book “hungry” for hybrid forms and the greater incorporation of “reality” into writing, moreso than he wants the reader to say, “wow, this david shields guy is very innovative in this book.” furthermore, shields is against strict copyright and believes in the free distribution and appropriation of information and artistic materials, so it would be hypocritical and nonsensical if he was seeking the validation of being himself innovative, in pursuit of validation for same.
unrelated: read that n+1 guy’s essay on reality hunger. feel like he, and it seems, “many people,” are approaching the book with a closed mind and preformed biases, gripes, attitudes, etc. disagree with him re: his dismissal of/distaste for idea of writer as hip hop dj. think it would be sweet if, in “any way,” literature became more like the hip-hop community [via “collaboration, fun, exploration of forms, less seriousness, free-associative creativity, etc.”]
re: “So, then, as I was reading Reality Hunger, and agreeing with the things he said, or appropriated, or intoned, I never got the sense that he was doing something new himself. The book, at some point, became a repeating blinker for me, a “manifesto” (self styled for its form, which almost goes against the grain of its own argument), not building something wholly new or vital out of the text itself, but more just, almost, beating a dead horse.”
I don’t think this is a dead horse for most of the literary or reading culture, Blake. the exposure this book is getting is quite mainstream, via colbert report, and so his ideas are reaching a broader audience, even if you want to quibble over there being his ideas (obviously they’re mostly appropriated) or over whether or not they’re presented in an innovative enough way for your taste (does such a book appear on a regular basis? it seems like a book with this “ambition” and receiving this much attention does not appear regularly at all, so what are you comparing it to? sure, lots of people think about these things and talk about them, and others, including yourself, may be saying much more “relevant” things about the topic in a more “innovative” way or something, but you haven’t put together a manifesto book as of yet. it seems positive or at least “potentially positive” at worst that shields has done so.
I like the idea of writer as hip-hop artist, but did not get the sense Shields knew anything about hip-hop.
The religion comment was a flippant aside. Nothing else.
seems like matthew has got my general perspective covered, so i won’t comment further. cheers, gents
seems like we agree in various ways, too, blake, you just are maybe more resistant/grumpy re: the shields book, for well-articulated reasons.
Pointing ahead and picking an choosing things from the past to inform the way forward is not contradictory. It’s precisely the way one points forward.
He refers to this as a “post-narrative” world, but I don’t think that this amounts to an attack on narrative. It’s the evolution of narrative. Are there other examples of his attack on narrative? None are coming to mind for me right now. I read the book a while back. (This conversation was had a while back, too.)
A manifesto is a public statement of purpose and is never meant to be seen as anything other than the opinions of the issuer. I took all statements to be refracted through the lens of David’s personal tastes.
Most of his ideas ARE dead horse. Everyone knows that artists should innovate and forms change, everyone seems to agree that attention spans are shrinking (although I’m not sure about that personally), etc.
A big problem with the book, IMHO, is the few ideas that aren’t just beating a dead horse are the very ideas he doesn’t actually flesh out or explain. Shields constantly says that narrative is detrimental to thought. This is an interesting idea. I think he is completely wrong, but at least it is a unique idea…. yet he doesn’t do anything to argue his point and I don’t think merely stating random things like that inspires much thought in the reader.
“It’s precisely the way one orients a way forward.” Maybe that’s better.
Sorry, I meant more that many of the things he applauds are quite stale, not that you can’t pick things from the past.
Are there other examples of his attack on narrative?
Oh yes, he says many things in the book and in interviews. Here are two:
“It’s not clear to me what narrative is supposedly revealing about the human condition. I’m drawn to literature as a form of thinking, consciousness, wisdom-seeking.”
“Nonfiction, qua label, is nothing more or less than a very flexible (easily breakable) frame that allows you to pull the thing away from narrative and toward contemplation, which is all I’ve ever wanted.”
A manifesto is a public statement of purpose and is never meant to be seen as anything other than the opinions of the issuer. I took all statements to be refracted through the lens of David’s personal tastes.
Eh, Shields makes actual claims about the cultural at large. It is an opinion to say “I like X more than Y” but it isn’t simply an opinion to say “The culture is starting to favor X over Y”
I don’t think the novel has become a clean, well-manufactured object. How can you say that? There’s some exciting, innovative stuff being published right now.
I haven’t read RH, but all the reviews seem to indicate that Shields is essentially saying “I’m bored; I’m too lazy to read long books, and fiction no longer holds my interest.” Not exactly appealing.
don’t you think the idea that “such-and-such author’s” letters or diary or random, out-of-the-canon book is “more interesting” than their more famous work is an intriguing idea? i would also argue that while a list or gathering of quotes isn’t like ground-breaking, necessarily, it still constitutes an idea-in-practice. “reality hunger” is itself the kind of book shields wants people to write, except perhaps with less manifesto-ish intellectual grandstanding, instead a more personal approach [via “the novel”/”the essay”/etc.] if he fleshes out his ideas, as you see it, than he is untrue to his ideas (if one is interested in manifesting one’s ideas as opposed to presenting them, which seems to be true of shields. and i understand where blake is coming from re: ~”other people do this in a more rigorous, crazy-artistic way [via d’agata]”, and ~”this is, like, for entry lev experimentalers,” but i don’t think that makes “reality hunger” a waste or wrong or even faulty, and i don’t see any need to like “slap it on the wrist” for that. i believe it succeeds on its own terms, and those terms are “interesting.”
Sorry, I meant more that many of the things he applauds are quite stale, not that you can’t pick things from the past.
Well, they have been sitting on the shelf for a little while. But they felt less bready and more cheesey to me. (Wow. That metaphor really fucks up my point, doesn’t it. Damn.)
“It’s not clear to me what narrative is supposedly revealing about the human condition. I’m drawn to literature as a form of thinking, consciousness, wisdom-seeking.”
“Nonfiction, qua label, is nothing more or less than a very flexible (easily breakable) frame that allows you to pull the thing away from narrative and toward contemplation, which is all I’ve ever wanted.”
Ah, yes. Thank you. I think perhaps his definition of narrative is stricter than ours. I know, for example, David is an admirer of Amy Fusselman’s book The Pharmacist’s Mate, which tells the story of a woman trying to get pregnant. What he seems to be suggesting is that the “I’m not pregnant, I’m trying to get pregnant, I’m pregnant” stuff is not as interesting as the moments when Fusselman, say, uses the page to work out the way she feels about AC/DC.
You know, the stuff that your writing instructor calls navel-gazing. The stuff the people in your workshop tell you isn’t working for them. I think that moments like those are David tweaking his friends in the academic world of creative writing.
Eh, Shields makes actual claims about the cultural at large. It is an opinion to say “I like X more than Y” but it isn’t simply an opinion to say “The culture is starting to favor X over Y”
Well, sure. But his name is still on the cover. I tend to forgive people who don’t use “I” statements because the “I” is just there hovering and it always will be. Subjectivity is a given. Even when he is picking through years and years of other people’s subjective opinions to build his own.
And from a book sales perspective, the culture does favor memoir over novel. Narrative film still sells more tickets than documentary, but he says the novel is dead, not the summer blockbuster.
Lil Shields
[insert ur writer hip-hop names here]
There certainly is some exciting, innovative stuff being published right now. But they are the exception, not the rule.
No, I don’t think Shields’s “every author’s work of non-fiction is better than their fiction” argument or “every work of fiction I like is secretly non-fiction because I say so” argument is very interesting. It feels very try-hard and I honestly just don’t believe he believes that. It seems like he is turning literature into a sporting competition and he is just searching for a way to include authors on “his team.”
I’m not sure how your comment responds to mine though? I’m saying that the few unique arguments Shields presents are not fleshed out at all in the book, they are just presented as aphorisms, sans elaboration/argument.
mine would prolly be Dirty Dierks or Tully Monsta (that’s “dirks” yall, just pick a vowel and “run with it”)
Although I do really agree with Shields about a lot of his thoughts on craft and we like similar works and techniques.
do you think they are the rule, not the exception, in memoir and essay writing though?
i was trying to respond to you here, lincoln: “it still constitutes an idea-in-practice. “reality hunger” is itself the kind of book shields wants people to write, except perhaps with less manifesto-ish intellectual grandstanding, instead a more personal approach [via “the novel”/”the essay”/etc.] if he fleshes out his ideas, as you see it, than he is untrue to his ideas (if one is interested in manifesting one’s ideas as opposed to presenting them, which seems to be true of shields.”
i may not have been clear enough for you, but i can try again if you want. basically, “aphorisms, sans elaboration/argument,” (or without, one could say, narrative machinery) IS the argument :)
therefore, his argument is manifested as opposed to “explained,” per se.
No, of course not.
But in this case, demi-puppet is asking me about an opinion I offered. I think there is a dearth of clean, well-manufactured novels. I think a lot of people have spent time learning how to produce them. I think those people can be told every once and a while that what they are doing is boring because it’s too clean and too precisely crafted. I think they would maybe benefit from spending time thinking about how a good essay or a good memoir is put together when they approach their writing.
Doesn’t that contradict with your earlier comment:
“the book does not “claim” or necessarily “attempt” to be innovative. the book is a so-called manifesto, and thus it’s primary purpose is to point out and to call for innovation, not to be in and of itself, innovative (necessarily). that is, it’s more important to david shields, i feel quite comfortable presuming, that one come away from his book “hungry” for hybrid forms and the greater incorporation of “reality” into writing, moreso than he wants the reader to say, “wow, this david shields guy is very innovative in this book.” “
shields seems to “aim his guns” at mainstream “literary fiction” as it’s genre-fied, thus he complains about narrative machinery re: his boredom. if he was to aim his guns at experimental fiction, he could plausibly say something along the lines of “where are you the writer in all of this? where is your life, where is what you care about? are you putting anything besides Word-Painter of the Year 2k10 on the line here? why do you have disdain for your audience? if you do, is that how you feel IRL, too? if so, if you disdain most people in real life, too, then why should i care about you if you care so little about me? i’m just supposed to genuflect at your writer alter?”
“we’re in a secret club? we’re in a secret club at age 2_ or age 3_ or age 4_???? what?”
my personal manifesto would be “i’d rather be a standup comedian than a magician. i have no trick, and even if i do, i want you to be ‘in on it.'”
That still doesn’t explain why non-fiction is inherently some kind of frame that lets you get rid of narrative, especially in a book that talks so much about memoir, or why narrative is detrimental to wisdom seeking, especially when so many philosophers use narrative.
Well, sure. But his name is still on the cover. I tend to forgive people who don’t use “I” statements because the “I” is just there hovering and it always will be. Subjectivity is a given. Even when he is picking through years and years of other people’s subjective opinions to build his own.
We seem to be misunderstanding each other. I’m saying Shields is quite literary saying things in the book that are not statements of personal preference but rather claims about the culture at large (or claims about specific parts of the culture) and that many of those claims are incorrect.
And from a book sales perspective, the culture does favor memoir over novel. Narrative film still sells more tickets than documentary, but he says the novel is dead, not the summer blockbuster.
A central part of the book is the argument that the culture at large has some kind of reality hunger and that people want more and more reality and less and less fiction in their work. I think he is incorrect, in fact I think the opposite is true.
Also, are you sure that the culture favors memoir over fiction?
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/financial-reporting/article/42695-facts–figures-2009-revised.html
The top selling books of fiction in 2009 sold more than the top selling books of non-fiction… and most of the non-fiction books are political books, not memoirs.
no it does not contradict my earlier comment, because the argument manifested isn’t innovative. it’s an existing way of doing things. it’s a way that is appealing to shields, and he offers many examples of other people in the past who have done things that caused him to have an argument (“the lyric essay type style is totes sweet!”) and then to manifest that argument in a manifesto that is itself a lyric essay. all of which is to say, it isn’t about david shields and it isn’t about innovation. it’s about a style, a blending of forms, that could roughly be called the “lyric essay,” that has existed for a long time. shields is just saying this is awesome, let’s have more of this, and doesn’t that have something to do with our hunger for “reality,” for connection, to know about other human beings, and, ultimately, to seek wisdom.
to clarify “the argument manifested” is a combination noun, maybe i should have typed “the manifested-argument” or something. i’m not saying he has an argument and it manifests in such a way, i’m saying the argument is embedded in its method of conveyance, is manifested as opposed to explained and defended and padded with qualifiers and apologies. just to be clear.
i disagree that that is all that Shields is saying!
But to the extent he says that, I agree with him (except for the hunger/reality part)
i’m certainly condensing and limiting my summary.
i think shields succeeds in a way he doesn’t realize. he subtitled the thing “a manifesto” and he’s gone about saying lyric essays are “better” than conventional lit fiction, so he’s clearly in the “i am right, you are wrong” dead-end game, but the book itself, by not explaining things so much, by not fleshing out what you wanted fleshed out, and by “stating random things” as you so charitably describe it ;) :) by doing that, he achieves something closer to a wisdom-talk that i like: writing/ideas that exist, and nothing more; emotions that are, and that’s all; a thing that is a thing and does not possess; something that IS and does not HAVE.
They’ve always been the exception.
That still doesn’t explain why non-fiction is inherently some kind of frame that lets you get rid of narrative, especially in a book that talks so much about memoir, or why narrative is detrimental to wisdom seeking, especially when so many philosophers use narrative.
The history of philosophy is a movement away from narrative as a strategy for wisdom seeking and wisdom imparting. The Book of Job, for example, attempts to explain God’s seeming indifference in narrative terms because the author(s) did not have the language to say what they wanted to say. Compare/contrast The Phenomenology of Spirit. But that’s only a digression.
His quote says that nonfiction let’s you “pull away” from narrative, though. Not get rid of it. I’m reading that to mean the that the I and the eye can pull back. The I can use the eye to explore the interior of the I. And by the “eye” I mean the instrument that the I uses on the page. The camera, if you will. Nonfiction is the I using the eye in the real world instead of the imagined world. The eye of nonfiction can’t see anything other than the real world.* That’s seems to me to be a frame that inherently let’s you get rid of narrative. “Let’s you” but doesn’t “insist you” or “whether you want it to or not” gets rid of narrative.
A central part of the book is the argument that the culture at large has some kind of reality hunger and that people want more and more reality and less and less fiction in their work. I think he is incorrect, in fact I think the opposite is true.
And as a fiction writer, and a consumer of fiction, I would like to think the opposite is true. I’m not sure it is, though.
Maybe it’s this, though. People certainly seem to claim to want more reality and less fiction. Even though so much of this “reality” is manufactured. Here’s a place where I would argue with Shields (and, as I think I mentioned, there are any number of these places in the book): maybe instead the book should be called “Reality” Hunger.
* God, that’s thorny, though. Because the I using the eye of nonfiction still starts at the I which invariably means the eye is always carrying with it the prejudices of the I.
The history of philosophy is a movement away from narrative as a strategy for wisdom seeking and wisdom imparting
I am not sure I agree with this. Many philosophers up to the present day have used narrative tactics. In fact, I think philosophers have understood more and more that straight analytic arguments are not necessarily as powerful as ones delivered by other means. Not just philosophers, thinkers of all types. This is indeed why public figures work so hard to craft their narratives, not just their arguments.
Maybe it’s this, though. People certainly seem to claim to want more reality and less fiction.
I don’t see it! Not in their art, which is what we are talking about. Thought perhaps this just becomes a semantic argument about what counts as fiction and what counts as reality.
“It’s not clear to me what narrative is supposedly revealing about the human condition. I’m drawn to literature as a form of thinking, consciousness, wisdom-seeking.”
This is my favorite David Shields quote. Not because I believe narrative should be “done away with,” per se, but because I’m very interested in thinking, consciousness, and wisdom-seeking. And I agree with Shields that many writers seem more concerned with plot, “character development,” (and I would add “showing off”/”paintin’ pretty word-pictures”/”creating a bold, lingasmic prose voice that shalt ring forth from the glimmering crags of Mt. Olitpus”) than they are with wisdom-seeking. Or with love/understanding/beauty-seeking. Or humor-seeking. Laughs r good 2.
Not just philosophers, thinkers of all types. This is indeed why public figures work so hard to craft their narratives, not just their arguments.
I think it’s exceptionally generous of you to refer to public figures and thinkers right near each other like that.
You don’t see it? In the culture at large? I think people, when asked, would tell you they prefer a true story to one made up. Whether they actually would is a question. Which, again, is why I might argue for the book being called “Reality” Hunger.
I mean, I might suggest that the uptick in religious self-identification is a desire for more fiction in one’s life, but if you ask a person of faith, it’s the “truth” or “reality” of it that appeals to them. So.
I haven’t been ignoring your comments, stephen. I think we should go with D-Shy.
as in chicago? obvs i’m not very shy :’)
interesting points, matthew, re: religious ppl/what ppl claim they want
Well Matthew, you are changing the argument a bit to talk about whether we want truth or fiction in life as in our religious beliefs. We are talking about what we want in our art and entertainment, right?
I don’t see a movement from fictional feature films to documentaries, from absurdist humor to memoirish humor, from abstract to realist art, etc.
The only art form I see where you can really make an argument about it is TV, but even that is trickier than it appears. Reality TV’s main appeal is that it is cheap to make, not that people love it more. There is a reason Jay Leno’s move was a bomb, people still hunger from scripted dramas.
David Shield’s argument on this point, to me, seems to be one part cherry picking and one part semantics*
*what I mean here is he takes stuff that I think most people would lump with fiction and claims it is somehow non-fiction, such as a TV show like Reno 911 having actors ad-lib/write their own lines instead of relying completely on pre-written scripts. I dig that stuff, but it has nothing to do with reality or not.
Could you expand on your final thought? Why would fiction writers benefit from pondering memoirs anymore than memorists would benefit from pondering the novelists’s approach?
I’m not the biggest fan of Blake’s writing here usually, but he gets it exactly right here. When the person you’re debating/arguing with resorts to “why are you angry?” or talks about “haters” geting “nutz” (however passive-aggressively ‘funny’ that was supposed to be), that person has clearly run out of things to say.
“Why not write a book that actually does what he is asking for? I would say that Reality Hunger fails its own litmus test. It has little resonance outside of its demands, which are basically Shields saying he’s bored. Is that interesting? Not really. It’s prescriptive. It’s confining.”
YES.
And even if it is true that people prefer a real story to a made up one, the question is one of movement. How is that different in 2010 than in 1980 or 1740? Shields is claiming a movement in the culture, right?
I still like long novels, and I still like narrative. I am reading “Tin Drum” right now and really liking it. I’m not bored. I like short things too, but I don’t think one needs to die so the other can survive, necessarily. If everyone was writing short works in numbered sections, wouldn’t that get boring too? Isn’t this already being done, and isn’t it already getting kinda boring? Maybe not totally boring, but somewhat boring, hinting at an oncoming boredom?
Actually, we were coming up on 3500 or so words and had decided to wrap it up in a conversation we were having outside that conversation. And we both noticed that the fact that we were arguing the merits and failures of the book was making both of us more passionately defend our positions.
Also, fuck you. Aggressive enough for you, Topher? Eat my dick. Seriously.
The religion comment was a flippant aside. Nothing else.
This was a great conversation and a pleasure to read, although I have to chime in on Blake’s side. I read Shields’ book last week. It felt condescending, behind the times and unnecessary. It reminded me of veteran teachers who go on and on about how they’ve introduced a blog into the classroom–it’s brought so much energy! and collaboration! to the students! And I know I am naive here, and it should be immaterial in the discussion of the book, but I found the blurbs and publicity offensive. I realize that this is a business and that these authors must support each other to grease the wheels of industry in their favor–but Wayne’s own book “Hotel Theory” is a much better advancement of Shields’ line of questioning, the over-exuberance on the back jacket felt dishonest, even for the blurb genre. Now I certainly don’t think Shields book is actually doing any harm to the universe and my dislike of it is exaggerated, but Markson’s books didn’t get any of this hype when they were printed. Where is all this support for the books that actually attempt to achieve some of Shields’ ideas? Can’t these guys support someone outside of the academic world that employs them? This manifesto feels like it is cashing in on trends; it does not seem to have the delight or exuberance or plain weirdness of the work of Breton, Benjamin, Adorno, Pessoa, Marinetti or others. It also seems ludicrous that any writer could be so enthralled by all these ideas in 2010. ‘These fragments I have shored against my ruins.’ That was 60 years ago now. Pointing it out again, when it’s in our face every day . . . that’s what bothered me and where I feel the condescension.
To me, a more useful, manifesto for these years might be Dushko Petrovich’s essay in N+1 (and the Boston Globe) a couple years back: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/03/04/out_of_the_box/
From that: “The scene seemed wild, but there were simple rules all along. You were given a white room in a Big Art City for a month. You had to do something in that room to generate attention beyond that month. You had to be written about, bought, or at least widely discussed. Then you would get to have the white room again for another month, and so on. If you did this enough, you had what was called a career. This generated what is perhaps this century’s biggest art movement: careerism.”
I think: regarding religious people, or the major majority of religious (Christian) people I knew growing up and know now: they want structure. The truth=beauty was rarely talked about, comprehended. They want: Do this and get this. (Heaven & Hell) Do this to be like this. (Jesus) Don’t do this or this will happen. (Sodom, Cain, most of the Bible)
Even in Zen Buddhism: structure reigns.
And this relates to art:
Story is powerful. More powerful than entertainment. Story=structure is powerful and that is what all religion is, anyway. It’s all story.
Good reality TV is crafted into good story.
Fuck story. Long live story.
[…] HTMLGIANT / Reality Hunger: A conversation […]
This was a great conversation and a pleasure to read, although I have to chime in on Blake’s side. I read Shields’ book last week. It felt condescending, behind the times and unnecessary. It reminded me of veteran teachers who go on and on about how they’ve introduced a blog into the classroom–it’s brought so much energy! and collaboration! to the students! And I know I am naive here, and it should be immaterial in the discussion of the book, but I found the blurbs and publicity offensive. I realize that this is a business and that these authors must support each other to grease the wheels of industry in their favor–but Wayne’s own book “Hotel Theory” is a much better advancement of Shields’ line of questioning, the over-exuberance on the back jacket felt dishonest, even for the blurb genre. Now I certainly don’t think Shields book is actually doing any harm to the universe and my dislike of it is exaggerated, but Markson’s books didn’t get any of this hype when they were printed. Where is all this support for the books that actually attempt to achieve some of Shields’ ideas? Can’t these guys support someone outside of the academic world that employs them? This manifesto feels like it is cashing in on trends; it does not seem to have the delight or exuberance or plain weirdness of the work of Breton, Benjamin, Adorno, Pessoa, Marinetti or others. It also seems ludicrous that any writer could be so enthralled by all these ideas in 2010. ‘These fragments I have shored against my ruins.’ That was 60 years ago now. Pointing it out again, when it’s in our face every day . . . that’s what bothered me and where I feel the condescension.
To me, a more useful, manifesto for these years might be Dushko Petrovich’s essay in N+1 (and the Boston Globe) a couple years back: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/03/04/out_of_the_box/
From that: “The scene seemed wild, but there were simple rules all along. You were given a white room in a Big Art City for a month. You had to do something in that room to generate attention beyond that month. You had to be written about, bought, or at least widely discussed. Then you would get to have the white room again for another month, and so on. If you did this enough, you had what was called a career. This generated what is perhaps this century’s biggest art movement: careerism.”
I think: regarding religious people, or the major majority of religious (Christian) people I knew growing up and know now: they want structure. The truth=beauty was rarely talked about, comprehended. They want: Do this and get this. (Heaven & Hell) Do this to be like this. (Jesus) Don’t do this or this will happen. (Sodom, Cain, most of the Bible)
Even in Zen Buddhism: structure reigns.
And this relates to art:
Story is powerful. More powerful than entertainment. Story=structure is powerful and that is what all religion is, anyway. It’s all story.
Good reality TV is crafted into good story.
Fuck story. Long live story.
[…] HTMLGIANT, Blake Butler and Matthew Simmons discuss Reality […]
I didn’t say that they would benefit anymore than. I simply said they would. I would say that fiction writers should read more poetry, too. You may think this is self-evident, but I simply don’t think it is. I knew many fiction writers in my MFA program who avoided poetry lectures and poetry readings because they decided they weren’t relevant.
How they benefit has already been addressed.
I didn’t say that they would benefit anymore than. I simply said they would. I would say that fiction writers should read more poetry, too. You may think this is self-evident, but I simply don’t think it is. I knew many fiction writers in my MFA program who avoided poetry lectures and poetry readings because they decided they weren’t relevant.
How they benefit has already been addressed.
[…] and poetry writers are adapting to the changes digital culture brings to literary form. In a recent conversation between Blake Butler and Matthew Simmons about David Shields’ Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, […]