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The Middle Path
Robert Cohen has a new piece worth reading called “Going to the Tigers: Notes on Middle Style” now up at The Believer.
Ultimately, I disagree with Cohen because to my mind he’s implicitly recuperating the old Aristotelian virtues we know so well from Book II of the Nicomachean Ethics, in order to illustrate his point about the value of avoiding both excess and deficiency. What seals my disagreement is this statement:
Reading a novel that feels overly finessed, not quite visceral, makes us antsy and peevish. Enough with the light show, we think, enough with the incense, the dry ice, the elaborate riddles and evasions. No wonder people hate novels.
For one thing, I disagree with his use of first person plural. It makes “us” antsy? “We” think? Really? You’re gonna make a claim that you know what reading an overly finessed, not quite visceral novel makes me feel? That’s bonkers. And point of fact, I almost exclusively (and purposefully) read works that strive for light shows, incense, dry ice, elaborate riddles and evasions. I’m being serious. That’s why I attend to literature: for the spectacle.
But before I skin my tongue, I’ll leave it there. Take a gander. Seems like something that might/could spark some conversation.
Tags: robert cohen, the believer
Reminiscent of Jonathan Franzen.
Reminiscent of Jonathan Franzen.
Franzen’s pretty finessed, it seems to me. Certainly he’s no eschewer of adjectives in favor of nouns. Maybe not visceral enough…the type of writer, it seems to me, that Cohen would think of as lyrical, tipsy with language, though likely not drunk with it.
Franzen’s pretty finessed, it seems to me. Certainly he’s no eschewer of adjectives in favor of nouns. Maybe not visceral enough…the type of writer, it seems to me, that Cohen would think of as lyrical, tipsy with language, though likely not drunk with it.
I think he has a good point when he compares the way Updike and DeLillo described 9/11…
I think he has a good point when he compares the way Updike and DeLillo described 9/11…
“But it seems one can’t just choose to be a snake. Temperament, sensibility, culture—all come into play. To be Jewish, for instance, is to incline, from Eden onward, less toward the snake than the snake victim.”
huh?
“But it seems one can’t just choose to be a snake. Temperament, sensibility, culture—all come into play. To be Jewish, for instance, is to incline, from Eden onward, less toward the snake than the snake victim.”
huh?
Fuck that. there’s no real justification for anything in there. Johannes G and Nada G would have a field day tearing this guy to pieces.
Fuck that. there’s no real justification for anything in there. Johannes G and Nada G would have a field day tearing this guy to pieces.
that seems a little extreme.
basically it seems like an argument against unnecessarily fancy prose, which i can agree with.
when prose is necessarily fancy, i like it just fine.
that seems a little extreme.
basically it seems like an argument against unnecessarily fancy prose, which i can agree with.
when prose is necessarily fancy, i like it just fine.
I don’t know, Chris. Maybe I’m misreading the article, but I feel as though Cohen is doing something other than (hopefully more) than merely upholding lean, mean prose as opposed to pyrotechnics and spectacle. I think his own prose style in the piece is indicative of this–his isn’t exactly a barebones, workmanlike, pared-back writing style that is striving for an Aristotelian moderation and harmony. What he seems to be really writing about is what happens to writers as they age, how their aesthetic is impacted by an increasing awareness of the encroachment of mortality and so forth. He talks about how the two extremes, if they don’t congeal into “mannerism” (and each is, it seems, equally susceptible to this sort of static “Rothko”-machine complacency), run into the same place. The telling quote is:
“Which is only to say that both styles, in good hands, lead more or less to the same place, along parallel paths of paradox and counterpoint. You say ‘tomato,’ I say ‘red round seed-spilling fruit’; what matters is the conviction and intensity and music of the voice. The concrete implies the abstract, the simple implies the complex, and vice versa.”
This sounds to me not altogether different from William Gass’s essay “Simplicity” in from the Review of Contemporary Fiction. Cohen also talks about the collision of styles, each implying and sort of parrying with its shadow. So, if you’re willing to make the case that Aristotle embraced paradox and indeterminacy, maybe. I don’t necessarily agree with Cohen–I certainly squirm out of that “we” if indeed the “we” you cite above is his position, but it feels more like a rhetorical stroke en route. Anyway, thanks for pointing me to this article. I teach a class called “More and Less: Varieties of Minimalism and Maximalism” and this is good fodder for the class. Maybe a sign that I should invest in a dry ice machine, too.
I don’t know, Chris. Maybe I’m misreading the article, but I feel as though Cohen is doing something other than (hopefully more) than merely upholding lean, mean prose as opposed to pyrotechnics and spectacle. I think his own prose style in the piece is indicative of this–his isn’t exactly a barebones, workmanlike, pared-back writing style that is striving for an Aristotelian moderation and harmony. What he seems to be really writing about is what happens to writers as they age, how their aesthetic is impacted by an increasing awareness of the encroachment of mortality and so forth. He talks about how the two extremes, if they don’t congeal into “mannerism” (and each is, it seems, equally susceptible to this sort of static “Rothko”-machine complacency), run into the same place. The telling quote is:
“Which is only to say that both styles, in good hands, lead more or less to the same place, along parallel paths of paradox and counterpoint. You say ‘tomato,’ I say ‘red round seed-spilling fruit’; what matters is the conviction and intensity and music of the voice. The concrete implies the abstract, the simple implies the complex, and vice versa.”
This sounds to me not altogether different from William Gass’s essay “Simplicity” in from the Review of Contemporary Fiction. Cohen also talks about the collision of styles, each implying and sort of parrying with its shadow. So, if you’re willing to make the case that Aristotle embraced paradox and indeterminacy, maybe. I don’t necessarily agree with Cohen–I certainly squirm out of that “we” if indeed the “we” you cite above is his position, but it feels more like a rhetorical stroke en route. Anyway, thanks for pointing me to this article. I teach a class called “More and Less: Varieties of Minimalism and Maximalism” and this is good fodder for the class. Maybe a sign that I should invest in a dry ice machine, too.
I agree with you, Tim. Even just reading the essay as about work versus spectacle in prose, Cohen makes some pretty generous constructions for purveyors of spectacle to latch onto: that gravy anecdote is amazing.
I think the essay may want to be, at first, a sort of prescriptivist “put your boots on, you’re gonna die, write about reality” thing, but it ends up very unhinged and tender and fascinating.
Also kudos to Cohen for a well-articulated understanding of lyricism in Chekhov, who’s always so unfairly bashed or celebrated for some sort of stoicism that simply isn’t there.
I agree with you, Tim. Even just reading the essay as about work versus spectacle in prose, Cohen makes some pretty generous constructions for purveyors of spectacle to latch onto: that gravy anecdote is amazing.
I think the essay may want to be, at first, a sort of prescriptivist “put your boots on, you’re gonna die, write about reality” thing, but it ends up very unhinged and tender and fascinating.
Also kudos to Cohen for a well-articulated understanding of lyricism in Chekhov, who’s always so unfairly bashed or celebrated for some sort of stoicism that simply isn’t there.
Agreed re: Chekhov, and what I’ve read of this essay. Cohen’s argument seems nuanced, and more, yes, tender than any sort of apologia for a tradition.
Thanks for posting this, Chris.
Agreed re: Chekhov, and what I’ve read of this essay. Cohen’s argument seems nuanced, and more, yes, tender than any sort of apologia for a tradition.
Thanks for posting this, Chris.
Matt, I like your adjectival flip (very nimble), but there’s no escaping the blatant subjectivity of this territory, is there? Could we agree that Ulysses is unnecessarily fancy prose or necessarily fancy prose? How about Finnegans Wake? Moby Dick? The Sound and the Fury? Tristram Shandy? The Making of Americans? The Waves? The Recognitions? Gravity’s Rainbow? Blood Meridian? Infinite Jest? The Age of Wire and String? Could this small forum come to a consensus on even these handful of works?
Matt, I like your adjectival flip (very nimble), but there’s no escaping the blatant subjectivity of this territory, is there? Could we agree that Ulysses is unnecessarily fancy prose or necessarily fancy prose? How about Finnegans Wake? Moby Dick? The Sound and the Fury? Tristram Shandy? The Making of Americans? The Waves? The Recognitions? Gravity’s Rainbow? Blood Meridian? Infinite Jest? The Age of Wire and String? Could this small forum come to a consensus on even these handful of works?
This is what caught my attention:
“Suppose…that our apprehension of the ‘real’ is undermined by our recognition that reality itself—the self itself—is shot through with holes? If so, then might some new style or vocabulary be necessary, one that’s neither ‘plain’ nor ‘lyrical’ but dissolves the line between all such easy polarities, and forges a weird albeit messy path of its own.”
Does Cohen (could Cohen?) give us any sense of what that might look like? Has anyone already pulled it off, at least to some extent (Beckett, perhaps, with his lyrical but plain prose—e.g. “Lessness”—that looks nothing like the plainness of McGuane or Ford, and nothing like the lyricism of Faulkner or Fitzgerald, or perhaps Agee, in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, where he writes with explosive simplicity about overalls and bedbugs in one section and then conjures a formidable tempest around all things private and unfathomable in another)? Would any of us feel confident nominating a living writer whose work matches that description? Or, are there hundreds of potential candidates? Don’t most all writers hope they won’t be pegged too plain or overly lyrical and wish to dissolve the line between all such easy polarities and forge a weird albeit messy (or an authentic albeit imperfect) path of their own?
This is what caught my attention:
“Suppose…that our apprehension of the ‘real’ is undermined by our recognition that reality itself—the self itself—is shot through with holes? If so, then might some new style or vocabulary be necessary, one that’s neither ‘plain’ nor ‘lyrical’ but dissolves the line between all such easy polarities, and forges a weird albeit messy path of its own.”
Does Cohen (could Cohen?) give us any sense of what that might look like? Has anyone already pulled it off, at least to some extent (Beckett, perhaps, with his lyrical but plain prose—e.g. “Lessness”—that looks nothing like the plainness of McGuane or Ford, and nothing like the lyricism of Faulkner or Fitzgerald, or perhaps Agee, in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, where he writes with explosive simplicity about overalls and bedbugs in one section and then conjures a formidable tempest around all things private and unfathomable in another)? Would any of us feel confident nominating a living writer whose work matches that description? Or, are there hundreds of potential candidates? Don’t most all writers hope they won’t be pegged too plain or overly lyrical and wish to dissolve the line between all such easy polarities and forge a weird albeit messy (or an authentic albeit imperfect) path of their own?
Do people hate novels? (Cohen) Is Cormac McCarthy going to have to give back the millions he’s made writing “finessed” novels into his old age? If people hate novels, why are they the most popular (and lucrative) form of “creative” writing to be found today.
There is this weird longing among a growing numbers of critics for facileness, starting with the idiotic “A Reader’s Manifesto,” published in the Atlantic a few years ago. Cohen seems to just want to wish away the inescapable historical shadow of romanticism, symbolism, surrealism, expressionism, modernism and postmodernism, not to mention Freud. His oh so eloquent rant is really a back-door argument for a return to the narrow-minded aesthetics of someone like Goethe, to the hypostatized aesthetic object over expression and innovation.
Do people hate novels? (Cohen) Is Cormac McCarthy going to have to give back the millions he’s made writing “finessed” novels into his old age? If people hate novels, why are they the most popular (and lucrative) form of “creative” writing to be found today.
There is this weird longing among a growing numbers of critics for facileness, starting with the idiotic “A Reader’s Manifesto,” published in the Atlantic a few years ago. Cohen seems to just want to wish away the inescapable historical shadow of romanticism, symbolism, surrealism, expressionism, modernism and postmodernism, not to mention Freud. His oh so eloquent rant is really a back-door argument for a return to the narrow-minded aesthetics of someone like Goethe, to the hypostatized aesthetic object over expression and innovation.
I guess the Cohen essay got under my skin since I can’t sleep. I agree with Chris about the delights of spectacle (but I also value the rigors of concision), and I admit to being anti-Aristotelian (in this regard) since I’m more drawn to (and am inclined to champion) artists who range the extremes across their bodies of work—the Joyce of both Dubliners and Finnegans Wake, the Faulkner of both As I Lay Dying and Absalom, Absalom!, the Coltrane of both My Favorite Things and Ascension, the Wittgenstein of both the Tractatus and the Investigations, the Orthrelm of 99 tracks in 12 minutes with no repeated riffs (Asristir Vieldriox) and the Orthrelm of a 45 minute track with one repeated riff (OV)—than I am to those of the “mature” and all too often lukewarm middle path (there are, of course, exceptions—Chekhov, Pavese, Camus…). But in my heart of hearts, I want the whole spectrum, and I want it resonant and provocative with both clarity and abandon.
I guess the Cohen essay got under my skin since I can’t sleep. I agree with Chris about the delights of spectacle (but I also value the rigors of concision), and I admit to being anti-Aristotelian (in this regard) since I’m more drawn to (and am inclined to champion) artists who range the extremes across their bodies of work—the Joyce of both Dubliners and Finnegans Wake, the Faulkner of both As I Lay Dying and Absalom, Absalom!, the Coltrane of both My Favorite Things and Ascension, the Wittgenstein of both the Tractatus and the Investigations, the Orthrelm of 99 tracks in 12 minutes with no repeated riffs (Asristir Vieldriox) and the Orthrelm of a 45 minute track with one repeated riff (OV)—than I am to those of the “mature” and all too often lukewarm middle path (there are, of course, exceptions—Chekhov, Pavese, Camus…). But in my heart of hearts, I want the whole spectrum, and I want it resonant and provocative with both clarity and abandon.
What is “necessary”? when it comes down to it, isn’t art “unnecessarily fancy”, or just plain unnecessary?
And isn’t the superlative, wasteful and gaudy in itself an aethetico-political statement?
What is “necessary”? when it comes down to it, isn’t art “unnecessarily fancy”, or just plain unnecessary?
And isn’t the superlative, wasteful and gaudy in itself an aethetico-political statement?
Tim – re:”Beckett, perhaps, with his lyrical but plain prose—e.g. “Lessness”…..” Isn’t Watt about as exessive as you can get?
Tim – re:”Beckett, perhaps, with his lyrical but plain prose—e.g. “Lessness”…..” Isn’t Watt about as exessive as you can get?
oh, and re: that Coltrane record – you a Cecil Taylor fan?
oh, and re: that Coltrane record – you a Cecil Taylor fan?
If there’s a novel that could be written in a different style and still be the same novel, I don’t want to read it.
If there’s a novel that could be written in a different style and still be the same novel, I don’t want to read it.
I enjoyed this essay quite a bit. It’s an elegant meditation on a set of deep problems we’re all bound to deal with sooner or later. People seem to be casting their comments in terms of “agree” or “disagree,” but I’m not so sure that’s the kind of response called for here, or the best way to apprehend Cohen’s point. I also wouldn’t begrudge him his use of the first person plural. I read the “we” as a rhetorical flourish, one designed to establish intimacy and foster a sense of inclusion–not an attempt to usurp the reader’s own sovereignty as an individual. It’s a very personal piece, and the use of an “I” would have felt diaristic and narrow. The “we” is a simple and–here’s that word again–elegant solution to what is at bottom a formal problem.
Anyway, thanks for linking.
I enjoyed this essay quite a bit. It’s an elegant meditation on a set of deep problems we’re all bound to deal with sooner or later. People seem to be casting their comments in terms of “agree” or “disagree,” but I’m not so sure that’s the kind of response called for here, or the best way to apprehend Cohen’s point. I also wouldn’t begrudge him his use of the first person plural. I read the “we” as a rhetorical flourish, one designed to establish intimacy and foster a sense of inclusion–not an attempt to usurp the reader’s own sovereignty as an individual. It’s a very personal piece, and the use of an “I” would have felt diaristic and narrow. The “we” is a simple and–here’s that word again–elegant solution to what is at bottom a formal problem.
Anyway, thanks for linking.
There was a lot in this to think about and take away. Still thinking. Thanks for posting!
There was a lot in this to think about and take away. Still thinking. Thanks for posting!
Tim – I appreciate that last sentence (and its sentiment) a lot. I don’t know Orthrelm at all–these are new syllables to me, must investigate.
Ross – Taylor’s one of my favorites. How would you relate his work, exactly? To me he blows the lid off of almost any aesthetic framing device. My favorite moments, though, are when he is in communication with Max Roach in their duets, which, insofar as a piano is a sort of a lyrical monster and a drum kit music stripped down to the bareness of rhythm. almost seem to capture what Cohen is saying here about one becoming the other (i.e. when Roach literally starts imitating Taylor and vice-versa about midway through). Anyway, I’m curious to hear more of your take on CT. I’d throw Nancarrow’s name in too as another reference point.
Tim – I appreciate that last sentence (and its sentiment) a lot. I don’t know Orthrelm at all–these are new syllables to me, must investigate.
Ross – Taylor’s one of my favorites. How would you relate his work, exactly? To me he blows the lid off of almost any aesthetic framing device. My favorite moments, though, are when he is in communication with Max Roach in their duets, which, insofar as a piano is a sort of a lyrical monster and a drum kit music stripped down to the bareness of rhythm. almost seem to capture what Cohen is saying here about one becoming the other (i.e. when Roach literally starts imitating Taylor and vice-versa about midway through). Anyway, I’m curious to hear more of your take on CT. I’d throw Nancarrow’s name in too as another reference point.
I don’t agree with Mr. Cohen. I especially object to the following “logic” he employs: 1) It’s silly and embarrassing to have religious faith or faith in language; 2) Using adjectives means either that you believe in the word’s ability to convey reality (oh! you earnest things) or you’re displaying frantic insecurity about language by inserting adjectives (you’ll note that these two positions are incompatible, and it’s confusing that Cohen wants to hold both weak positions); 3) So therefore, you should stick to nouns because…they do convey reality (?) even though reality can’t be conveyed in language (?) but they convey better than adjectives, because they’re more real (?) and they….wait, don’t they actually demand even more faith on the part of the reader, because they don’t bother to attempt (which is all language does, which is all we do ever in life, we attempt, so as to not merely die in place) nouns by themselves don’t attempt to describe the quality of actions or emotions or faces or places or moods or things? You can see why I disagree. Finally, he supplies a Chekhov quote. He seems to think it’s restrained and advances his argument (contra-adjectives, fussy language). Well, it doesn’t really. First of all, it has adjectives, just like nearly all writing. But more importantly, if he’s primarily arguing against Lyricism, this makes a poor case as well (makes me crave some more lyricism). Compare this Chekhov alongside a certain famous passage from Joyce and tell me which one you’d prefer (don’t get me wrong, I like some Chekhov, particularly the story “Gustav,” but I wouldn’t call him the gold standard).
Chekhov:
“she, this little, undistinguished woman, lost in a provincial crowd, with a vulgar lorgnette in her hand, filled his whole life now, was his sorrow and his joy, the only happiness that he now desired for himself, and to the sounds of the bad orchestra, of the miserable local violins, he thought how lovely she was. He thought and dreamed.”
Joyce:
“A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”
This Joyce is swimming in adjectives and adverbs! And they’re beautiful and musical: “sleepily,” “obliquely,” “treeless,” “softly,” “lonely,” “crooked,” “barren,” “faintly”…. And it’s excessive emotion he’s after. Clean, restrained writing is great if you’re a clean, restrained person with clean, restrained emotions. For the rest of us, swooning fools, it won’t do.
I don’t agree with Mr. Cohen. I especially object to the following “logic” he employs: 1) It’s silly and embarrassing to have religious faith or faith in language; 2) Using adjectives means either that you believe in the word’s ability to convey reality (oh! you earnest things) or you’re displaying frantic insecurity about language by inserting adjectives (you’ll note that these two positions are incompatible, and it’s confusing that Cohen wants to hold both weak positions); 3) So therefore, you should stick to nouns because…they do convey reality (?) even though reality can’t be conveyed in language (?) but they convey better than adjectives, because they’re more real (?) and they….wait, don’t they actually demand even more faith on the part of the reader, because they don’t bother to attempt (which is all language does, which is all we do ever in life, we attempt, so as to not merely die in place) nouns by themselves don’t attempt to describe the quality of actions or emotions or faces or places or moods or things? You can see why I disagree. Finally, he supplies a Chekhov quote. He seems to think it’s restrained and advances his argument (contra-adjectives, fussy language). Well, it doesn’t really. First of all, it has adjectives, just like nearly all writing. But more importantly, if he’s primarily arguing against Lyricism, this makes a poor case as well (makes me crave some more lyricism). Compare this Chekhov alongside a certain famous passage from Joyce and tell me which one you’d prefer (don’t get me wrong, I like some Chekhov, particularly the story “Gustav,” but I wouldn’t call him the gold standard).
Chekhov:
“she, this little, undistinguished woman, lost in a provincial crowd, with a vulgar lorgnette in her hand, filled his whole life now, was his sorrow and his joy, the only happiness that he now desired for himself, and to the sounds of the bad orchestra, of the miserable local violins, he thought how lovely she was. He thought and dreamed.”
Joyce:
“A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”
This Joyce is swimming in adjectives and adverbs! And they’re beautiful and musical: “sleepily,” “obliquely,” “treeless,” “softly,” “lonely,” “crooked,” “barren,” “faintly”…. And it’s excessive emotion he’s after. Clean, restrained writing is great if you’re a clean, restrained person with clean, restrained emotions. For the rest of us, swooning fools, it won’t do.
“Point is, it gets old fast, this habit of rendering something in a manner that foregrounds the rendering, not the something.” That nails a condition that so often afflicts underdeveloped/younger stylist types — prose filled with sound and fury, signifying not so much (to paraphrase a famous old stylist from England who managed to say quite a lot about “the human condition” despite some of the highest-blown language ever).
Loved the Kafka ending.
Thanks.
“Point is, it gets old fast, this habit of rendering something in a manner that foregrounds the rendering, not the something.” That nails a condition that so often afflicts underdeveloped/younger stylist types — prose filled with sound and fury, signifying not so much (to paraphrase a famous old stylist from England who managed to say quite a lot about “the human condition” despite some of the highest-blown language ever).
Loved the Kafka ending.
Thanks.
Perhaps a way to look at potentially false dichotomies is to play the apples and peaches and oranges game. Take two disparate things and try to find something that fits more or less comfortably between them: Satie and Ravel and Wagner. Rembrandt and Cezanne and Rothko. To argue against my own point above, it makes some sense to place Cezanne between Rembrandt and Rothko, both chronologically and formally. That shouldn’t make Cezanne appear lukewarm or middle-pathed, should it? Cezanne—with those patches of unpainted canvas and all those Mont Sainte-Victoires, lukewarm? That’s nonsense. I value Dickinson and Eliot and Whitman. I value the films of Howard Hawks and Hitchcock and Terrence Malick (and I could push this out to kumquat oddity by adding Hans Jurgen-Syberberg way beyond Malick). I value classic Disney and early Tim Burton and the short films of the Brothers Quay. The Beach Boys and Pavement and Pink Floyd. Karen Carpenter and Billie Holiday and Janis Joplin. I (we?) could do this all day. Nick Drake and Shane MacGowan and Iggy Pop. Some of these look a little more like triangles (with dimensionality) than continuums. And if we start placing them as points on (and in) a sphere (without land masses or oceans or poles), it quickly becomes silly to think of them as breaking down into camps or hemispheres or factions. The points connect to so many other points. Our privilege is our access to the whole sphere (fence-building strikes me as self-limiting, as does the ever-narrowing selection of what to expose oneself to if based on the “types” of the works or the “colors” of the connecting threads). I rather feel like a swooning feverish fool AND a rigorous disciplined idiot.
Perhaps a way to look at potentially false dichotomies is to play the apples and peaches and oranges game. Take two disparate things and try to find something that fits more or less comfortably between them: Satie and Ravel and Wagner. Rembrandt and Cezanne and Rothko. To argue against my own point above, it makes some sense to place Cezanne between Rembrandt and Rothko, both chronologically and formally. That shouldn’t make Cezanne appear lukewarm or middle-pathed, should it? Cezanne—with those patches of unpainted canvas and all those Mont Sainte-Victoires, lukewarm? That’s nonsense. I value Dickinson and Eliot and Whitman. I value the films of Howard Hawks and Hitchcock and Terrence Malick (and I could push this out to kumquat oddity by adding Hans Jurgen-Syberberg way beyond Malick). I value classic Disney and early Tim Burton and the short films of the Brothers Quay. The Beach Boys and Pavement and Pink Floyd. Karen Carpenter and Billie Holiday and Janis Joplin. I (we?) could do this all day. Nick Drake and Shane MacGowan and Iggy Pop. Some of these look a little more like triangles (with dimensionality) than continuums. And if we start placing them as points on (and in) a sphere (without land masses or oceans or poles), it quickly becomes silly to think of them as breaking down into camps or hemispheres or factions. The points connect to so many other points. Our privilege is our access to the whole sphere (fence-building strikes me as self-limiting, as does the ever-narrowing selection of what to expose oneself to if based on the “types” of the works or the “colors” of the connecting threads). I rather feel like a swooning feverish fool AND a rigorous disciplined idiot.
Ross: I haven’t followed Taylor as closely as Coltrane, but I value my copies of Conquistador! and Unit Structures. Is there something newer you’d recommend? I also love Ornette Coleman’s Free Jazz.
Re: Watt. I agree. It’s as if the Watt-era Beckett felt the massive swoosh of Joyce hurtling past him on his way from “The Dead” toward FW, and knowing he couldn’t keep up with the madman, decided he’d turn and rigorously plod the exact opposite way on past Dubliners, all that distance to “Imagine Dead Imagine” and beyond…
But now I’ve put the two expatriate Irishmen on a false continuum and contradicted what I just tried to put forth below. Damn.
Ross: I haven’t followed Taylor as closely as Coltrane, but I value my copies of Conquistador! and Unit Structures. Is there something newer you’d recommend? I also love Ornette Coleman’s Free Jazz.
Re: Watt. I agree. It’s as if the Watt-era Beckett felt the massive swoosh of Joyce hurtling past him on his way from “The Dead” toward FW, and knowing he couldn’t keep up with the madman, decided he’d turn and rigorously plod the exact opposite way on past Dubliners, all that distance to “Imagine Dead Imagine” and beyond…
But now I’ve put the two expatriate Irishmen on a false continuum and contradicted what I just tried to put forth below. Damn.
I think I understand what you’re saying about art as potentially unnecessary in a pragmatic or an evolutionary sense (though this could be argued the opposite way, I suppose), but I can’t imagine the world (or perhaps just my world) without it.
I think I understand what you’re saying about art as potentially unnecessary in a pragmatic or an evolutionary sense (though this could be argued the opposite way, I suppose), but I can’t imagine the world (or perhaps just my world) without it.
I’m pretty sure it makes perfect sense to compare Beckett and Joyce. Beckett became Joyce’s assistant sometime after he contributed to an appreciation of Work in Progress (Finnegan’s Wake) called “Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress.” Beckett’s early stuff (More Pricks than Kicks and Murphy) plays with language and is sort of Joycean (but the novel is already starting to get a bit more spare than the early stories). Ultimately, both Irish expatriots wrote in other languages to get to where they needed to go. Joyce wrote in his own quasi-English creation — a maximalist musical punning mismash of everything he knew — and Beckett, with characteristic elegance, simply wrote in French, a language that nicely restricted his native abilities.
I’m pretty sure it makes perfect sense to compare Beckett and Joyce. Beckett became Joyce’s assistant sometime after he contributed to an appreciation of Work in Progress (Finnegan’s Wake) called “Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress.” Beckett’s early stuff (More Pricks than Kicks and Murphy) plays with language and is sort of Joycean (but the novel is already starting to get a bit more spare than the early stories). Ultimately, both Irish expatriots wrote in other languages to get to where they needed to go. Joyce wrote in his own quasi-English creation — a maximalist musical punning mismash of everything he knew — and Beckett, with characteristic elegance, simply wrote in French, a language that nicely restricted his native abilities.
Good comment. The reason that Faulkner or Joyce, or, let’s say, Bruno Schulz’s, snarls and tangles of language bring us closer to reality than many “realist” writers is that reality is made up of snarls and tangles, not plots. This is not to dismiss plot; it is definitely necessary to keep the reader on track. But a novel like Finnegan’s Wake, with the ambitiousness of its theme, could only have been written as it was. Who can resist Joyce’s ability to pack allusions, puns, etymology and social commentary into one word! AND HE DOES IT OVER AND OVER! But Finnegan’s Wake is so much more than a word game. It is a tremendously moving experience for the patient reader. The end, where ALP is returning to her father the sea as the River Liffey (“All me life I have been lived among them but now they are becoming lothed to me… And it’s old and old it’s sad and old it’s sad and weary I go back to you, my cold father…Carry me along, taddy, like you done through the toy fair!…A way a lone a last a loved a long the”). Beautiful. Impossible to will. It brings tears to my eyes every time I read it. There is so much of Joyce’s wife in ALP, and of his tragic and complex relationship to Lucia in Iseult/Isobel/Issy. Writing is not just communication, at its best it is a gestalt.
Good comment. The reason that Faulkner or Joyce, or, let’s say, Bruno Schulz’s, snarls and tangles of language bring us closer to reality than many “realist” writers is that reality is made up of snarls and tangles, not plots. This is not to dismiss plot; it is definitely necessary to keep the reader on track. But a novel like Finnegan’s Wake, with the ambitiousness of its theme, could only have been written as it was. Who can resist Joyce’s ability to pack allusions, puns, etymology and social commentary into one word! AND HE DOES IT OVER AND OVER! But Finnegan’s Wake is so much more than a word game. It is a tremendously moving experience for the patient reader. The end, where ALP is returning to her father the sea as the River Liffey (“All me life I have been lived among them but now they are becoming lothed to me… And it’s old and old it’s sad and old it’s sad and weary I go back to you, my cold father…Carry me along, taddy, like you done through the toy fair!…A way a lone a last a loved a long the”). Beautiful. Impossible to will. It brings tears to my eyes every time I read it. There is so much of Joyce’s wife in ALP, and of his tragic and complex relationship to Lucia in Iseult/Isobel/Issy. Writing is not just communication, at its best it is a gestalt.
Yes.
Yes.
Joyce famously said it took him 17 years write Finnegan’s Wake, so readers should take 17 years to read it. Very few readers have that sort of patience.
I think Schulz is a different sort of writer than Faulkner and Joyce (unless you’ve somehow read the lost manuscript of Schulz’s “The Messiah”). His language to me seems mostly in service of the sensual. I never think of Schulz as snarling and tangling — definitely not “snarling,” at least. The smell of the cinnamon shops, the sight of gas laterns, the sound of gales, the taste of the feathers of the crazy grandfather’s birds (these mostly refer to “The Streets of Crocodiles.”) His language is accessible and controlled but yet often totally elusive, apt to modestly slip from reality in ways I don’t even notice till I’m dreaming too.
Joyce famously said it took him 17 years write Finnegan’s Wake, so readers should take 17 years to read it. Very few readers have that sort of patience.
I think Schulz is a different sort of writer than Faulkner and Joyce (unless you’ve somehow read the lost manuscript of Schulz’s “The Messiah”). His language to me seems mostly in service of the sensual. I never think of Schulz as snarling and tangling — definitely not “snarling,” at least. The smell of the cinnamon shops, the sight of gas laterns, the sound of gales, the taste of the feathers of the crazy grandfather’s birds (these mostly refer to “The Streets of Crocodiles.”) His language is accessible and controlled but yet often totally elusive, apt to modestly slip from reality in ways I don’t even notice till I’m dreaming too.
Tim: Where would be a good starting point to explore Nancarrow?
Tim: Where would be a good starting point to explore Nancarrow?
Thanks Stephen and Charlie for the Joyce excerpts. The closing pages of Finnegans Wake (we all need to leave out the apostrophe if we want to be good stewards of Joyce’s double-meaning title) is, I believe, poetic prose at one of its summits.
Lee: Is there any of Schulz’s Messiah available? This is the first I’ve heard of it.
Thanks Stephen and Charlie for the Joyce excerpts. The closing pages of Finnegans Wake (we all need to leave out the apostrophe if we want to be good stewards of Joyce’s double-meaning title) is, I believe, poetic prose at one of its summits.
Lee: Is there any of Schulz’s Messiah available? This is the first I’ve heard of it.
I’m suddenly become inept at placing these comments in their proper order. Sorry.
I’m suddenly become inept at placing these comments in their proper order. Sorry.
Next to that misplace suitcase of Hemingway’s filled with short stories, “The Messiah” is one of the best lost manuscripts no one’s ever read — please let us know if you find it. As far as I know it’s gone without a trace. Probably used to wrap a steak by some Nazi butcher.
Next to that misplace suitcase of Hemingway’s filled with short stories, “The Messiah” is one of the best lost manuscripts no one’s ever read — please let us know if you find it. As far as I know it’s gone without a trace. Probably used to wrap a steak by some Nazi butcher.
But sometimes the rendering itself IS that something, isn’t it, the very thing, that bloodlust imperative (affirming Charlie’s reference to gestalt above)?
Abstraction made its way into the Western canonical art world in the 20th Century. And dissonance came along to play as a serious stud in 20th Century Western music. But in the prose realm (with rare exceptions), abstraction and dissonance have been relegated to poetry (and are often vilified even there). I’d sooner listen to the awkwardness of ambitious youth, to furious sounds signifying nothing (as long as the fury is paint-peeling fury—that I might feel its linguistic chaos even if I don’t “understand” its cognitive “meanings”) than slog through more overly-cautious and self-satisfied middle-aged craft.
But sometimes the rendering itself IS that something, isn’t it, the very thing, that bloodlust imperative (affirming Charlie’s reference to gestalt above)?
Abstraction made its way into the Western canonical art world in the 20th Century. And dissonance came along to play as a serious stud in 20th Century Western music. But in the prose realm (with rare exceptions), abstraction and dissonance have been relegated to poetry (and are often vilified even there). I’d sooner listen to the awkwardness of ambitious youth, to furious sounds signifying nothing (as long as the fury is paint-peeling fury—that I might feel its linguistic chaos even if I don’t “understand” its cognitive “meanings”) than slog through more overly-cautious and self-satisfied middle-aged craft.
But sometimes even from those careful bogs something will rise to surprise and astonish me.
But sometimes even from those careful bogs something will rise to surprise and astonish me.
I guess I was thinking more of Asylum Under the Sign of the Hourglass with regard to Schulz. The whole tangled Bianca episode, where she may or may not be the illegitimate daughter of the Emperor Maximillian (who himself may simply be a postage stamp), or the episode where the narrator visits his already dead father in the asylum, and slowly becomes poisioned by lethergy or death (or whatever holds the town where the asylum is located in its grasp). He is a lot more language-based in Hourglass. However, I, too, love the cinnamon shops episode in Street of the Crocodiles (nee Cinnamon Shops). But even in that novel-in-stories, there is so much going on besides the beautiful descriptions, so much language-wise, so much illusiveness, that I would put Schulz beside the modernists like Faulkner and Joyce.
For those not ready to spend the 17 years, as you suggest, I recommend Anthony Burgess’ A Shorter Finnegan’s Wake, although I know that other Finnegan’s buffs hate it.
I guess I was thinking more of Asylum Under the Sign of the Hourglass with regard to Schulz. The whole tangled Bianca episode, where she may or may not be the illegitimate daughter of the Emperor Maximillian (who himself may simply be a postage stamp), or the episode where the narrator visits his already dead father in the asylum, and slowly becomes poisioned by lethergy or death (or whatever holds the town where the asylum is located in its grasp). He is a lot more language-based in Hourglass. However, I, too, love the cinnamon shops episode in Street of the Crocodiles (nee Cinnamon Shops). But even in that novel-in-stories, there is so much going on besides the beautiful descriptions, so much language-wise, so much illusiveness, that I would put Schulz beside the modernists like Faulkner and Joyce.
For those not ready to spend the 17 years, as you suggest, I recommend Anthony Burgess’ A Shorter Finnegan’s Wake, although I know that other Finnegan’s buffs hate it.
Has anyone checked for “The Messiah” under Gregor Samsa’s bed? Sorry, forgot about the no apostrophe in Finnegans Wake.
Has anyone checked for “The Messiah” under Gregor Samsa’s bed? Sorry, forgot about the no apostrophe in Finnegans Wake.
of course I’m not making that argument, it’s just reductio ad absurdum in regard to ideas of neccessity. Ornamentation in art is intrinsic, it just comes in different forms (austere masculinity being but one form)
of course I’m not making that argument, it’s just reductio ad absurdum in regard to ideas of neccessity. Ornamentation in art is intrinsic, it just comes in different forms (austere masculinity being but one form)
I want to know that as well. Big Coleman fan, and Anthony Braxton (though whether that’s Jazz is debated….)
Taylor for some reason doesn’t seem that wierd to me, but I came to his work through a trajectory from free Improv/post-industrial/noise kinda stuff (big scene here in NZ, there’s the Dead C and Bruce Russell’s other work, Campbell Kneale’s work with Birchville Cat Motel/Our Love Will Destroy the World and Black Boned Angel, Peter Wright, Roy Montgomery, Sandoz Lab Technicians, Greg Malcom……)
Like a lot of art in any media, my standpoint is largely affectual or protosemantic – “since feeling is first…”; I just dig it, daddyo, then think later.
Obviously there’s the nomadic jumping from scale to scale, the polyrhythmic stuttering, the animalistic jouissance of it….
What about later Beckett, like Stories and Texts for nothing?
I want to know that as well. Big Coleman fan, and Anthony Braxton (though whether that’s Jazz is debated….)
Taylor for some reason doesn’t seem that wierd to me, but I came to his work through a trajectory from free Improv/post-industrial/noise kinda stuff (big scene here in NZ, there’s the Dead C and Bruce Russell’s other work, Campbell Kneale’s work with Birchville Cat Motel/Our Love Will Destroy the World and Black Boned Angel, Peter Wright, Roy Montgomery, Sandoz Lab Technicians, Greg Malcom……)
Like a lot of art in any media, my standpoint is largely affectual or protosemantic – “since feeling is first…”; I just dig it, daddyo, then think later.
Obviously there’s the nomadic jumping from scale to scale, the polyrhythmic stuttering, the animalistic jouissance of it….
What about later Beckett, like Stories and Texts for nothing?
Satie and Ravel and Wagner – I’d go for Mark E Smith.
Satie and Ravel and Wagner – I’d go for Mark E Smith.
I’m slow on the uptake—I still feel new to blog chats and I struggle to read intent.
Is it sloppy (callow, stickily romantic, absurdly reductionist) of me to insist Art is necessary (as in indispensable—whether I add “for me” or not)? That I’d be willing to die for art (easily said, of course, from this place of comfort and privilege and “who cares anyway” safety)? Is that quintessential austere masculinity?
What if ornamentation is actually sustenance—if not physical, than psychical (or even spiritual)? Or am I just descending into unswimmable waters where faulty logic will drown my foolish self?
I like your review of Derek Beaulieu’s newest work, by the way. I once corresponded with him, long ago, and he struck me as very kind and intelligent. With a keen design sense.
I’m slow on the uptake—I still feel new to blog chats and I struggle to read intent.
Is it sloppy (callow, stickily romantic, absurdly reductionist) of me to insist Art is necessary (as in indispensable—whether I add “for me” or not)? That I’d be willing to die for art (easily said, of course, from this place of comfort and privilege and “who cares anyway” safety)? Is that quintessential austere masculinity?
What if ornamentation is actually sustenance—if not physical, than psychical (or even spiritual)? Or am I just descending into unswimmable waters where faulty logic will drown my foolish self?
I like your review of Derek Beaulieu’s newest work, by the way. I once corresponded with him, long ago, and he struck me as very kind and intelligent. With a keen design sense.
New Face in Hell! New Face in Hell!
The three R’s: repetition, repetition, repetition.
New Face in Hell! New Face in Hell!
The three R’s: repetition, repetition, repetition.
Ross: What’s a good entry point for Dead C? I’ve only heard Trapdoor Fucking Exit and Harsh 70’s Reality. Is the Ba Da Bing compilation at all tolerable?
Ross: What’s a good entry point for Dead C? I’ve only heard Trapdoor Fucking Exit and Harsh 70’s Reality. Is the Ba Da Bing compilation at all tolerable?
I’m pretty much of the opinion that Beckett could do no wrong, so I’m probably not worth listening to in that regard. I have particular weaknesses for Lessness, How It Is, and Worstward Ho!
I’m pretty much of the opinion that Beckett could do no wrong, so I’m probably not worth listening to in that regard. I have particular weaknesses for Lessness, How It Is, and Worstward Ho!
those are all books i want to read. i’m reading tristram shandy and infinite jest right now and i love them both.
the kind of unnecessariness i’m talking about is the kind found in much contemporary mainstream fiction. oprah books, basically. (not to be reductive or anything, just trying to keep it short.)
those are all books i want to read. i’m reading tristram shandy and infinite jest right now and i love them both.
the kind of unnecessariness i’m talking about is the kind found in much contemporary mainstream fiction. oprah books, basically. (not to be reductive or anything, just trying to keep it short.)
charlie, whatever cohen’s beef is, mine might not be the same, and isn’t with any of the -isms you mentioned. we’re on the same “team”, believe me. i saw that Reader’s Manifesto thing and thought it was stupid too.
charlie, whatever cohen’s beef is, mine might not be the same, and isn’t with any of the -isms you mentioned. we’re on the same “team”, believe me. i saw that Reader’s Manifesto thing and thought it was stupid too.
ross, intentional gaudy artfulness is not the same thing as hot air. i like nada gordon as much as you do. you’re misunderstanding me.
ross, intentional gaudy artfulness is not the same thing as hot air. i like nada gordon as much as you do. you’re misunderstanding me.
i’m not talking about ornamentation. i’m talking about using a lot of words and not really saying anything.
my favorite writers use a lot of words, a lot of ornamentation, and say a lot.
or some of them don’t use a lot of words, and say a lot.
there’s more than one cat to skin away.
i should really come up with examples, but i am way too fucking lazy
i’m not talking about ornamentation. i’m talking about using a lot of words and not really saying anything.
my favorite writers use a lot of words, a lot of ornamentation, and say a lot.
or some of them don’t use a lot of words, and say a lot.
there’s more than one cat to skin away.
i should really come up with examples, but i am way too fucking lazy
oh by the way, the comments directly below this, which i just noticed, convey what i mean, but way better. told you i was lazy.
oh by the way, the comments directly below this, which i just noticed, convey what i mean, but way better. told you i was lazy.
Matt – what about Dada or Fluxus or Langpo or the like (or Formalism of any kind).
Take Tan Lin’s BLIPSOAK01 (which I’ve written on) – that doesn’t “really say anything”. Or Clark Coolidge’s Solution Passage. I don’t think ornamentation without purpose or meaning is possible – the act of eschewing significance and giving into textual depravity/decadence (or total asemicism) contains it’s own semiotic value. The rest is policing boundaries.
I suppose I’m just sick of people stating vast generalisations about what “writing” should be – Writing is totally heterogeneous, so it’s like saying all fruit should be red or something.
Matt – what about Dada or Fluxus or Langpo or the like (or Formalism of any kind).
Take Tan Lin’s BLIPSOAK01 (which I’ve written on) – that doesn’t “really say anything”. Or Clark Coolidge’s Solution Passage. I don’t think ornamentation without purpose or meaning is possible – the act of eschewing significance and giving into textual depravity/decadence (or total asemicism) contains it’s own semiotic value. The rest is policing boundaries.
I suppose I’m just sick of people stating vast generalisations about what “writing” should be – Writing is totally heterogeneous, so it’s like saying all fruit should be red or something.
Depends what you mean by tolerable….. I’m not sure – is that Vain, Erudite and Stupid? if so it’s pretty good. I love Harsh 70s. Eusa Kills is pretty good, and Secret Earth which is their most recent (i think). I’m not sure if it’s up your alley, but No Fun have rereleased Now, Gods, Stand Up For Bastards! and The Philosophick of Mercury by A Handful of Dust (Bruce and Alistair Galbraith), which is one of the most killer things I’ve bought in a long time. And Bruce has a book of essays out, that’s pretty neat as well.
I’ve got some Beckett-sourced poems at Otoliths if you’re interested:
http://the-otolith.blogspot.com/2009/05/ross-brighton-words-and-sounds-for.html
Depends what you mean by tolerable….. I’m not sure – is that Vain, Erudite and Stupid? if so it’s pretty good. I love Harsh 70s. Eusa Kills is pretty good, and Secret Earth which is their most recent (i think). I’m not sure if it’s up your alley, but No Fun have rereleased Now, Gods, Stand Up For Bastards! and The Philosophick of Mercury by A Handful of Dust (Bruce and Alistair Galbraith), which is one of the most killer things I’ve bought in a long time. And Bruce has a book of essays out, that’s pretty neat as well.
I’ve got some Beckett-sourced poems at Otoliths if you’re interested:
http://the-otolith.blogspot.com/2009/05/ross-brighton-words-and-sounds-for.html
That Kazoo is amazing. More bands should use Kazoo.
Buffalo lips on toast smiling…..
Who makes the Nazis?
That Kazoo is amazing. More bands should use Kazoo.
Buffalo lips on toast smiling…..
Who makes the Nazis?
Go Tim.
Go Tim.
Rick—What? Did someone from the pantry asylum notify you that I’d slipped out through the mudroom on my high hobby-horse and was out roaming this giant land looking for fires in bellies and frothing-at-the-mouth?
What do you know of Conlon Nancarrow? Where should I gain entry? How could a fellow from Arkansas (who lived most of his life in relative isolation in Mexico) be remembered as “one of the most original and unusual composers of the 20th century” and my not have heard his music? I’m obviously not paying attention (not anywhere near close enough attention), and I’m obviously not going to live long enough to scratch all my itches into peace.
And do you have any thoughts on Cohen’s essay (or on the beige-carpeted middle-path corridor off the foyer that leads to the well-lit parlors of The House of Literature)?
Rick—What? Did someone from the pantry asylum notify you that I’d slipped out through the mudroom on my high hobby-horse and was out roaming this giant land looking for fires in bellies and frothing-at-the-mouth?
What do you know of Conlon Nancarrow? Where should I gain entry? How could a fellow from Arkansas (who lived most of his life in relative isolation in Mexico) be remembered as “one of the most original and unusual composers of the 20th century” and my not have heard his music? I’m obviously not paying attention (not anywhere near close enough attention), and I’m obviously not going to live long enough to scratch all my itches into peace.
And do you have any thoughts on Cohen’s essay (or on the beige-carpeted middle-path corridor off the foyer that leads to the well-lit parlors of The House of Literature)?
Less cowbell, more kazoo.
I’m totally wired…
Less cowbell, more kazoo.
I’m totally wired…
My guess is, all things remaining equal, your feelings may change as you age. For example, lots of “outre” stuff I used to love I now think of as affectations of my youth (not that I’m THAT old now).
My guess is, all things remaining equal, your feelings may change as you age. For example, lots of “outre” stuff I used to love I now think of as affectations of my youth (not that I’m THAT old now).
Lee: You’re probably saying—”one’s feelings may change as one ages” (I would sure hope so, and that we would all push ourselves out of complacency whenever possible, that we would look to the past for guidance and challenge and inspiration, and to the present for fresh energy and challenge and more inspiration).
But if your use of the second person is directed specifically at me, I’ve already been here for half a century, and I’ve been through some changes, but most of what struck me the first time still cuts through me now (Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Beckett, Joyce, Kafka, Woolf, Faulkner, Agee, Duchamp, Stein, Dickinson, Robbe-Grillet, Mann, Musil, Celine, Melville, Conrad, Emerson, Montaigne, Artaud, Colette, Hopkins, Hegel, Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, Stevens, Vonnegut, Coover, Gass, Barthes, Derrida, Marias, Sebald and many many more writers and lots of composers and painters and thinkers and singers and bands—and much if not most of this stuff was considered “outre” initially)—yet, there is always more to discover and it’s always worth reassessing one’s modes and tastes and inclinations (airing out one’s private chambers) to avoid the worst kinds of mold. Question those affectations of youth, of course, but don’t forget the way they made your blood pulse, no? Sorry, again, that this turned into a lecture. I need to find a job, fast. Or just get back to my own crucible.
Lee: You’re probably saying—”one’s feelings may change as one ages” (I would sure hope so, and that we would all push ourselves out of complacency whenever possible, that we would look to the past for guidance and challenge and inspiration, and to the present for fresh energy and challenge and more inspiration).
But if your use of the second person is directed specifically at me, I’ve already been here for half a century, and I’ve been through some changes, but most of what struck me the first time still cuts through me now (Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Beckett, Joyce, Kafka, Woolf, Faulkner, Agee, Duchamp, Stein, Dickinson, Robbe-Grillet, Mann, Musil, Celine, Melville, Conrad, Emerson, Montaigne, Artaud, Colette, Hopkins, Hegel, Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, Stevens, Vonnegut, Coover, Gass, Barthes, Derrida, Marias, Sebald and many many more writers and lots of composers and painters and thinkers and singers and bands—and much if not most of this stuff was considered “outre” initially)—yet, there is always more to discover and it’s always worth reassessing one’s modes and tastes and inclinations (airing out one’s private chambers) to avoid the worst kinds of mold. Question those affectations of youth, of course, but don’t forget the way they made your blood pulse, no? Sorry, again, that this turned into a lecture. I need to find a job, fast. Or just get back to my own crucible.
Ross: Thanks for all the great tips. I’ll try to track them down.
And I very much like the “It in it” moment and “Without nevertheless/this one was I to enough” and “sucked shed the spirals” and the “soon of evening” ending and there are other torqued gems along the way as well.
Ross: Thanks for all the great tips. I’ll try to track them down.
And I very much like the “It in it” moment and “Without nevertheless/this one was I to enough” and “sucked shed the spirals” and the “soon of evening” ending and there are other torqued gems along the way as well.
The place I’d recommend beginning with Nancarrow is with the Studies for Player Piano.
Okay, that’s a joke–that’s basically all of Nancarrow. But apart from that, there’s really no start point or end-point that I can recommend. They are like Cornell boxes and reward exploring, listening and relistening. Some of his earliest works are less interesting to me because melodically they are more obviously derivative of boogie-woogie, although it sounds like several compositions being played at once. His music can be unsettling, but you’re familiar with Cecil Taylor already, so Nancarrow isn’t so much of a stretch except for being far more jarring rhythmically.
The Ensemble Modern does a more chamber music-like interpretation of Nancarrow’s work, which actually does provide another worthy port of entry. The multi-instrumentation brings out more color in Nancarrow’s work,when occasionally the sheer player piano can risk feeling monochrome. However, I’d say that once one becomes addicted to the pure stuff the colors do emerge. I warn you, though, I got a speeding ticket recently while listening to Mr. N. His work can speed up or slow down gradually, and the juxtaposition of rhythms can cause bouts of gas pedal euphoria.
The place I’d recommend beginning with Nancarrow is with the Studies for Player Piano.
Okay, that’s a joke–that’s basically all of Nancarrow. But apart from that, there’s really no start point or end-point that I can recommend. They are like Cornell boxes and reward exploring, listening and relistening. Some of his earliest works are less interesting to me because melodically they are more obviously derivative of boogie-woogie, although it sounds like several compositions being played at once. His music can be unsettling, but you’re familiar with Cecil Taylor already, so Nancarrow isn’t so much of a stretch except for being far more jarring rhythmically.
The Ensemble Modern does a more chamber music-like interpretation of Nancarrow’s work, which actually does provide another worthy port of entry. The multi-instrumentation brings out more color in Nancarrow’s work,when occasionally the sheer player piano can risk feeling monochrome. However, I’d say that once one becomes addicted to the pure stuff the colors do emerge. I warn you, though, I got a speeding ticket recently while listening to Mr. N. His work can speed up or slow down gradually, and the juxtaposition of rhythms can cause bouts of gas pedal euphoria.