September 19th, 2009 / 7:47 pm
Snippets
Snippets
Michael Schaub—
Mark Feeney starts off this piece on Thomas Pynchon and music with this sentence: “Music hasn’t really mattered much in American fiction.” Is that even remotely true? I suspect it’s not, but you guys are all smart well-read rock stars. Is Feeney right? Do I just wish music mattered more in American fiction? Will anyone come to the debut show of my band, The Very Special Episodes? Even though my band doesn’t technically exist?
that’s just plain weird. my first reaction was to start listing all the american fiction about or dealing with music i could think of in my head. then it occurred to me that maybe the unspoken premise is that we don’t have a centuries-long history of writing about classical music like europe does. that’s the only explanation i can come up with. i mean, from the 20th century on the fiction’s full of music (lost generation: jazz; beats: bop; way too many writers: rock). also, moby dick breaks into an opera in the middle. also, i’m working on the great white boy rap novel right now.
that’s just plain weird. my first reaction was to start listing all the american fiction about or dealing with music i could think of in my head. then it occurred to me that maybe the unspoken premise is that we don’t have a centuries-long history of writing about classical music like europe does. that’s the only explanation i can come up with. i mean, from the 20th century on the fiction’s full of music (lost generation: jazz; beats: bop; way too many writers: rock). also, moby dick breaks into an opera in the middle. also, i’m working on the great white boy rap novel right now.
That guy is totally off his shit. Typical blinders-on Pynchon fan elitism- if Our Man does it, not only Must It Be Good, but it Must Be Something Nobody Else Does. And for this they gave ole Feeney a Pulitzer last year. Just off the top of my head, from the last fifteen or so years-
You Don’t Love Me Yet – Jonathan Lethem (novel about a musician, title from a Wilco song)
“The James Dean Garage Band” – Rick Moody (story in Brightest Ring of Angels…)
Preston Falls – David Gates (major plot arc involves protagonist joining a bar band)
Yonder Stands Your Orphan (Barry Hannah’s most recent novel, titled taken from Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” will stand in for the threescore and ten times a million Dylan-inspired works of the past 40 years)
The Gold Bug Variations – Richard Powers (novel centrally concerned with Bach’s Goldberg Variations)
Lady Lazarus – Andrew Foster Altschul (novel written more or less from the perspective of Frances Bean Cobain)
Artificial Light – James Greer (novel written more or less about Kurt Cobain)
Guide – Dennis Cooper (novel; Alex James from Blur is a main character, though re-named to avoid a lawsuit; also contains a chapter called “Guided By Voices,” and another called “Sunshine Superman” after the Donovan song)
Try – Dennis Cooper (novel; main character Ziggy is obsessed with Husker Du and names his zine “I Apologize” after their song)
“The Ash Gray Proclamation” – Dennis Cooper (short story named for Robert Pollard song)
“How I Write My Songs,” “The King of Jazz,” “At the Steps of the Conservatory,” – Donald Barthelme (short stories which are primarily about music or musicians, not including countless references to and citations of particular works and/or composers in countless stories and novels; also not counting the short story where the Barthelme-doppelganger is dating a woman who is also sleeping with a black jazz musician who I believe is called “Tiger” in the story but you know him better in the real world as one Miles Davis)
Please Step Back – Ben Greenman (novel that fictionalizes the life of Sly Stone)
Also, as the FIRST COMMENTER on Mark Feeney’s shitty article already pointed out: Stephen King has been consistently using song lyrics for epigraphs to his books for thirty years or more- Trent Reznor’s “Hurt” on Dark Tower 7, Springsteen, etc etc. And the virus in The Stand is nicknamed “Captain Trips” after the then-still-very-much-alive Jerry Garcia.
I could keep going, but why?
That guy is totally off his shit. Typical blinders-on Pynchon fan elitism- if Our Man does it, not only Must It Be Good, but it Must Be Something Nobody Else Does. And for this they gave ole Feeney a Pulitzer last year. Just off the top of my head, from the last fifteen or so years-
You Don’t Love Me Yet – Jonathan Lethem (novel about a musician, title from a Wilco song)
“The James Dean Garage Band” – Rick Moody (story in Brightest Ring of Angels…)
Preston Falls – David Gates (major plot arc involves protagonist joining a bar band)
Yonder Stands Your Orphan (Barry Hannah’s most recent novel, titled taken from Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” will stand in for the threescore and ten times a million Dylan-inspired works of the past 40 years)
The Gold Bug Variations – Richard Powers (novel centrally concerned with Bach’s Goldberg Variations)
Lady Lazarus – Andrew Foster Altschul (novel written more or less from the perspective of Frances Bean Cobain)
Artificial Light – James Greer (novel written more or less about Kurt Cobain)
Guide – Dennis Cooper (novel; Alex James from Blur is a main character, though re-named to avoid a lawsuit; also contains a chapter called “Guided By Voices,” and another called “Sunshine Superman” after the Donovan song)
Try – Dennis Cooper (novel; main character Ziggy is obsessed with Husker Du and names his zine “I Apologize” after their song)
“The Ash Gray Proclamation” – Dennis Cooper (short story named for Robert Pollard song)
“How I Write My Songs,” “The King of Jazz,” “At the Steps of the Conservatory,” – Donald Barthelme (short stories which are primarily about music or musicians, not including countless references to and citations of particular works and/or composers in countless stories and novels; also not counting the short story where the Barthelme-doppelganger is dating a woman who is also sleeping with a black jazz musician who I believe is called “Tiger” in the story but you know him better in the real world as one Miles Davis)
Please Step Back – Ben Greenman (novel that fictionalizes the life of Sly Stone)
Also, as the FIRST COMMENTER on Mark Feeney’s shitty article already pointed out: Stephen King has been consistently using song lyrics for epigraphs to his books for thirty years or more- Trent Reznor’s “Hurt” on Dark Tower 7, Springsteen, etc etc. And the virus in The Stand is nicknamed “Captain Trips” after the then-still-very-much-alive Jerry Garcia.
I could keep going, but why?
PS- I was going to leave this as a comment on the original story but Boston.com wants my name, age, income, and a hair sample before it will let me register. Goddamn Olds.
Also, I forgot to mention
“Whistle Through Your Teeth and Spit” – Justin Taylor (short story, forthcoming in debut collection; main character plays in a Grateful Dead cover band and the title is taken from “Touch of Grey”)
PS- I was going to leave this as a comment on the original story but Boston.com wants my name, age, income, and a hair sample before it will let me register. Goddamn Olds.
Also, I forgot to mention
“Whistle Through Your Teeth and Spit” – Justin Taylor (short story, forthcoming in debut collection; main character plays in a Grateful Dead cover band and the title is taken from “Touch of Grey”)
OK, so it’s not just me. Actually, the first thing that came to my mind after reading as much of that article as I could stand was Dennis Cooper’s liner notes to Sonic Youth’s “Sister” (or the Geffen reissue of “Sister,” I think, but whatever), which is an amazing short story in its own right. And I defy anyone, male or female, straight or gay, to read that and not develop a crush on both Cooper AND Thurston Moore.
But yeah. Camden Joy? The 33 1/3 novels by Joe Pernice and John Darnielle? Sherman Alexie’s “Reservation Blues”? Frank Portman’s “King Dork”?
Whatever, Margaret Atwood.
OK, so it’s not just me. Actually, the first thing that came to my mind after reading as much of that article as I could stand was Dennis Cooper’s liner notes to Sonic Youth’s “Sister” (or the Geffen reissue of “Sister,” I think, but whatever), which is an amazing short story in its own right. And I defy anyone, male or female, straight or gay, to read that and not develop a crush on both Cooper AND Thurston Moore.
But yeah. Camden Joy? The 33 1/3 novels by Joe Pernice and John Darnielle? Sherman Alexie’s “Reservation Blues”? Frank Portman’s “King Dork”?
Whatever, Margaret Atwood.
That’s awesome. Did you know that James Dickey named a collection of poetry “Buckdancer’s Choice” after a line in “Uncle John’s Band”? It was remarkable because the book came out four years before the Grateful Dead even wrote the song. HOW DID JAMES DICKEY KNOW?
(Seriously, though, I actually used to think Dickey really did name the book after that song. I was young, and there was no Wikipedia.)
That’s awesome. Did you know that James Dickey named a collection of poetry “Buckdancer’s Choice” after a line in “Uncle John’s Band”? It was remarkable because the book came out four years before the Grateful Dead even wrote the song. HOW DID JAMES DICKEY KNOW?
(Seriously, though, I actually used to think Dickey really did name the book after that song. I was young, and there was no Wikipedia.)
Black Arts Movement?
Black Arts Movement?
The What Whats Whatment? Yeah….
The What Whats Whatment? Yeah….
Total, utter, fascinatingly dumb bullshit. Music is so tied to literature that it is impossible to untie them. even with Damocles’s sword. The dude is a moron
Total, utter, fascinatingly dumb bullshit. Music is so tied to literature that it is impossible to untie them. even with Damocles’s sword. The dude is a moron
http://www.amazon.com/Noise-Fiction-Inspired-Sonic-Youth/dp/0061669296/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253411879&sr=8-2
I am mentioned in this book, so maybe I’m an ass for mentioning it, but it still matters
http://www.amazon.com/Noise-Fiction-Inspired-Sonic-Youth/dp/0061669296/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253411879&sr=8-2
I am mentioned in this book, so maybe I’m an ass for mentioning it, but it still matters
Maybe somebody with the patience to actually login over at Boston.com can send our boy Feeney a little pingback. And while you’re at it, maybe invite him to check out this thing called Large-hearted Boy.
Also, just to complete the vitriolic pile-on, even his totally legit DeLillo citation is dated– one of the major obstacles Eric Packer faces in his cross-town limo drive in DeLillo’s novel Cosmopolis (2003) is the funeral for a world-renowned rap star. According to comments left on this site appended to a post I wrote about Cosmopolis, the rap star funeral was modeled on the memorial for the Notorious B.I.G.
And Nate, I don’t think you’re an ass for mentioning that book. There was another book I think Serpent’s Tail did of fiction about or inspired by The Fall.
Maybe somebody with the patience to actually login over at Boston.com can send our boy Feeney a little pingback. And while you’re at it, maybe invite him to check out this thing called Large-hearted Boy.
Also, just to complete the vitriolic pile-on, even his totally legit DeLillo citation is dated– one of the major obstacles Eric Packer faces in his cross-town limo drive in DeLillo’s novel Cosmopolis (2003) is the funeral for a world-renowned rap star. According to comments left on this site appended to a post I wrote about Cosmopolis, the rap star funeral was modeled on the memorial for the Notorious B.I.G.
And Nate, I don’t think you’re an ass for mentioning that book. There was another book I think Serpent’s Tail did of fiction about or inspired by The Fall.
?
That looks amazing.
That looks amazing.
The Beats with our Be-Bop???? nigga pleez….
The Beats with our Be-Bop???? nigga pleez….
er w/out Be-bop…. wha whaaaaaa.
er w/out Be-bop…. wha whaaaaaa.
i mean, seriously?
what about kerouac?
what about that anthologized-everywhere story by joyce carol oates, “where are you going, where have you been” (dedicated to dylan)?
what about sherman alexie’s “because my father always said he was the only indian who saw jimi hendrix play ‘the star-spangled banner’ at woodstock”?
what about denis johnson’s jesus’ son, which takes its title from, ahem, a song lyric, by the velvet underground, a rock band?
these last two aren’t even particularly good examples. but even tangentially, they illustrate the point. even instances of american fiction not centrally concerned with music are, inextricably, informed by music and its wider reverberations.
seriously, what an obtuse statement.
i mean, seriously?
what about kerouac?
what about that anthologized-everywhere story by joyce carol oates, “where are you going, where have you been” (dedicated to dylan)?
what about sherman alexie’s “because my father always said he was the only indian who saw jimi hendrix play ‘the star-spangled banner’ at woodstock”?
what about denis johnson’s jesus’ son, which takes its title from, ahem, a song lyric, by the velvet underground, a rock band?
these last two aren’t even particularly good examples. but even tangentially, they illustrate the point. even instances of american fiction not centrally concerned with music are, inextricably, informed by music and its wider reverberations.
seriously, what an obtuse statement.
what about motherless brooklyn which is just one long autistic prince hand job
what about motherless brooklyn which is just one long autistic prince hand job
whatevs i say stupid shit all the time. we all do right? this guy just said something really stupid in a public place is all.
whatevs i say stupid shit all the time. we all do right? this guy just said something really stupid in a public place is all.
chapters on huey lewis and genesis in American Psycho.
chapters on huey lewis and genesis in American Psycho.
a good # of these are fiction, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33%E2%85%93
a good # of these are fiction, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33%E2%85%93
Richard Powers – The Time of Our Singing is fundamentally about music, music theory and physics.
Richard Powers – The Time of Our Singing is fundamentally about music, music theory and physics.
“Great Jones Street” by Don DeLillo is all about a reclusive, relucant, paranoid Thom Yorke/Dylan/Cobain type.
And there’s an an absolutely amazing short story about a conceptual rock band called The Helium Road that masquerades as a christian fundamentalist band called The Whitman Foundation League (also title of story) to avenge the death of one of their members:
http://issuu.com/dlbarringer/docs/whathappenedtous
“Great Jones Street” by Don DeLillo is all about a reclusive, relucant, paranoid Thom Yorke/Dylan/Cobain type.
And there’s an an absolutely amazing short story about a conceptual rock band called The Helium Road that masquerades as a christian fundamentalist band called The Whitman Foundation League (also title of story) to avenge the death of one of their members:
http://issuu.com/dlbarringer/docs/whathappenedtous
FYI: Richard Powers’s THE TIME OF OUR SINGING deals even more specifically with music.
FYI: Richard Powers’s THE TIME OF OUR SINGING deals even more specifically with music.
Sorry, missed your comment down here. Yes, Chris is right.
Sorry, missed your comment down here. Yes, Chris is right.
Other novels where music is quite important:
THE SONG IS YOU by Arthur Phillips
IN HOBOKEN by Christian Bauman
I bring these two novels up because both concern themselves — even more effectively than Lethem’s book — with how a musician lives life outside of music and the troubling manner with which other characters attempt to relate to the musician as muse, hanger-on, waiting for coat tails to ride, et al. (I would probably count the solitary Atlantic City portion of Richard Powers’s THE TIME OF OUR SINGING for how the musical profession leads down a solitary avenue.)
I’m also shocked that nobody has mentioned Nick Hornby’s HIGH FIDELITY. I can also point to Nicholson Baker’s THE ANTHOLOGIST, which examines poetry and musical meter.
Other novels where music is quite important:
THE SONG IS YOU by Arthur Phillips
IN HOBOKEN by Christian Bauman
I bring these two novels up because both concern themselves — even more effectively than Lethem’s book — with how a musician lives life outside of music and the troubling manner with which other characters attempt to relate to the musician as muse, hanger-on, waiting for coat tails to ride, et al. (I would probably count the solitary Atlantic City portion of Richard Powers’s THE TIME OF OUR SINGING for how the musical profession leads down a solitary avenue.)
I’m also shocked that nobody has mentioned Nick Hornby’s HIGH FIDELITY. I can also point to Nicholson Baker’s THE ANTHOLOGIST, which examines poetry and musical meter.
We’re naming them as fast as we can think of ’em, Ed, but yeah shit- High Fidelity! And the Baker book is genius. I saw him read at the Brooklyn Book Fair and after I asked him if Chowder’s theories of meter are his own. He said they basically were, and he recited a couple lines of “the vanity of human wishes” for me as we walked him over to the autograph table. It was like five minutes of Christmas jammed into the middle of my afternoon.
We’re naming them as fast as we can think of ’em, Ed, but yeah shit- High Fidelity! And the Baker book is genius. I saw him read at the Brooklyn Book Fair and after I asked him if Chowder’s theories of meter are his own. He said they basically were, and he recited a couple lines of “the vanity of human wishes” for me as we walked him over to the autograph table. It was like five minutes of Christmas jammed into the middle of my afternoon.
the DeLillo novel was published in I think ’73, so it so pre-dates both Yorke and Cobain, but yeah, it’s impossible to read that book today without feeling the forward-pull towards those figures, especially the tragedy of KC’s death.
If I were guessing, I’d say that DeLillo was working on–at any rate, finishing–this book in ’70-’72, when the memory of Dylan’s lightning ascendency and subsequent accusations of apostasy were all still relatively fresh cultural memories, though he’d gone into his baroque phase by then and more or less eclipsed them at least in terms of his own career arc, if not the world’s conception of him.
But given that GJS protagonist Bucky Wunderlick is deeply interested in the spiritual aspects of language, and pre- or supra-lingual sounds, I think it’s a mistake to see Dylan as the only or even the main model for Bucky. At the time DeLillo would have been working on this book, the earth-shattering rock and roll news would have of course been the breakup of The Beatles. Of the Beatles, John Lennon was the one cast as a kind of latter-day mystic, and his solo output in many ways seems to take some of the weirder ideas from the White Album and push them even further. I don’t know my John Lennon solo discography well enough to make this an airttight case, but thinking back on Bucky Wunderlick’s obsession with pre-lingual and/or supra-lingual sounds, the idea of reversion to the lingual-state as a kind of spiritual ideal, plus the fact that the main force of villainy in the book is a vaguely Eastern-inflected-commune-gone-wrong, all leads me to think that Lennon accounts for a good portion of Bucky’s character and concerns. Which, incidentally (spoiler alert sort of) makes GJS *all* the more prophetic, inasmuch as it anticipates rather clearly Lennon’s death by a good seven years.
the DeLillo novel was published in I think ’73, so it so pre-dates both Yorke and Cobain, but yeah, it’s impossible to read that book today without feeling the forward-pull towards those figures, especially the tragedy of KC’s death.
If I were guessing, I’d say that DeLillo was working on–at any rate, finishing–this book in ’70-’72, when the memory of Dylan’s lightning ascendency and subsequent accusations of apostasy were all still relatively fresh cultural memories, though he’d gone into his baroque phase by then and more or less eclipsed them at least in terms of his own career arc, if not the world’s conception of him.
But given that GJS protagonist Bucky Wunderlick is deeply interested in the spiritual aspects of language, and pre- or supra-lingual sounds, I think it’s a mistake to see Dylan as the only or even the main model for Bucky. At the time DeLillo would have been working on this book, the earth-shattering rock and roll news would have of course been the breakup of The Beatles. Of the Beatles, John Lennon was the one cast as a kind of latter-day mystic, and his solo output in many ways seems to take some of the weirder ideas from the White Album and push them even further. I don’t know my John Lennon solo discography well enough to make this an airttight case, but thinking back on Bucky Wunderlick’s obsession with pre-lingual and/or supra-lingual sounds, the idea of reversion to the lingual-state as a kind of spiritual ideal, plus the fact that the main force of villainy in the book is a vaguely Eastern-inflected-commune-gone-wrong, all leads me to think that Lennon accounts for a good portion of Bucky’s character and concerns. Which, incidentally (spoiler alert sort of) makes GJS *all* the more prophetic, inasmuch as it anticipates rather clearly Lennon’s death by a good seven years.
but does nick hornby count? hornby’s british.
but does nick hornby count? hornby’s british.
yes, i have heard you, sasha. ;)
but you’d think someone’s review would be held to a slightly higher standard, given, you know, the chance to think about it, and do research on it, and proofread it, and make edits to it, and proofread it again, and have it looked over by your editor…
yes, i have heard you, sasha. ;)
but you’d think someone’s review would be held to a slightly higher standard, given, you know, the chance to think about it, and do research on it, and proofread it, and make edits to it, and proofread it again, and have it looked over by your editor…
Thom Yorke in 2000 and Cobain in 1992 influenced DeLillo in 1972 the way Borges clearly influenced Cervantes. Lennon never really crossed my mind because I always thought of him as way more extroverted and clear. I can’t imagine Bucky Wunderlick writing the lyrics to “Imagine” or buying billboards in 11 major cities that read “War is over if you want it!” Bucky’s music would maybe be more like a Krautrocky cross between The Books and The Boredoms’ more recent stuff?
(Bee tee dubs, the name “Bucky Wunderlick” reminds me of the Steven Wright joke about how on a bus he once met a Japanese nymphomaniac who told him she only slept with Jewish Cowboys, so he said “Hi. Nice to meet ya. My name’s Bucky Goldstein.”)
I thought Great Jones Street was another of DeLillo’s “individual in the institution novel”– this time about the music industry instead of the football program in Endgame; academia in White Noise; secret shady governmental intelligence operations in Libra.
Anyway – you’ve got an impressive memory for the book, Mr. Taylor. All I really remember of it, which I read three or so years ago, is the line “permanent withdrawal to that unimprinted level where all sound is silken and nothing erodes in the mad weather of language,” which I memorized for some reason. I also remember the light on Grand Jones Street over by the Grand Jones Street diner and the firehouse post-9/11 — that is, I remember the street itself, the real one, 20 years after the fictive one was created.
Thom Yorke in 2000 and Cobain in 1992 influenced DeLillo in 1972 the way Borges clearly influenced Cervantes. Lennon never really crossed my mind because I always thought of him as way more extroverted and clear. I can’t imagine Bucky Wunderlick writing the lyrics to “Imagine” or buying billboards in 11 major cities that read “War is over if you want it!” Bucky’s music would maybe be more like a Krautrocky cross between The Books and The Boredoms’ more recent stuff?
(Bee tee dubs, the name “Bucky Wunderlick” reminds me of the Steven Wright joke about how on a bus he once met a Japanese nymphomaniac who told him she only slept with Jewish Cowboys, so he said “Hi. Nice to meet ya. My name’s Bucky Goldstein.”)
I thought Great Jones Street was another of DeLillo’s “individual in the institution novel”– this time about the music industry instead of the football program in Endgame; academia in White Noise; secret shady governmental intelligence operations in Libra.
Anyway – you’ve got an impressive memory for the book, Mr. Taylor. All I really remember of it, which I read three or so years ago, is the line “permanent withdrawal to that unimprinted level where all sound is silken and nothing erodes in the mad weather of language,” which I memorized for some reason. I also remember the light on Grand Jones Street over by the Grand Jones Street diner and the firehouse post-9/11 — that is, I remember the street itself, the real one, 20 years after the fictive one was created.
The title and overall attitude of Richard Price’s first book The Wanderers.
The title and overall attitude of Richard Price’s first book The Wanderers.
And the title and overall attitude of Toni Morrison’s “Jazz.”
And the title and overall attitude of Toni Morrison’s “Jazz.”
Ragtime.
Ragtime.
Wow, so it turns out this guy is an illiterate racist. Good job, team!
Wow, so it turns out this guy is an illiterate racist. Good job, team!
I believe Baker was actually a music student; he has another book called The Fermata, which is a musical term for a pause. I am taking my class on a field trip to see Baker read from The Anthologist this coming week in Portsmouth, NH, falalalalalalalala.
good point
I believe Baker was actually a music student; he has another book called The Fermata, which is a musical term for a pause. I am taking my class on a field trip to see Baker read from The Anthologist this coming week in Portsmouth, NH, falalalalalalalala.
good point
One of my favorite stories ever made that I’ve read is R.M. Berry’s “Metempsychosis,” about a session guitarist (or is he a soloist living the life of a sit-in?) constantly thwarted by a passage in Bach’s Chaccone.
One of my favorite stories ever made that I’ve read is R.M. Berry’s “Metempsychosis,” about a session guitarist (or is he a soloist living the life of a sit-in?) constantly thwarted by a passage in Bach’s Chaccone.
Uncle John’s Band is a great fucking song, all the more poignant for me as my Uncle John’s been dead about 10 years now.
Great, funny post (and thread), Michael.
Uncle John’s Band is a great fucking song, all the more poignant for me as my Uncle John’s been dead about 10 years now.
Great, funny post (and thread), Michael.
good thing the article writer is not the warden of Shawshank
good thing the article writer is not the warden of Shawshank
Just finished “In Hoboken”. Nice get/analysis.
Just finished “In Hoboken”. Nice get/analysis.
Storyglossia’s editor Steven McDermott would laugh at Feeney. McD just had a music obsession-themed issue where the basic guideline was something like – writing about musical obssession has been done to death so the challenge is to make it new.
Storyglossia’s editor Steven McDermott would laugh at Feeney. McD just had a music obsession-themed issue where the basic guideline was something like – writing about musical obssession has been done to death so the challenge is to make it new.
I understand the impulse that led to this lede, even though it’s clearly ignorant: He wanted to write about music in Pynchon and felt a kneejerk need to make Pynchon’s marriage of music and literature seem distinct.
I’ve wondered for awhile whether the idea that criticism also needs to be news leads people to focus on stupid things. Or editors with a news background but not much literary background asking for an angle or hook rather than an appraisal, response, or rumination. I’ve no idea whether there’s any practical evidence for this, but it seems plausible that the “news” values of a city daily bleed into the paper’s critical approach in subtle ways.
I understand the impulse that led to this lede, even though it’s clearly ignorant: He wanted to write about music in Pynchon and felt a kneejerk need to make Pynchon’s marriage of music and literature seem distinct.
I’ve wondered for awhile whether the idea that criticism also needs to be news leads people to focus on stupid things. Or editors with a news background but not much literary background asking for an angle or hook rather than an appraisal, response, or rumination. I’ve no idea whether there’s any practical evidence for this, but it seems plausible that the “news” values of a city daily bleed into the paper’s critical approach in subtle ways.