June 25th, 2010 / 9:18 am
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Meta
Wonderful list of authors…but some don’t seem very emerging.
A few of these, like Norman Lock, are safely “emerged” but these are our best writers and under the shadow of the darkness of the NYer they need to be championed as often as possible.
Very true, Joseph. While it is posted at my EWN site, it was compiled through voting by many indie publishers, bloggers, agents and book reviewers, and was geared to look at those publishing with independent publishers that were seemingly ignored by the New Yorker list.
It was interesting to see the various names coming in as “writers to watch” once we eliminated the age restriction of under 40. The definitions for writers to watch, or even for emerging I’ve come to learn, are pretty varied. There are certainly some seemingly established writers on this list, but that leads to each person’s definition of established . . .
I agree with both y’all.
“under the shadow of the darkness” lol…
THE PROBLEM isn’t simply this list or that list. If writers across the board are following a flawed blueprint, their work will be flawed, and will fail to connect in any relevant way with the general public. NO young writer from any part of America has built a name and reputation comparable to young writers from other days, such as Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. This is crisis time for the art form, yet writers themselves refuse to wake up and question the art they’re making– to see that it’s time for change.
David Foster Wallace
Fitzgerald and Hemingway weren’t competing with internet porn and reality tv though.
(this is a weak argument, more like a joke maybe, but partially serious)
What do you suggest the writers on that list do? Should Matt and Blake and Mary change the way they write? I can’t imagine that having your desired effect on the general public and much more the loss for us here in the outerlands.
Crisis time?
Maybe it’s only a matter of what they’re emerging from.
i heard the jonathan safran foer was pretty good. anybody read it?
writing is sillie
These lists are all the s-s-s-s-s-s-s-same. Bunch of p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-people j-j-j-j-j-j-j-j-jacking themselves off and then their f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-friends.
I think stuttering is a good “gimmick.” I like that “Talking Bout My Generation” song.
I think Raekwon does a fake stutter, too.
Wonderful list of authors…but some don’t seem very emerging.
purple america?
A few of these, like Norman Lock, are safely “emerged” but these are our best writers and under the shadow of the darkness of the NYer they need to be championed as often as possible.
B-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-ingo.
Very true, Joseph. While it is posted at my EWN site, it was compiled through voting by many indie publishers, bloggers, agents and book reviewers, and was geared to look at those publishing with independent publishers that were seemingly ignored by the New Yorker list.
It was interesting to see the various names coming in as “writers to watch” once we eliminated the age restriction of under 40. The definitions for writers to watch, or even for emerging I’ve come to learn, are pretty varied. There are certainly some seemingly established writers on this list, but that leads to each person’s definition of established . . .
I agree with both y’all.
nice
“under the shadow of the darkness” lol…
what is this blue print we’re all following? is our job as writers or artists or whatever to ‘build a reputation’ and connect with ‘the public’?
i mean, how much has changed in american society since f. scott fitzgerald and ernest hemingway? other than a couple writers from the 20s and early thirties plus some from the late 50s and early 60s how many generations of great american artists have ‘failed’ to “connect” to the greater culture? do you think cormac mccarthy, toiling in total obscurity for decades should have advised himself to ‘change blueprints’ because he wasn’t ‘connecting’? or herman melville? or any of our great artists who failed to ‘connect’ connect with american culture.
we should always work to outdo the past but trying to appeal to some broad market shouldn’t be the idea.
i’m following the TAKE OVER THE WORLD blueprint
I am t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-totally disconnected. All of these films and books where the them h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-has b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-been “we’re all connected” have been t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-totally lost on me. I f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-feel more alone than I ever have. And I d-d-d-d-d-d-don’t know why.
THE PROBLEM isn’t simply this list or that list. If writers across the board are following a flawed blueprint, their work will be flawed, and will fail to connect in any relevant way with the general public. NO young writer from any part of America has built a name and reputation comparable to young writers from other days, such as Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. This is crisis time for the art form, yet writers themselves refuse to wake up and question the art they’re making– to see that it’s time for change.
Ghostface.
This is important. What are they emerging from? Like, a swamp?
David Foster Wallace
Fitzgerald and Hemingway weren’t competing with internet porn and reality tv though.
(this is a weak argument, more like a joke maybe, but partially serious)
a butt?
What do you suggest the writers on that list do? Should Matt and Blake and Mary change the way they write? I can’t imagine that having your desired effect on the general public and much more the loss for us here in the outerlands.
Crisis time?
Maybe it’s only a matter of what they’re emerging from.
i heard the jonathan safran foer was pretty good. anybody read it?
writing is sillie
Um, does ‘Joseph’ always link back to the vidoe of his schlong?
I didn’t really need to see that.
I mean congratulations on having a good looking cock, but that’s kind of an odd thing to do.
Or maybe I’m just old fashioned.
These lists are all the s-s-s-s-s-s-s-same. Bunch of p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-people j-j-j-j-j-j-j-j-jacking themselves off and then their f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-friends.
I think stuttering is a good “gimmick.” I like that “Talking Bout My Generation” song.
hah, that is one impressive penis!
I think Raekwon does a fake stutter, too.
—-do you think cormac mccarthy, toiling in total obscurity for decades should have advised himself to ‘change blueprints’ because he wasn’t ‘connecting’? —-
I’d say that the Cormac McCarthy of All the Pretty Horses and all other books from that point is different from the McCarthy of the previous books before that. He trimmed his language along Hemingway lines — the language of his earlier books was lush, more Faulkneresque. The results speak for themselves, at least financially.
that is more than a good looking cock; it’s a living fantasy
I saw one of that guy’s videos on another blog. I watched it and thought “Does that guy have a big penis?” I watched another video and thought “Seems like that guy has a really big penis.”
purple america?
B-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-ingo.
nice
Eh. I read Child of God not too long ago; it’s pretty sparse. A lot of one to three page chapters, short paragraphs, minimum description, and a lot of dialogue, just like his recent offerings.
You made me link!
And now I’m laughing.
Yeah, it’s impressive.
You guys are hilarious.
I’m so glad it’s Friday.
Have a good one, y’alls.
what is this blue print we’re all following? is our job as writers or artists or whatever to ‘build a reputation’ and connect with ‘the public’?
i mean, how much has changed in american society since f. scott fitzgerald and ernest hemingway? other than a couple writers from the 20s and early thirties plus some from the late 50s and early 60s how many generations of great american artists have ‘failed’ to “connect” to the greater culture? do you think cormac mccarthy, toiling in total obscurity for decades should have advised himself to ‘change blueprints’ because he wasn’t ‘connecting’? or herman melville? or any of our great artists who failed to ‘connect’ connect with american culture.
we should always work to outdo the past but trying to appeal to some broad market shouldn’t be the idea.
i’m following the TAKE OVER THE WORLD blueprint
I am t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-totally disconnected. All of these films and books where the them h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-has b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-been “we’re all connected” have been t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-totally lost on me. I f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-feel more alone than I ever have. And I d-d-d-d-d-d-don’t know why.
Ghostface.
This is important. What are they emerging from? Like, a swamp?
a butt?
Um, does ‘Joseph’ always link back to the vidoe of his schlong?
I didn’t really need to see that.
I mean congratulations on having a good looking cock, but that’s kind of an odd thing to do.
Or maybe I’m just old fashioned.
hah, that is one impressive penis!
—-do you think cormac mccarthy, toiling in total obscurity for decades should have advised himself to ‘change blueprints’ because he wasn’t ‘connecting’? —-
I’d say that the Cormac McCarthy of All the Pretty Horses and all other books from that point is different from the McCarthy of the previous books before that. He trimmed his language along Hemingway lines — the language of his earlier books was lush, more Faulkneresque. The results speak for themselves, at least financially.
Then there’s Suttree, which has none of those characteristics.
that is more than a good looking cock; it’s a living fantasy
I saw one of that guy’s videos on another blog. I watched it and thought “Does that guy have a big penis?” I watched another video and thought “Seems like that guy has a really big penis.”
Right. His work is pretty varied. It didn’t just change after Horses from one thing to another.
Eh. I read Child of God not too long ago; it’s pretty sparse. A lot of one to three page chapters, short paragraphs, minimum description, and a lot of dialogue, just like his recent offerings.
I always figured Mccarthy relied more on plot and less on language because of his age, honestly. Saul Bellow’s language also becomes much slimmer as he goes along and he always said it was because he no longer had the same interest how things were said.
Anyhow, there’s no question that the Road is a much more commercial book (although it’s not a very commercial book) than Suttree but I don’t know who would argue that Suttree isn’t a much greater work of art. The man who wrote Suttree couldn’t have believed for a second he’d find a wide audience with a book–and I doubt he cared. He certainly didn’t follow it up with a book for the masses. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’ve always believed the lasting works are the ones that follow the artist’s own conscious and not out of appealing to an audience or a culture. I’m all for writing the most difficult books we possibly can and if one of them blows up and hits a nerve like Witz may then all the better.
You made me link!
And now I’m laughing.
Yeah, it’s impressive.
You guys are hilarious.
I’m so glad it’s Friday.
Have a good one, y’alls.
i’m sorry to break it to you. but that’s just not how stuttering… … … … … works.
Nothing against this list, but what’s the deal with Americans and listing everything to death? Everything thing has to be listed or ranked.
What are top 20 brands of toilet tissue?
*Everything
Then there’s Suttree, which has none of those characteristics.
/beckett’d.
Right. His work is pretty varied. It didn’t just change after Horses from one thing to another.
I always figured Mccarthy relied more on plot and less on language because of his age, honestly. Saul Bellow’s language also becomes much slimmer as he goes along and he always said it was because he no longer had the same interest how things were said.
Anyhow, there’s no question that the Road is a much more commercial book (although it’s not a very commercial book) than Suttree but I don’t know who would argue that Suttree isn’t a much greater work of art. The man who wrote Suttree couldn’t have believed for a second he’d find a wide audience with a book–and I doubt he cared. He certainly didn’t follow it up with a book for the masses. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’ve always believed the lasting works are the ones that follow the artist’s own conscious and not out of appealing to an audience or a culture. I’m all for writing the most difficult books we possibly can and if one of them blows up and hits a nerve like Witz may then all the better.
Nothing against this list, but what’s the deal with Americans and listing everything to death? Everything thing has to be listed or ranked.
What are top 20 brands of toilet tissue?
*Everything
Is difficulty by itself a standard of value?
Why??
If a work doesn’t appeal to an audience or a culture, then what is it? Solipsistic scribbling?
Literature traditionally has been an expression of culture. In some cases, literature has defined a nation– it was once thought every nation needed its own literary epic in order to have a culture; to be defined as a nation.
The trend with literature now seems to disregard any kind of audience– except that, of course, of other academy trained writers.
Are writers to be monks in monasteries, dutifully carrying on an obsolete art out of touch with the mass of people– or is writing to be a living part of everyday life?
Just asking.
(Melville, by the way, in the early part of his career wrote popular novels. Moby Dick itself, for all its complexity and layers of meaning, is a great read. The ultimate fish story. One of his last works, the story “Billy Budd,” is at least twenty times more reader-friendly than anything presented in the New Yorker recently.)
p.s. I took up the suggestion on this thread and read a story by I. Fontana– and found a writer who still uses some of the now-scorned traditional tools of literature– like creating a compelling narrative line.
Could there be some hope in today’s literary scene??
(Hey Fontana– if you read this, send me a story sometime for my American Pop Lit blog. I’m looking for exciting writing.)
I think you are creating a false dichotomy. ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ is a notoriously difficult book, and it was immensely popular (along with the rest of Pynchon’s novels). The before-mentioned David Foster Wallace wrote difficult books and was popular. Roberto Bolano achieved relative popularity despite the difficulty of his novels.
On the other hand, there are loads of easy to read novels that do not achieve popularity at all.
Difficulty and popularity do not correlate.
“The trend with literature now seems to disregard any kind of audience– except that, of course, of other academy trained writers.”
I do not think that is true. What is your evidence?
Moby Dick = “The ultimate fish story” ???
Whales aren’t fish; they’re mammals. Dumbass. The fact that you aren’t “academy trained” is pretty obvious when you confuse mammals for fish. To save you the embarrassment of looking stupid in the future: dolphins are also mammals, not fish. I know it’s pretty confusing since they live in the ocean and all…it’s something you would’ve learned had you had an actual education.
Is difficulty by itself a standard of value?
Why??
If a work doesn’t appeal to an audience or a culture, then what is it? Solipsistic scribbling?
Literature traditionally has been an expression of culture. In some cases, literature has defined a nation– it was once thought every nation needed its own literary epic in order to have a culture; to be defined as a nation.
The trend with literature now seems to disregard any kind of audience– except that, of course, of other academy trained writers.
Are writers to be monks in monasteries, dutifully carrying on an obsolete art out of touch with the mass of people– or is writing to be a living part of everyday life?
Just asking.
(Melville, by the way, in the early part of his career wrote popular novels. Moby Dick itself, for all its complexity and layers of meaning, is a great read. The ultimate fish story. One of his last works, the story “Billy Budd,” is at least twenty times more reader-friendly than anything presented in the New Yorker recently.)
p.s. I took up the suggestion on this thread and read a story by I. Fontana– and found a writer who still uses some of the now-scorned traditional tools of literature– like creating a compelling narrative line.
Could there be some hope in today’s literary scene??
(Hey Fontana– if you read this, send me a story sometime for my American Pop Lit blog. I’m looking for exciting writing.)
i did imply difficulty is a standard of value, but you’re right, King–it shouldn’t be. i do enjoy complexity but what’s so nice about suttree and moby dick is they have tremendous emotion, lyricism, technical effects, invention, darkness, complexity, humor etc etc. for me it’s such a stunning book not because it can be a challenging read (at least more so than these last few) but because i found it very haunting and emotionally resonant.
i actually think a lot of the writers on this list of 20 would be very very appealing to a wide audience. i’ve had much success teaching blake butler and matt bell to students who honestly don’t find much interest in the ‘standards.’ so that’s why i stick up for the list and why i have hope for literature. i’ve always the last thing we should do is chase audiences–disney chases audiences–because so often those writers who do chase audience end up broken and bitter and their books long ago fallen away.
I think that an argument can be made that indy writers seem to glory in their clique. There is a world outside of the clique. Many of you are excellent writers. A lot of people need your writing. This generation has yet to be properly defined. Right now our generation is defined by Twilight and Potter. What happened? Those of you who have managed to get book deals what are you going to do with your pulpit? Are you going to continue to write solely for the people who read this blog, or are you going to write something significant? I’m curious.
I think you are creating a false dichotomy. ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ is a notoriously difficult book, and it was immensely popular (along with the rest of Pynchon’s novels). The before-mentioned David Foster Wallace wrote difficult books and was popular. Roberto Bolano achieved relative popularity despite the difficulty of his novels.
On the other hand, there are loads of easy to read novels that do not achieve popularity at all.
Difficulty and popularity do not correlate.
“The trend with literature now seems to disregard any kind of audience– except that, of course, of other academy trained writers.”
I do not think that is true. What is your evidence?
Moby Dick = “The ultimate fish story” ???
Whales aren’t fish; they’re mammals. Dumbass. The fact that you aren’t “academy trained” is pretty obvious when you confuse mammals for fish. To save you the embarrassment of looking stupid in the future: dolphins are also mammals, not fish. I know it’s pretty confusing since they live in the ocean and all…it’s something you would’ve learned had you had an actual education.
If one wanted to write for those who read this blog, what’s so bad about that? There is no obligation to write to/for your “generation.” Or to/for anybody. Write for your dead uncle. Or your dog.
i did imply difficulty is a standard of value, but you’re right, King–it shouldn’t be. i do enjoy complexity but what’s so nice about suttree and moby dick is they have tremendous emotion, lyricism, technical effects, invention, darkness, complexity, humor etc etc. for me it’s such a stunning book not because it can be a challenging read (at least more so than these last few) but because i found it very haunting and emotionally resonant.
i actually think a lot of the writers on this list of 20 would be very very appealing to a wide audience. i’ve had much success teaching blake butler and matt bell to students who honestly don’t find much interest in the ‘standards.’ so that’s why i stick up for the list and why i have hope for literature. i’ve always the last thing we should do is chase audiences–disney chases audiences–because so often those writers who do chase audience end up broken and bitter and their books long ago fallen away.
I think that an argument can be made that indy writers seem to glory in their clique. There is a world outside of the clique. Many of you are excellent writers. A lot of people need your writing. This generation has yet to be properly defined. Right now our generation is defined by Twilight and Potter. What happened? Those of you who have managed to get book deals what are you going to do with your pulpit? Are you going to continue to write solely for the people who read this blog, or are you going to write something significant? I’m curious.
If one wanted to write for those who read this blog, what’s so bad about that? There is no obligation to write to/for your “generation.” Or to/for anybody. Write for your dead uncle. Or your dog.
If want your work to lack importance, sure.
So every important work was intentionally written for the writer’s “generation”?
That’s silly.
If want your work to lack importance, sure.
“I took up the suggestion on this thread and read a story by I. Fontana– and found a writer who still uses some of the now-scorned traditional tools of literature– like creating a compelling narrative line.”
But that’s what television does. Ditto video games. And guys on bar stools describing beat-downs or seductions, too; it’s not a particularly “literary” function. There’s a place where basic “story-telling” and “literature” separate… they aren’t interchangeable concepts. There’s always an aspect of “storytelling” to literature but there’s more to a masterpiece like “Underworld” or a masterpiece like “Naked Lunch” than story. I found myself reading pages and pages of some True Crime narrative online, one night… the writing was terrible (semi-literate, waves of cliche) but I couldn’t “put it down”. That’s when I realized that “compelling narratives” don’t really mean shit.
I’m not against “compelling narrative lines” per se but what we ask of (and get from) fiction can be richer than that. For example, I read one of the I. Fontana texts you probably read and it was fun but it was a little too much like watching the movie Apocalypse Now… on television; too many writers are writing Paper Television… which is easy to do with plot-driven work. (And hard to avoid when you’ve spent more hours learning from TV than reading books).
We aren’t just sitting around the campfire anymore, listening goggle-eyed to tales of monsters and sky-gods and fair maidens, etc. The Art of Fiction has come a long way in a few thousand years (even in the past 200) and there’s no reason, beyond reverse-snobbery, to pretend that it hasn’t.
So every important work was intentionally written for the writer’s “generation”?
That’s silly.
The narrrowness of the standard literary viewpoint is demonstrated by the claim that Pynchon and Foster Wallace were popular.
They were popular within a very narrow segment of American society– the intelligentsia. Their reach never extended beyond this. A broader audience– the mass of America– isn’t considered.
One can contrast this with Scott Fitzgerald, who wrote serious work but was also a pop writer. (See “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” and the like.) Most of his stories appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, which was not quite the People magazine of the day. Hemingway was such an icon that leading actors of the day like Ava Gardner and Gary Cooper were groupies of his. His persona was bigger and as widely known as any cultural figure of the time.
Re: difficulty. Because possibly ten writers have gotten away with being difficult, doesn’t mean everyone can. These characters likely were geniuses. I hate to break it to y’all, but I seriously doubt if anyone here is a genius.
Rule of thumb: Clarity of expression demonstrates clarity of thought.
(p.s. I was using the term “fish story” in a broad sense, in the sense of a tall-tale fishing story. When I was growing up there were places known as fishing-story bars, where old guys would do a great deal of b.s.ing, whether about whatever war they’d been in, or not in, or about women, or occasionally about the “one that got away.”
Granted that I learned very little during my days in school, but I did, er, know that dolphins whales et.al. were mammals. But when someone brings forth unorthodox ideas, I guess you have to nail him on something! Good try.)
Your philosophy is a dead end. Keep pursuing it. Myself, I believe that literature can be both readable, and complex and moving as well– in that sense I agree with some of RK’s statements. But, the first task of a story is to get people to read it. Art forms which intentionally alienate the audience usually end up as dead art forms.
Why do care so much about popularity?
I don’t believe in chasing an audience. If I did, I’d be a literary writer, who chase the literary audience which exists, with little thought given to expanding or changing the audience. The trick is to get five years ahead of where an art or audience is now.
I’ve done some teaching also– as a substitute teacher in some of a major city’s toughest high schools. At the time, I thought about what would reach that crowd. I’m sure postmodernists can reach young students who are of the same demographic that produces the vast bulk of lit writers– upper-middle class etc, who’ve likely already been exposed to reading and literature. I’m interested in the 90% rest of the country. I’m probably wasting my time here, as my thoughts are completely alien to this crowd. The bottom line for me is that the literary story, as shown is what the New Yorker is putting out, is not reaching the public. This seems to me beyond dispute. Perhaps I’m wrong– or perhaps a public, for most writers, is unwanted.
“I took up the suggestion on this thread and read a story by I. Fontana– and found a writer who still uses some of the now-scorned traditional tools of literature– like creating a compelling narrative line.”
But that’s what television does. Ditto video games. And guys on bar stools describing beat-downs or seductions, too; it’s not a particularly “literary” function. There’s a place where basic “story-telling” and “literature” separate… they aren’t interchangeable concepts. There’s always an aspect of “storytelling” to literature but there’s more to a masterpiece like “Underworld” or a masterpiece like “Naked Lunch” than story. I found myself reading pages and pages of some True Crime narrative online, one night… the writing was terrible (semi-literate, waves of cliche) but I couldn’t “put it down”. That’s when I realized that “compelling narratives” don’t really mean shit.
I’m not against “compelling narrative lines” per se but what we ask of (and get from) fiction can be richer than that. For example, I read one of the I. Fontana texts you probably read and it was fun but it was a little too much like watching the movie Apocalypse Now… on television; too many writers are writing Paper Television… which is easy to do with plot-driven work. (And hard to avoid when you’ve spent more hours learning from TV than reading books).
We aren’t just sitting around the campfire anymore, listening goggle-eyed to tales of monsters and sky-gods and fair maidens, etc. The Art of Fiction has come a long way in a few thousand years (even in the past 200) and there’s no reason, beyond reverse-snobbery, to pretend that it hasn’t.
Also, I seriously doubt if anyone here is not a genius.
I think most writers probably write for the individual solitary reader, whoever that may be. These worries about mass audience appeal seems more like the realm of PR departments.
1. I’m not espousing a “philosophy”… I’m making an observation: “compelling narratives” are easy to come by and they *aren’t* the Brass Ring. If I’m capable of appreciating Sebald’s Austerlitz and you aren’t, I won’t lose any sleep over that fact. But consider the fact that I can appreciate anything by, say, Clemens or Bradbury, too. Maybe I’m a bit more well-rounded than you are as a reader? Not as limited by ideological extremism.
2. “Art forms which intentionally alienate the audience usually end up as dead art forms.”
Rock ‘n roll alienated the conservative, ignorant, xenophobic, close-minded and god-fearing masses of the mid-20th century. If it’s a “dead art form” now, after a pretty robust run, it’s certainly not because it alienated the mainstream when it came out: it’s because it *is* the mainstream, now, that it’s “dead”… the sonic equivalent of a “compelling narrative”. “Alienating” and otherwise challenging the status-quo is what a vital Art does. The weird thing being that you present yourself as some kind of “Voice in the Wilderness”, standing up for a Lost Art or an endangered minority, when what you advocate, essentially, is for the kind of writing that’s been reliable Bestseller/Blockbuster fodder for 150 years. Ie: Jane Austen appreciates the effort, KW, but your services aren’t all that required.
If there are “challenging” texts out there that the average Joe or Josephine would rather die than reading, they’ve only got about 200,000 new mainstream/genre titles a year to choose from! Laugh. Or haven’t you noticed?
What you’re really arguing against is a certain kind of Academic preference in texts that can’t possibly be fucking with/intruding on your domain. So what are you *really* shaking a fist at?
Answer: you’re pissed that no one’s buying *your* stuff. And why is that? Why isn’t the stuff selling?
I believe the audience is “alienated”.By a lack of quality?
Post a link to an excerpt and I’ll tell you.
Schools oughta offer a minor in Saving Literature.
erratum:
“If there are ‘challenging’ texts out there that the average Joe or Josephine would rather die than read…”
No, of course not. I’m just saying your clique, by example of the work produced, has completely rejected the idea of writing for an audience larger than your clique-set. How first-grade do I need to get for you to understand your failure? Silly, indeed.
My clique?
You’re still defining writing for a small audience as a failure. Why is that a failure? Many poets have been content merely to circulate their work in manuscript form among a small group of readers. If they do not desire to distribute their work further, why should they? Because of your arbitrary requirement for work that Defines A Generation?
Guess what? The mass of Americans do not read novels for pleasure… or read very very few. Check out the most recent NEA reading surveys.
Pynchon, DFW, and Bolano made best seller lists. ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ sold well as a mass market paperback. When a book is on a best seller list, it means it is popular. David Foster Wallace published articles in Playboy magazine, Tennis Magazine, Rolling Stone, and the New York Times. He was read by millions of people. By any definition, this means he was popular.
American culture has changed dramatically since Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway (nevermind Melville). American culture has changed dramatically since the 1970’s. Literature, especially poetry, has a lot less cultural pull. This is not because books have gotten more difficult.
In my experience, people like it when you respect them and don’t treat them like children. Nothing is more patronizing than being forced to read watered down bullshit (which is what happens in high school English classes). The idea that only wealthy people will like ‘difficult’ books is patronizing and stupid.
Don’t bring up rock music, man! Wenclas is an expert on that! He knows it ALL. Any subject. Nothing has not been learned by the king! Read his stories! They are filled to the brim with real, real people! I mean, a one-foot tall woman! Genius! This guy is a testament to the idea that, “A prophet is seldom heeded in his own land.”
*end sarcasm*
All you gotta do, Steven, is click the link in his name to see what he thinks is the “cutting edge” of literature should be. I think that should say all you need to know.
From your website: “Kevin was pale and ill-fed, wearing a raggedy checked sportcoat over a faded polyester shirt. He was aware he saw little sunlight, holed up in his little studio. Worst of all, he was from Depressionville, a city that because of its crime and poverty was a national embarrassment. ”
This is terrible! But, maybe you are right. Are you getting millions of page views?
Yeah, I know, Stu… I know! Wenclas was swashbuckling across comment threads when I was still a comment-fetus (way back in 2006). But I’m curious as to which passages from that stuff *he’d* elect to The Pantheon. Last time I checked, it was all sub-Bukowski. It may well be fresher now and I am ready to stand corrected. I am also ready to buy any Lit that anybody is selling that is actually *interesting* (and frigging EXCITING) and not just pure hype. Hype is the thing I’m sick of.
I agree with this. I work with struggling teenage/young adult readers, teaching, developing curriculum and consulting. My students much prefer juicy, meaty, complex, humorous, intelligent (i.e. not watered down) – (they (and we) live in a juicy, meaty, complex world, after all) – and therefore more engaging material as they hone their skills in the “mechanics” of reading. When I chose reading material for my classes, I need to consider both my students’ ability to “access” the work (i.e. not too dense or obscure) and their level of interest and engagement (i.e. don’t feed them pablum). In the long run I think this leads to more proficient adult readers, readers who are more engaged, readers who should not be patronized.
The narrrowness of the standard literary viewpoint is demonstrated by the claim that Pynchon and Foster Wallace were popular.
They were popular within a very narrow segment of American society– the intelligentsia. Their reach never extended beyond this. A broader audience– the mass of America– isn’t considered.
One can contrast this with Scott Fitzgerald, who wrote serious work but was also a pop writer. (See “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” and the like.) Most of his stories appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, which was not quite the People magazine of the day. Hemingway was such an icon that leading actors of the day like Ava Gardner and Gary Cooper were groupies of his. His persona was bigger and as widely known as any cultural figure of the time.
Re: difficulty. Because possibly ten writers have gotten away with being difficult, doesn’t mean everyone can. These characters likely were geniuses. I hate to break it to y’all, but I seriously doubt if anyone here is a genius.
Rule of thumb: Clarity of expression demonstrates clarity of thought.
(p.s. I was using the term “fish story” in a broad sense, in the sense of a tall-tale fishing story. When I was growing up there were places known as fishing-story bars, where old guys would do a great deal of b.s.ing, whether about whatever war they’d been in, or not in, or about women, or occasionally about the “one that got away.”
Granted that I learned very little during my days in school, but I did, er, know that dolphins whales et.al. were mammals. But when someone brings forth unorthodox ideas, I guess you have to nail him on something! Good try.)
Your philosophy is a dead end. Keep pursuing it. Myself, I believe that literature can be both readable, and complex and moving as well– in that sense I agree with some of RK’s statements. But, the first task of a story is to get people to read it. Art forms which intentionally alienate the audience usually end up as dead art forms.
Why do care so much about popularity?
I don’t believe in chasing an audience. If I did, I’d be a literary writer, who chase the literary audience which exists, with little thought given to expanding or changing the audience. The trick is to get five years ahead of where an art or audience is now.
I’ve done some teaching also– as a substitute teacher in some of a major city’s toughest high schools. At the time, I thought about what would reach that crowd. I’m sure postmodernists can reach young students who are of the same demographic that produces the vast bulk of lit writers– upper-middle class etc, who’ve likely already been exposed to reading and literature. I’m interested in the 90% rest of the country. I’m probably wasting my time here, as my thoughts are completely alien to this crowd. The bottom line for me is that the literary story, as shown is what the New Yorker is putting out, is not reaching the public. This seems to me beyond dispute. Perhaps I’m wrong– or perhaps a public, for most writers, is unwanted.
You have every right to choose not to create important work. I’m stating that your clique has great collective talent and I’m sad that you collectively choose not to create important work. We are a very selfish generation, yes. I understand that. It’s just lamentable in my opinion. Literature needs you, but your all getting drunk together in hotel rooms at AWP. Where’s the great work? I think it is natural to want to live up to your talent. But what do I know? I don’t have much talent, so I can’t really say.
Also, I seriously doubt if anyone here is not a genius.
I think most writers probably write for the individual solitary reader, whoever that may be. These worries about mass audience appeal seems more like the realm of PR departments.
1. I’m not espousing a “philosophy”… I’m making an observation: “compelling narratives” are easy to come by and they *aren’t* the Brass Ring. If I’m capable of appreciating Sebald’s Austerlitz and you aren’t, I won’t lose any sleep over that fact. But consider the fact that I can appreciate anything by, say, Clemens or Bradbury, too. Maybe I’m a bit more well-rounded than you are as a reader? Not as limited by ideological extremism.
2. “Art forms which intentionally alienate the audience usually end up as dead art forms.”
Rock ‘n roll alienated the conservative, ignorant, xenophobic, close-minded and god-fearing masses of the mid-20th century. If it’s a “dead art form” now, after a pretty robust run, it’s certainly not because it alienated the mainstream when it came out: it’s because it *is* the mainstream, now, that it’s “dead”… the sonic equivalent of a “compelling narrative”. “Alienating” and otherwise challenging the status-quo is what a vital Art does. The weird thing being that you present yourself as some kind of “Voice in the Wilderness”, standing up for a Lost Art or an endangered minority, when what you advocate, essentially, is for the kind of writing that’s been reliable Bestseller/Blockbuster fodder for 150 years. Ie: Jane Austen appreciates the effort, KW, but your services aren’t all that required.
If there are “challenging” texts out there that the average Joe or Josephine would rather die than reading, they’ve only got about 200,000 new mainstream/genre titles a year to choose from! Laugh. Or haven’t you noticed?
What you’re really arguing against is a certain kind of Academic preference in texts that can’t possibly be fucking with/intruding on your domain. So what are you *really* shaking a fist at?
Answer: you’re pissed that no one’s buying *your* stuff. And why is that? Why isn’t the stuff selling?
I believe the audience is “alienated”.By a lack of quality?
Post a link to an excerpt and I’ll tell you.
Schools oughta offer a minor in Saving Literature.
erratum:
“If there are ‘challenging’ texts out there that the average Joe or Josephine would rather die than read…”
So true and I’m sick of the “elitist”-slinging when anyone has the nerve to suggest that the “lower classes” can actually get something out of “high culture”… it’s the people who would “protect” the “lower classes” by feeding them only Masscult Poptrash who are, in truth, classist (and possibly racist) and *elitist* in their low expectations. The entire range/spectrum of Cultural Production should be available to everyone; everyone should have every option when it comes to deciding what float their aesthetic boat. The class/culture divisions are growing stronger (the walls getting higher) all the time and it’s an ugly irony that the so-called “liberals” are piling the bricks faster and higher than the conservatives. I was poorer than third-world dirt as a kid… that didn’t make me stupid.
erratum: “what FLOATS their aesthetic boat”
Damn.
I now feel both better and worse about myself
No, of course not. I’m just saying your clique, by example of the work produced, has completely rejected the idea of writing for an audience larger than your clique-set. How first-grade do I need to get for you to understand your failure? Silly, indeed.
My clique?
You’re still defining writing for a small audience as a failure. Why is that a failure? Many poets have been content merely to circulate their work in manuscript form among a small group of readers. If they do not desire to distribute their work further, why should they? Because of your arbitrary requirement for work that Defines A Generation?
But there has been plenty of important work in the past that was read only by a select few readers during the artist’s lifetime. For some reason you seem to think Large Audience = Important, Small Audience = Not Important.
Guess what? The mass of Americans do not read novels for pleasure… or read very very few. Check out the most recent NEA reading surveys.
Pynchon, DFW, and Bolano made best seller lists. ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ sold well as a mass market paperback. When a book is on a best seller list, it means it is popular. David Foster Wallace published articles in Playboy magazine, Tennis Magazine, Rolling Stone, and the New York Times. He was read by millions of people. By any definition, this means he was popular.
American culture has changed dramatically since Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway (nevermind Melville). American culture has changed dramatically since the 1970’s. Literature, especially poetry, has a lot less cultural pull. This is not because books have gotten more difficult.
In my experience, people like it when you respect them and don’t treat them like children. Nothing is more patronizing than being forced to read watered down bullshit (which is what happens in high school English classes). The idea that only wealthy people will like ‘difficult’ books is patronizing and stupid.
Don’t bring up rock music, man! Wenclas is an expert on that! He knows it ALL. Any subject. Nothing has not been learned by the king! Read his stories! They are filled to the brim with real, real people! I mean, a one-foot tall woman! Genius! This guy is a testament to the idea that, “A prophet is seldom heeded in his own land.”
*end sarcasm*
All you gotta do, Steven, is click the link in his name to see what he thinks is the “cutting edge” of literature should be. I think that should say all you need to know.
From your website: “Kevin was pale and ill-fed, wearing a raggedy checked sportcoat over a faded polyester shirt. He was aware he saw little sunlight, holed up in his little studio. Worst of all, he was from Depressionville, a city that because of its crime and poverty was a national embarrassment. ”
This is terrible! But, maybe you are right. Are you getting millions of page views?
Yeah, I know, Stu… I know! Wenclas was swashbuckling across comment threads when I was still a comment-fetus (way back in 2006). But I’m curious as to which passages from that stuff *he’d* elect to The Pantheon. Last time I checked, it was all sub-Bukowski. It may well be fresher now and I am ready to stand corrected. I am also ready to buy any Lit that anybody is selling that is actually *interesting* (and frigging EXCITING) and not just pure hype. Hype is the thing I’m sick of.
I agree with this. I work with struggling teenage/young adult readers, teaching, developing curriculum and consulting. My students much prefer juicy, meaty, complex, humorous, intelligent (i.e. not watered down) – (they (and we) live in a juicy, meaty, complex world, after all) – and therefore more engaging material as they hone their skills in the “mechanics” of reading. When I chose reading material for my classes, I need to consider both my students’ ability to “access” the work (i.e. not too dense or obscure) and their level of interest and engagement (i.e. don’t feed them pablum). In the long run I think this leads to more proficient adult readers, readers who are more engaged, readers who should not be patronized.
Bill Simmons and John Krasinski were fans of DFW, as well.
You have every right to choose not to create important work. I’m stating that your clique has great collective talent and I’m sad that you collectively choose not to create important work. We are a very selfish generation, yes. I understand that. It’s just lamentable in my opinion. Literature needs you, but your all getting drunk together in hotel rooms at AWP. Where’s the great work? I think it is natural to want to live up to your talent. But what do I know? I don’t have much talent, so I can’t really say.
So true and I’m sick of the “elitist”-slinging when anyone has the nerve to suggest that the “lower classes” can actually get something out of “high culture”… it’s the people who would “protect” the “lower classes” by feeding them only Masscult Poptrash who are, in truth, classist (and possibly racist) and *elitist* in their low expectations. The entire range/spectrum of Cultural Production should be available to everyone; everyone should have every option when it comes to deciding what float their aesthetic boat. The class/culture divisions are growing stronger (the walls getting higher) all the time and it’s an ugly irony that the so-called “liberals” are piling the bricks faster and higher than the conservatives. I was poorer than third-world dirt as a kid… that didn’t make me stupid.
erratum: “what FLOATS their aesthetic boat”
Damn.
I now feel both better and worse about myself
d, why’d you choose a descriptive passage to illustrate your argument against solid plots? That’s a little weird.
We could just as easily quote from ten to twenty emo-indie zines to illustate a depressing same-I-tude of voice. And most of what’s touts as bold, new, uber-literary, or experimental is just a same old rehashing of methods that were old by the time they were popularized by Burroughs (random example: Joyelle McSweeney).
Not that I side w/ Wenclas or anything. If it’s not a poor guy writing Buke Lite, he’s against it.
I fear you are all missing out.
*sorry. Auto-correct wreaks havoc on my posts.
But there has been plenty of important work in the past that was read only by a select few readers during the artist’s lifetime. For some reason you seem to think Large Audience = Important, Small Audience = Not Important.
Bill Simmons and John Krasinski were fans of DFW, as well.
Okay. What is your definition of “important work” in regards to literature? We’d be inhuman if our definitions were the same, I think. All I’m trying to say here is that I am not a part of this clique, yet I certainly want to read the work of the talented artists here, but how can I if the work is so narrowly focused and self-absorbed? Obviously, from your response here, you are self-interested and have found a group of people here who are like-minded in that same self-interest and now you are collectively self-interested. I find that sad considering the wealth of talent here. The “me first, fuck everybody else unless they like me” attitude is glaringly apparent in the work, and it’s boring. Boring work that doesn’t cut open humanity to search for what the fuck is going on in this ever-changing environment we are living in today. Maybe you are. I don’t know. Maybe I’m not smart enough to understand, paranormally, your corporate farmer statements.
“There is no obligation to write to/for your “generation.” Or to/for anybody”
I don’t mean to point the pocket-finger at you, but who wants to read work with that kind of attitude? Well, the people here do. And that’s nice… for you. But there is a whole world out there who would love to partake in your talents, but you’ll never reach them because you don’t care. I find that sad. That is talent wasted in my opinion.
d, why’d you choose a descriptive passage to illustrate your argument against solid plots? That’s a little weird.
We could just as easily quote from ten to twenty emo-indie zines to illustate a depressing same-I-tude of voice. And most of what’s touts as bold, new, uber-literary, or experimental is just a same old rehashing of methods that were old by the time they were popularized by Burroughs (random example: Joyelle McSweeney).
Not that I side w/ Wenclas or anything. If it’s not a poor guy writing Buke Lite, he’s against it.
I fear you are all missing out.
*sorry. Auto-correct wreaks havoc on my posts.
I’m shocked that King Wenclass’s own work is garbage. As usual, the loudest writer in the room is the weakest.
“STAY TUNED FOR THE REST OF “KEVIN AND KOREENA”!! Coming soon. (This will not be a Jonathan Franzen story.) ”
———————
Good Lord. Why don’t you just have “hack” tattooed to your forehead?
Okay. What is your definition of “important work” in regards to literature? We’d be inhuman if our definitions were the same, I think. All I’m trying to say here is that I am not a part of this clique, yet I certainly want to read the work of the talented artists here, but how can I if the work is so narrowly focused and self-absorbed? Obviously, from your response here, you are self-interested and have found a group of people here who are like-minded in that same self-interest and now you are collectively self-interested. I find that sad considering the wealth of talent here. The “me first, fuck everybody else unless they like me” attitude is glaringly apparent in the work, and it’s boring. Boring work that doesn’t cut open humanity to search for what the fuck is going on in this ever-changing environment we are living in today. Maybe you are. I don’t know. Maybe I’m not smart enough to understand, paranormally, your corporate farmer statements.
“There is no obligation to write to/for your “generation.” Or to/for anybody”
I don’t mean to point the pocket-finger at you, but who wants to read work with that kind of attitude? Well, the people here do. And that’s nice… for you. But there is a whole world out there who would love to partake in your talents, but you’ll never reach them because you don’t care. I find that sad. That is talent wasted in my opinion.
@MFBomb you do realize that you’ve just outed yourself as one of the ‘weakest’ writers in room? according to the metric you just gave, anyway.
I’m shocked that King Wenclass’s own work is garbage. As usual, the loudest writer in the room is the weakest.
“STAY TUNED FOR THE REST OF “KEVIN AND KOREENA”!! Coming soon. (This will not be a Jonathan Franzen story.) ”
———————
Good Lord. Why don’t you just have “hack” tattooed to your forehead?
it would be a shame if someone slices your carotid real soon.
i think this is my favorite comment of yours marshall.
I am not against solid plots. When did I say that?
it would be a shame if someone slices your carotid real soon.
Buke Lite? Not hardly.
By the narrow standards expressed on this blog, a great deal of American literature could be considered hack writing. O. Henry, Jack London, Theodore Dreiser, Frank Norris, Frank Stockton, Rex Beach, much of Fitzgerald, much of Stephen Crane (see Maggie), much of Mark Twain (“Jumping Frog”) on up to Ayn Rand, scorned for good reasons and bad and yet sold a million books last year, so might be doing something right.
Yes, my work isn’t polished. Polish is an overrated value. The world to me isn’t very polished. With “Kevin and Koreena,” now up in its entirety, I’m trying to tell a story and at the same time express the truth of this society.
The perfect counterargument to your statements is the recent stream of New Yorker stories; narrow and solipsistic for the most part, and yet regarded as the lit world’s highest achievement. Any writer should be trying to do better. (They are very polished, I’ll give them that.)
The American short story today is close to being a dead art form. Don’t take my word for it. That’s what esteemed literary writers themselves are saying. (See the Intros to the recent “Best New Voices” collections.) My mistake in trying to create an alternative!
********************************************************
Re rock n roll. Quite a strange example for Mr. Augustine to use. His narrow philosophy is more in line with a Schoenberg fan. Fact is that with the ULA, and since, I’ve tried to do what rock n roll did in presenting a cruder, more simple, more immediate expression of music, based on this nation’s oldest musical genres, roots music, but recreated to embody the shock of the new. Not a one of the early rock pioneers was a product of the Academy, or had much if any musical training. They didn’t know their musical scales and couldn’t hit their notes. They were DIY all the way, as well as from the bottom levels of American society– just like the ULA, which, yes, did alienate very many people when it arrived on the scene. It alienated the snobs, theorists, MFAers etc with a stake in the moldy status quo system of lit which exists today.
I was speaking about alienating the general audience, which, as some have pointed out, has already been done– at the outset in the early part of the Twentieth Century, for very different reasons.
I believe in using all the colors in the writers paintbox. When you eliminate plot, it’s like presenting a black-and-white silent movie, which might be interesting as a curiosity piece, or has certain intellectual snob appeal, but also gets old very quickly. I don’t believe in limiting the writer’s creativity– as a reader, I wish we saw more narrative creativity, which, yes, does make for more exciting reading.
I realize I can’t convince anyone here by my arguments. The only way to prove my ideas is to show people, which does mean selling; creating a product and finding a way to get it to people. Not an easy task when you have no resources. But I enjoy a challenge. Thanks for your time.
dude, you seem like an ok guy, but your musical history is as patronizing as your pedagogy. in any case, any project that can sucessfully get writers the status of fitzgerald again is pretty worthy. good luck.
i think this is my favorite comment of yours marshall.
I don’ t think any writer in their right mind would consider Twain a hack. But, I’m sure they’re out there.
“The only way to prove my ideas is to show people, which does mean selling; creating a product and finding a way to get it to people. Not an easy task when you have no resources.”
Pity party for one! “I have no resources!” he says as he presses the enter button on his blog entry. I daresay people have read your stories (or tried to), and have not liked them. Is it any wonder why YOU are the only one who puts up stories on the blog?
“You teach the reader that he’s way smarter than he thought he was. I think one of the insidious lessons about TV is the meta-lesson that you’re dumb. This is all you can do. This is easy, and you’re the sort of person who really just wants to sit in a chair and have it easy. When in fact there are parts of us…that are a lot more ambitious than that. And what we need, I think—and I’m not saying I’m the person to do it…is serious engaged art, that can teach again that we’re smart.”
DFW, quoted in latest issue of the New York Review of Books
Thanks. I felt good after making this comment. I felt it was significantly higher in quality than my others. Didn’t feel shitty afterward.
“Re rock n roll. Quite a strange example for Mr. Augustine to use. His narrow philosophy is more in line with a Schoenberg fan.”
I’m as into Erik Satie as I’m into Sugar Pie DeSanto, KW… you’re the one being “narrow” (and monotonous). Guys like you are always championing the imaginary needs and tastes of your own fantasy of a proletariat, hegemonic mass called THE PEOPLE. And in your fantasy, these noble longshoreman, grease-monkeys, housewives and usherettes are hungering for an earthy, vital cultural experience like… Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman! Or something by Clifford Odets, perhaps.
And, to contradict your lazy stereotypes: Rock ‘n Roll was born as a cultural avant garde and was forbidden and abhorred by the mainstream (think über-corn from Patti Page) as such… it sounded aggressively sexual and cacophonous and the races mixed dangerously wherever it was created, sold and performed. With its often strangely-collaged (Nightmind-influenced) lyrics and atavistic sonic structure you might even call it a Modernist Art Form.
But *you* just can’t accept that because you don’t associate the “fancy” terms “avant garde” or “Modernist” with any cultural movements generated by poor whites, browns and blacks. Which is a prejudice you should learn to overcome (I don’t even want to go into the avant garde theoretical underpinnings of Hank Shocklee’s contribution to modern music).
Seriously, dude: check your presumptions.
King, I assure you filmmakers like Chaplin, Murnau, Wiene, Dreyer, Eisenstein, Daren, Keaton etc had more paints in their paint box than you or I could ever dream of having. But you would apparently rate Transformers over Passion of Joan of Arc because one made 400 million dollars and the other is a “snob film.” Much like the bankers who run film studios you under estimate the intelligence of millions of people and you insult great artists. A writer who purposely does not care how their fiction is written, who only cares about achieving a wide audience and selling their work, is a hack. That’s the definition. Most of those writers you list, Fitzgerald and Twain included, would not deny they were hacks. In this matter, I give Fitzgerald credit for his self loathing.
Check your own presumptions, dude. You’re laying theoretical bullshit onto rock n roll retrospectively.
Rock n roll was abhorred by an educated elite which masqueraded as the mainstream.
Rock became mainstream quickly enough when it was exposed to the mass public, because it was of and from that public. Early rock pioneers from Joe Turner, Bill Haley, to Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Elvis had no conception of “avant-garde.” They were trying to appeal to as large an audience as possible. The intellectuals of the day were embracing Leonard Bernstein. They never accepted rock until Bob Dylan made it acceptable.
Rock n roll was that thing you most abhor– a mass market phenomenon. Its purveyors and explainers, Alan Freed, Sam Phillips, Colonel Parker, Berry Gordy, and Dick Clark among them, were low-rent hustlers, if not outright con men. They and their musicians were after one thing: money. Yes, it sounds crass to say it, but this was the reality. Their audience was lower and working class people, white, brown, and black, certainly. There’s no mythicizing that. The mass public– who embraced rock n roll just as soon as they discovered an alternative to Patti Page.
This is likely too popular a reference to cite for yr taste, but in the movie “Jailhouse Rock” there’s a scene when an intellectual corners Elvis at a cocktail party and bombards him with theory. Elvis’s reaction is classic, and is all that needs to be said. “Avant garde theorizing” indeed.
I have nothing against what you’re doing. If you’re trying to create an alternative to what’s passed off today as mainstream lit, more power to you. Let us each attack the beast in our different ways, and see who, if any of us, succeeds.
RK, what I loath are people who take what I say and turn it into a straw man.
I’m in fact discussing film on one of my other blogs– in particular, the western movie. I’m reacting to a list which chose three black and white p.c. westerns filmed on sound stages, for the most part, at the top of the list. Yet one of the great assets of the western is the canvas presented– the rich colors. All else being equal, you have to go with what defines a movie as a movie– the conjunction of sound and photography; or, an amazing canvas come to life, with thundering orchestration.
(p.s. To continue that thought.)
I’d rank, then “Shane” ahead of “High Noon,” because the former better uses all the tools available.
Which isn’t to say that one should go strictly for a big screen color movie with natural photography. “A Few Dollars More” is the other extreme, in that all it is, is brilliant photogrpahy with an amazing score. (The flimsy plot an excuse for the photography, music, and posturing.) Still, that canvas and that score are a lot.
Movies are a visual experience. When you see them as they’re intended, in a theater, you can better see the art form’s strengths. Watch “Lawrence of Arabia” in a theater on a big screen and a week later watch “Citizen Kane.” As advanced and intellectual as “Kane” is, it will seem underwhelming next to the other. Movies aren’t about the intellect. They’re about touching our dreams.
The question here is, what are literature’s strengths?
Make all the arguments you care to for today’s literature. The bottom line is it’s not reaching the mass of the people. Again, the trick is to DO it, not talk about it, as I fully realize.
@zusya, how do you figure? I’m not the one who started the mad shit talking and making bold proclamations about the state of literature.
Context is important when interpreting these “metrics,” ya know.
I am not against solid plots. When did I say that?
I apologize if I misunderstood your argument, King. I don’t know that I did, but if I was wrong, I’m sorry.
We’re clearly at such opposite ends of this thing. For me, whether or not writing reaches the masses is entirely irrelevant. In fact, in my view, not having the option of selling our work to magazines for big dollars has freed us up to focus on new possibilities.
There are writers who make great fortunes selling books, but the sort of book they write is not interesting to me.
“Rock n roll was that thing you most abhor– a mass market phenomenon.”
You don’t know your history, fella. I’m talking pre-Freed (you may not know this but Bill Haley and Pat Boone entered the Rock ‘n Roll game a little late). My father was a radio DJ at a small station in LA in the late 1950s, early 1960s, had a record collection you couldn’t fit into your house and… oh, yeah. He was a Black Militant, too. If you care for any actual instruction on the history of Race Music, just ask.
The term “avant garde” wasn’t on the lips of the original practitioners, obviously, but Bach didn’t refer to himself as a “Classical” musician, either, any more than writers in 1945 thought of themselves as “post war” writers. Do you know what the term “avant garde” means? Is it against your ideology to look it up in a dictionary…? Try this one:
“Avant-garde music is a term used to characterize music which is thought to be ahead of its time, i.e. containing innovative elements or fusing different genres.”
Fits rather nicely to Charlie Christian, Jelly Roll Morton AND Bo Diddley, don’t it? In fact, what you call Rock n Roll was just another mutation in a grass roots, Avant Garde cultural juggernaut that started before Mr. Morton, flowed through early R&B, Rock and Bebop and reached a recent high point with Public Enemy (the music of which was an Urban Synthetic Cubism for the ears).
“This is likely too popular a reference to cite for yr taste, but in the movie “Jailhouse Rock” there’s a scene when an intellectual corners Elvis at a cocktail party and bombards him with theory. Elvis’s reaction is classic, and is all that needs to be said. “Avant garde theorizing” indeed.”
Hate to break it to you but that scene in that particular movie was written by a guy with some fancy book learnin’ under his belt. He wrote quite a few scripts and even once kinda worked with Stanley Kubrick (another fancy intellectual with the kind of mass appeal you’ll need to deny in order to support your ridiculous ideology).
Not to mention the fact that I compose POP music for a *living* (in Europe) and co-wrote three songs for the only act (in Germany… and no, I’m not German) to have more Number Ones in a row than The Beatles. I also co-wrote the Star Search Theme for Germany (2004), co-wrote a Coke Lite jingle (among others), had a song in a McDonald’s Happy Meal Squeeze Toy and co-wrote the theme for the biggest soap opera in Portugal (2007). I even got a (rather small, to be honest) royalty check from friggin Chechnya last quarter! Beat that, chum. So much for your superior access to The People.
There’s more COMPLEXITY out there in the world than your simplistic worldview can handle.
Buke Lite? Not hardly.
By the narrow standards expressed on this blog, a great deal of American literature could be considered hack writing. O. Henry, Jack London, Theodore Dreiser, Frank Norris, Frank Stockton, Rex Beach, much of Fitzgerald, much of Stephen Crane (see Maggie), much of Mark Twain (“Jumping Frog”) on up to Ayn Rand, scorned for good reasons and bad and yet sold a million books last year, so might be doing something right.
Yes, my work isn’t polished. Polish is an overrated value. The world to me isn’t very polished. With “Kevin and Koreena,” now up in its entirety, I’m trying to tell a story and at the same time express the truth of this society.
The perfect counterargument to your statements is the recent stream of New Yorker stories; narrow and solipsistic for the most part, and yet regarded as the lit world’s highest achievement. Any writer should be trying to do better. (They are very polished, I’ll give them that.)
The American short story today is close to being a dead art form. Don’t take my word for it. That’s what esteemed literary writers themselves are saying. (See the Intros to the recent “Best New Voices” collections.) My mistake in trying to create an alternative!
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Re rock n roll. Quite a strange example for Mr. Augustine to use. His narrow philosophy is more in line with a Schoenberg fan. Fact is that with the ULA, and since, I’ve tried to do what rock n roll did in presenting a cruder, more simple, more immediate expression of music, based on this nation’s oldest musical genres, roots music, but recreated to embody the shock of the new. Not a one of the early rock pioneers was a product of the Academy, or had much if any musical training. They didn’t know their musical scales and couldn’t hit their notes. They were DIY all the way, as well as from the bottom levels of American society– just like the ULA, which, yes, did alienate very many people when it arrived on the scene. It alienated the snobs, theorists, MFAers etc with a stake in the moldy status quo system of lit which exists today.
I was speaking about alienating the general audience, which, as some have pointed out, has already been done– at the outset in the early part of the Twentieth Century, for very different reasons.
I believe in using all the colors in the writers paintbox. When you eliminate plot, it’s like presenting a black-and-white silent movie, which might be interesting as a curiosity piece, or has certain intellectual snob appeal, but also gets old very quickly. I don’t believe in limiting the writer’s creativity– as a reader, I wish we saw more narrative creativity, which, yes, does make for more exciting reading.
I realize I can’t convince anyone here by my arguments. The only way to prove my ideas is to show people, which does mean selling; creating a product and finding a way to get it to people. Not an easy task when you have no resources. But I enjoy a challenge. Thanks for your time.
“Watch “Lawrence of Arabia” in a theater on a big screen and a week later watch “Citizen Kane.” As advanced and intellectual as “Kane” is, it will seem underwhelming next to the other.”
Talk about a Straw Man argument! Why not compare “High Noon” to “Lawrence of Arabia” (with its Cinemascope advantage) while you’re at it! Laugh. What a load of nonsense. Compare Godard’s “Breathless” to “Bad Day at Black Rock” and see which one feels “underwhelming”; compare Pasolini’s “Salo” to Ford’s “Stage Coach” . Doof.
dude, you seem like an ok guy, but your musical history is as patronizing as your pedagogy. in any case, any project that can sucessfully get writers the status of fitzgerald again is pretty worthy. good luck.
Sorry, can’t resist one more:
“The intellectuals of the day were embracing Leonard Bernstein.”
Who wrote the score for the Pop Smash “West Side Story”.
I don’ t think any writer in their right mind would consider Twain a hack. But, I’m sure they’re out there.
“The only way to prove my ideas is to show people, which does mean selling; creating a product and finding a way to get it to people. Not an easy task when you have no resources.”
Pity party for one! “I have no resources!” he says as he presses the enter button on his blog entry. I daresay people have read your stories (or tried to), and have not liked them. Is it any wonder why YOU are the only one who puts up stories on the blog?
“You teach the reader that he’s way smarter than he thought he was. I think one of the insidious lessons about TV is the meta-lesson that you’re dumb. This is all you can do. This is easy, and you’re the sort of person who really just wants to sit in a chair and have it easy. When in fact there are parts of us…that are a lot more ambitious than that. And what we need, I think—and I’m not saying I’m the person to do it…is serious engaged art, that can teach again that we’re smart.”
DFW, quoted in latest issue of the New York Review of Books
Thanks. I felt good after making this comment. I felt it was significantly higher in quality than my others. Didn’t feel shitty afterward.
“Re rock n roll. Quite a strange example for Mr. Augustine to use. His narrow philosophy is more in line with a Schoenberg fan.”
I’m as into Erik Satie as I’m into Sugar Pie DeSanto, KW… you’re the one being “narrow” (and monotonous). Guys like you are always championing the imaginary needs and tastes of your own fantasy of a proletariat, hegemonic mass called THE PEOPLE. And in your fantasy, these noble longshoreman, grease-monkeys, housewives and usherettes are hungering for an earthy, vital cultural experience like… Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman! Or something by Clifford Odets, perhaps.
And, to contradict your lazy stereotypes: Rock ‘n Roll was born as a cultural avant garde and was forbidden and abhorred by the mainstream (think über-corn from Patti Page) as such… it sounded aggressively sexual and cacophonous and the races mixed dangerously wherever it was created, sold and performed. With its often strangely-collaged (Nightmind-influenced) lyrics and atavistic sonic structure you might even call it a Modernist Art Form.
But *you* just can’t accept that because you don’t associate the “fancy” terms “avant garde” or “Modernist” with any cultural movements generated by poor whites, browns and blacks. Which is a prejudice you should learn to overcome (I don’t even want to go into the avant garde theoretical underpinnings of Hank Shocklee’s contribution to modern music).
Seriously, dude: check your presumptions.
King, I assure you filmmakers like Chaplin, Murnau, Wiene, Dreyer, Eisenstein, Daren, Keaton etc had more paints in their paint box than you or I could ever dream of having. But you would apparently rate Transformers over Passion of Joan of Arc because one made 400 million dollars and the other is a “snob film.” Much like the bankers who run film studios you under estimate the intelligence of millions of people and you insult great artists. A writer who purposely does not care how their fiction is written, who only cares about achieving a wide audience and selling their work, is a hack. That’s the definition. Most of those writers you list, Fitzgerald and Twain included, would not deny they were hacks. In this matter, I give Fitzgerald credit for his self loathing.
Check your own presumptions, dude. You’re laying theoretical bullshit onto rock n roll retrospectively.
Rock n roll was abhorred by an educated elite which masqueraded as the mainstream.
Rock became mainstream quickly enough when it was exposed to the mass public, because it was of and from that public. Early rock pioneers from Joe Turner, Bill Haley, to Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Elvis had no conception of “avant-garde.” They were trying to appeal to as large an audience as possible. The intellectuals of the day were embracing Leonard Bernstein. They never accepted rock until Bob Dylan made it acceptable.
Rock n roll was that thing you most abhor– a mass market phenomenon. Its purveyors and explainers, Alan Freed, Sam Phillips, Colonel Parker, Berry Gordy, and Dick Clark among them, were low-rent hustlers, if not outright con men. They and their musicians were after one thing: money. Yes, it sounds crass to say it, but this was the reality. Their audience was lower and working class people, white, brown, and black, certainly. There’s no mythicizing that. The mass public– who embraced rock n roll just as soon as they discovered an alternative to Patti Page.
This is likely too popular a reference to cite for yr taste, but in the movie “Jailhouse Rock” there’s a scene when an intellectual corners Elvis at a cocktail party and bombards him with theory. Elvis’s reaction is classic, and is all that needs to be said. “Avant garde theorizing” indeed.
I have nothing against what you’re doing. If you’re trying to create an alternative to what’s passed off today as mainstream lit, more power to you. Let us each attack the beast in our different ways, and see who, if any of us, succeeds.
RK, what I loath are people who take what I say and turn it into a straw man.
I’m in fact discussing film on one of my other blogs– in particular, the western movie. I’m reacting to a list which chose three black and white p.c. westerns filmed on sound stages, for the most part, at the top of the list. Yet one of the great assets of the western is the canvas presented– the rich colors. All else being equal, you have to go with what defines a movie as a movie– the conjunction of sound and photography; or, an amazing canvas come to life, with thundering orchestration.
(p.s. To continue that thought.)
I’d rank, then “Shane” ahead of “High Noon,” because the former better uses all the tools available.
Which isn’t to say that one should go strictly for a big screen color movie with natural photography. “A Few Dollars More” is the other extreme, in that all it is, is brilliant photogrpahy with an amazing score. (The flimsy plot an excuse for the photography, music, and posturing.) Still, that canvas and that score are a lot.
Movies are a visual experience. When you see them as they’re intended, in a theater, you can better see the art form’s strengths. Watch “Lawrence of Arabia” in a theater on a big screen and a week later watch “Citizen Kane.” As advanced and intellectual as “Kane” is, it will seem underwhelming next to the other. Movies aren’t about the intellect. They’re about touching our dreams.
The question here is, what are literature’s strengths?
Make all the arguments you care to for today’s literature. The bottom line is it’s not reaching the mass of the people. Again, the trick is to DO it, not talk about it, as I fully realize.
@zusya, how do you figure? I’m not the one who started the mad shit talking and making bold proclamations about the state of literature.
Context is important when interpreting these “metrics,” ya know.
I apologize if I misunderstood your argument, King. I don’t know that I did, but if I was wrong, I’m sorry.
We’re clearly at such opposite ends of this thing. For me, whether or not writing reaches the masses is entirely irrelevant. In fact, in my view, not having the option of selling our work to magazines for big dollars has freed us up to focus on new possibilities.
There are writers who make great fortunes selling books, but the sort of book they write is not interesting to me.
“Rock n roll was that thing you most abhor– a mass market phenomenon.”
You don’t know your history, fella. I’m talking pre-Freed (you may not know this but Bill Haley and Pat Boone entered the Rock ‘n Roll game a little late). My father was a radio DJ at a small station in LA in the late 1950s, early 1960s, had a record collection you couldn’t fit into your house and… oh, yeah. He was a Black Militant, too. If you care for any actual instruction on the history of Race Music, just ask.
The term “avant garde” wasn’t on the lips of the original practitioners, obviously, but Bach didn’t refer to himself as a “Classical” musician, either, any more than writers in 1945 thought of themselves as “post war” writers. Do you know what the term “avant garde” means? Is it against your ideology to look it up in a dictionary…? Try this one:
“Avant-garde music is a term used to characterize music which is thought to be ahead of its time, i.e. containing innovative elements or fusing different genres.”
Fits rather nicely to Charlie Christian, Jelly Roll Morton AND Bo Diddley, don’t it? In fact, what you call Rock n Roll was just another mutation in a grass roots, Avant Garde cultural juggernaut that started before Mr. Morton, flowed through early R&B, Rock and Bebop and reached a recent high point with Public Enemy (the music of which was an Urban Synthetic Cubism for the ears).
“This is likely too popular a reference to cite for yr taste, but in the movie “Jailhouse Rock” there’s a scene when an intellectual corners Elvis at a cocktail party and bombards him with theory. Elvis’s reaction is classic, and is all that needs to be said. “Avant garde theorizing” indeed.”
Hate to break it to you but that scene in that particular movie was written by a guy with some fancy book learnin’ under his belt. He wrote quite a few scripts and even once kinda worked with Stanley Kubrick (another fancy intellectual with the kind of mass appeal you’ll need to deny in order to support your ridiculous ideology).
Not to mention the fact that I compose POP music for a *living* (in Europe) and co-wrote three songs for the only act (in Germany… and no, I’m not German) to have more Number Ones in a row than The Beatles. I also co-wrote the Star Search Theme for Germany (2004), co-wrote a Coke Lite jingle (among others), had a song in a McDonald’s Happy Meal Squeeze Toy and co-wrote the theme for the biggest soap opera in Portugal (2007). I even got a (rather small, to be honest) royalty check from friggin Chechnya last quarter! Beat that, chum. So much for your superior access to The People.
There’s more COMPLEXITY out there in the world than your simplistic worldview can handle.
“Watch “Lawrence of Arabia” in a theater on a big screen and a week later watch “Citizen Kane.” As advanced and intellectual as “Kane” is, it will seem underwhelming next to the other.”
Talk about a Straw Man argument! Why not compare “High Noon” to “Lawrence of Arabia” (with its Cinemascope advantage) while you’re at it! Laugh. What a load of nonsense. Compare Godard’s “Breathless” to “Bad Day at Black Rock” and see which one feels “underwhelming”; compare Pasolini’s “Salo” to Ford’s “Stage Coach” . Doof.
Sorry, can’t resist one more:
“The intellectuals of the day were embracing Leonard Bernstein.”
Who wrote the score for the Pop Smash “West Side Story”.
Didn’t rock’n’roll follow the same constricting, radio-friendly, four minute, verse-chorus-verse format as everything else? I mean, my dad’s not a DJ, and I hate John Ford. I did take two history of music classes, and I’m pretty sure my professors would have balked at the idea that rock music was super-avant.
How come every time King Wenclas gets involved, the conversation devolves to nil?
Didn’t rock’n’roll follow the same constricting, radio-friendly, four minute, verse-chorus-verse format as everything else? I mean, my dad’s not a DJ, and I hate John Ford. I did take two history of music classes, and I’m pretty sure my professors would have balked at the idea that rock music was super-avant.
“I did take two history of music classes, and I’m pretty sure my professors would have balked at the idea that rock music was super-avant.”
When it started out, it was the music of whore-houses and it took about 40 years to make it to the radio. “Rock n Roll” is, of course, a marketing term. It was part of the process of absorbing, taming and commercializing the kind of music that the mainstream was against. The music did not start with the very safe and acceptable middle-aged-white-guy-who-looked-like-a-car-salesman Bill Haley.
Check this out: from 1938. Jelly Roll Morton (playing a song he claimed he heard in 1908). Listen to what he’s doing with his left hand on the piano (and the slurs on his right prefigure Chuck Berry’s slides on the guitar neck): this is as Rock n Roll as anything Jerry Lee Lewis did… but it was almost 20 years before Freed made it safe for mainstream consumption in the early 50s. It was avant garde for *its time* (of course many avant garde forms become mainstream eventually; that’s how the cycle runs):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRSMaKJySlY
How come every time King Wenclas gets involved, the conversation devolves to nil?
“I did take two history of music classes, and I’m pretty sure my professors would have balked at the idea that rock music was super-avant.”
When it started out, it was the music of whore-houses and it took about 40 years to make it to the radio. “Rock n Roll” is, of course, a marketing term. It was part of the process of absorbing, taming and commercializing the kind of music that the mainstream was against. The music did not start with the very safe and acceptable middle-aged-white-guy-who-looked-like-a-car-salesman Bill Haley.
Check this out: from 1938. Jelly Roll Morton (playing a song he claimed he heard in 1908). Listen to what he’s doing with his left hand on the piano (and the slurs on his right prefigure Chuck Berry’s slides on the guitar neck): this is as Rock n Roll as anything Jerry Lee Lewis did… but it was almost 20 years before Freed made it safe for mainstream consumption in the early 50s. It was avant garde for *its time* (of course many avant garde forms become mainstream eventually; that’s how the cycle runs):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRSMaKJySlY
It’s funny how Ryan gets things backward. In the academy today, Small Audience=Important, and Large Audience=Not Important.
That solitary individual literary writers write for is the self. Unlike the days of Zola, literature is marked now by extremely narrow ambitions, artistically and every other way.
That depends on whether you consider Count of Monte Cristo, or Catcher in the Rye, or Slaughterhouse Five, or Huckleberry Finn, or the Martian Chronicles, to be watered down bullshit. High schools are still doing a few things right– though the texts to really connect with young readers aren’t out there.
It’s in the university where you get the problem.
I’ve known few college grads and college students carrying around Infinite Jest over the years who actually finished it. The work might be most applicable to someone in a Phd program. Certainly you wouldn’t want to inflict that book on high schoolers?
Typically, the folks here miss my point.
my point wasn’t that Twain, Fitzgerald, et.al., were hacks. It was, that by YOUR standards they are.
One of Fitzgerald’s best stories– the one which said the most about the nature of art; the magic and mystery of art– was hack work: “The Captured Shadow,” a Basil and Josephine story written strictly to pay bills. Maybe because he wasn’t trying to be ultra-serious, like today’s literary writers (look in the mirror), he had the freedom to put himself fully into the story, and in the process, create great art.
My poinbt is that the academy’s standards are wrong. When you reject a great portion of the best American literature as hackwork, you’re dead wrong.
Call me a hack all you want. It means nothing. If anything, it’s a compliment!
\With all due respect, rk, in everything you say you’re merely regurgitating the input of the academy.
Most intellectuals, without thinking about it, consider “Citizen Kane” the apex of the art. Yet I saw it in the 90’s as part of a summer film series at Detroit’s gigantic Fox Theater. i saw it after “Lawrence,” as did the people I was with. Several of these people I’d told about “Kane.” When we saw it, the effect was jaw-dropping. Like, “Is that all there is?”
A better example is Dreyer’s “Joan.” You know what? It’s a terrible movie! It’s virtually unwatchable. Can we be intellectually honest enough to admit that?
I suggest you read on occasion intellectuals whose ideas are outside the academy. Click on my link and you’ll see a series of quotes from a noted historian about the avant-garde.
The truth of the matter is that dependency on the academy and on nonprofits has narrowed and stagnated the literary art. Disconnecting from the market has been a detriment. There’s no incentive to create new and better art. Instead, solipsism and posturing. New possibilities? Are you serious? The literary story is little changed from fifty years ago.
Without the market, the standard followed instead is the standard of the bureaucracy and the herd.
“My poinbt is that the academy’s standards are wrong. When you reject a great portion of the best American literature as hackwork, you’re dead wrong.
Call me a hack all you want. It means nothing. If anything, it’s a compliment!”
King, who the fuck in the “academy” is calling Twain, Fitzgerald, Vonnegut, etc, hacks?
“Call me a hack all you want. It means nothing. If anything, it’s a compliment!”
Ha ha! Oh, gosh. See what you’re doing there, KW! If you can make it sound as though “everyone’s” putting down the work of Twain, Fitzgerald and Vonnegut… then, when they put down *your* work, it’s as though there’s something in *your* work which is equal to something in the work of the aforementioned giants of Yankee Lit! Right?
Fail.
Wow! With your credentials I should just bow down to anything yoiu say.
Sorry, but you can’t show a single reference in a book or essay before 1960 which considered rock n roll to in any way be avant-garde. The intelligentsia wanted nothing to do with it. The art was not performed on college audiences, who preferred folk and intellectual jazz.
I use the word rock n roll, of course, not to describe its various roots. Be bop among them, but rock n roll wasn’t be bop. By 1953, say, they were becoming distinctive art forms. The strands which led to rock are almost too numerous to list; many of them rural. Haley’s “Crazy Man Crazy” in 1953 was jazz influenced– but it wasn’t jazz. Neither was Turner’s “Shake, Rattle, and Roll,” which had little or no connection to be bop.
This is too large a subject for this blog of course. What I like about the idea of rock n roll was that in the early 50’s low-level musicians of all kinds were influencing one another, creating a new, populist synthesis which took off and revolutionized the culture. It was raw, DIY, visceral music from the ground up with little intellectual about it. Later interpretations are retrospective.
Duh! of ciourse he did. “West Side Story” was a marker of popular music, before the rock explosion, which came from an elite, art from the top down, imposed upon the masses from above. In that sense you can relate it to the “popularity” of David Foster Wallace.
i think some of the troulbe im having following your argument, king, is that i dont understand the statements youve made about the ‘academy’ or ‘the narrow values’ of this blog or ‘these typical folks here’ etc. i mean, i dont accept the warrant that these standards you believe the abovegroups have are as simple/reductive/homogenous as youve suggested. anyhow, thats all, i guess.
Why do you cling to the old notion of “avant-garde” which has been dead for fifty years?
The term was created in the 1880’s. It reached a peak of relevance after WWI. Dada and surrealism considered themselves revolutionary artistically and politically. To claim, from an academic perspective, the avant-garde as a way to defend the status quo seems contradictory. But what do I know.
King, spouting more ignorant, unsupported bullshit to support earlier examples of your ignorant, unsupported bullshit is what you do best, apparently. It’s just too bad nothing will come of this scuffle… you spend more time stirring up scuffles (to advertise yourself) than you do on writing. Write more… improve as a writer… earn the attitude!
Ironically, what you “understand” of “Rock n Roll” is the sanitized corporate history of it (hence your Bill Haley and Elvis reference). Watch (listen to) the Jelly Roll Morton clip I posted… recorded in 1938. It’s straight-up Rock n Roll (if Jerry Lee Lewis is)… and it proves (by Morton’s own account) that, at the turn of the 19th-20th century, when the Mainstream was listening to Caruso and Strauss and considered Popular Music to be something you’d never be vulgar enough to snap your fingers to or shake your ass at, the poorest of the poor were listening to a form of music that wouldn’t go mainstream until 50 years later… and THAT is what’s called “avant garde”. The term has more than one definition and I’m not using it, in this discussion, to refer to, eg, Serialism.
The larger point: you’re not qualified to be a mouthpiece for “The People” (no one is). Call your battle what it really is: a struggle for recognition for King Wenclas. Hiding piously behind “The People” is what’s so irritating about your presentation… that and your ridiculous condescension. I’ve met plenty of Rich Kids who believed /preached fewer stereotypes about the lower classes than you do!
Hey, maybe “The People” should appoint you, King Wenclas, as the Popular Culture Czar, so you can tell them which of the products they consume with pleasure are “from an elite, art from the top down, imposed upon the masses from above” and which are the RIGHT KIND (ie, simple simple fun fun).
So, West Side Story is on the Bad List. Is Jesus Christ Super Star okay? How about Cabaret (no, that’s too fancy: Isherwood)… CATS! That’s good! But, shit… no…it’s based on the work of TS Eliot so it’s BAD, then.
And: Celine Dion good, David Bowie BAD… ? Is most “Rap” okay if the brothers haven’t read too many books? (Mos Def: BAD)…
“The term was created in the 1880’s. It reached a peak of relevance after WWI.”
Oh shit! You mean the term has EXPIRED? Good catch. I’m going to look through a dictionary right after this and cross out all the words that were created on or before Jan 1 1880!!!
??? How so? Do you want total agreement? Do you fear ideas which come from outside the herd?
The herd? Really?
King, I was under the impression that you’re PRO-HERD. Now you’re claiming to come from outside of THE HERD? Isn’t that the very thing you angrily accuse those fancy post-modernists of doing? Or, do you mean there’s a GOOD HERD and a BAD HERD and you’re outside the latter but within the former kind of thing…?
The only difference between us that I can see is how we use the term “avant-garde.” You give it a broad definition, while I’ve been using it to refer to a specific cultural movement– the way the erm was used throughout the creation of rock n roll.
By your light, the Underground Literary Alliance was avant-garde. Which is why I don’t understand your past hostility to the ULA.
What I tried to do with the ULA was little different from what Freed did with rock n roll.
The ULA was created by DIY zine writers– some who, like Bill Blackolive and Jack Saunders, had been doing zines at least since the 70’s. These guys were low-rent artists in the same way as was Jelly Roll Morton. I brought them into the ULA along with many of the best young zine writers of the 1990’s.
At the same time, we witnessed phony DIYers like Mr. Eggers, whose ultra-expensive McSweeney’s was created with money from Simon & Schuster, with work from the most connected elite writers in New York, and yet for street cred in some circles was marketed as a “zine,” to which of course the ULA objected.
How was Eggers in this case not the Pat Boone of contemporary literature?
Yes, the ULA was totally scorned by literary intellectuals– but then, so was the entire history of rock n roll, Jelly Roll Morton inclusive, up until the early 1960s.
I can bow to your superior understanding of the history of rock n roll, and it doesn’t change my overall argument one iota. If anything, it strengthens my argument.
Surely, you don’t believe there’s anything cutting edge– “avant-garde”– about what’s passed off as contemporary literature?
There’s the dominant herd of contemporary literature. I’m not pro-herd. I don’t read james patterson. My goal has always been not to join the media monopolies– including the book giants– but to compete with them and, as absurd as it sounds, overthrow them.
Re the business history of rock n roll. It was a business revolution. before the rock explosion in the 50s, the top four record companies controlled 90% of the market. Within a few years, hundreds of DIY labels like Sun took away half the bigs market share. (And that was with Sun selling Elvis to RCA.) This was an earth-shattering occurence within the halls of U.S. capitalism. Ergo, Alan Freed and Dick Clark were called before Congress on “payola” charges, in a show trial, and broken. Clark famously said that he was forced to dissolve 100 corporations in one day. The upstarts were turned or, in effect, in Freed’s case, killed.
These low rent guys revolutionized business simply by offering a more populist, more accessible product.
See my “Literature’s Herd” from a couple months ago at my main blog.
??? Strange words from someone who spends as much time online on self-advertisement as I do.
Let’s see– I’ve written ten short stories, now up at my “Pop” and “Detroit” blogs, in the past six months. I have many more in the hopper. How much writing d’ya want?
Re Bernstein. It can easily be shown that West Side Story was acceptable music, in several respects the product of institutions. Bernstein was the apex of academic art. I’m not knocking what he put out– I like much of it– but I’m distinguishing him from the likes of, say, Jelly Roll Morton. There was a huge difference between them. Surely you can acknowledge that.
p.s. I have no power to be a czar of anything. But there are literary czars out there who decide what is or isn’t literature– characters like James Wood connected to powerful status quo institutions, from Harvard to The New Yorker. Sorry if I reject all of that noise.
Would Van Gogh be Van Gogh if his paintings were in black and white?
Yes, “Lawrence” is a superior movie to “High Noon,” in that it provides a superior artistic experience– more moving, more aesthetically overwhelming. That’s the reality.
“Which is why I don’t understand your past hostility to the ULA.”
King, you invite hostility by formulating acceptance-or-rejection of the material you’re hawking as a moral issue! laugh
But, hey: don’t mention Eggers or Foer or Chabon or whoever to me… ain’t into it. My pantheon includes Bowles, Burroughs, DeLillo, Didion, Harlan Ellison, Bradbury, Vonnegut, Kundera, Roth, Miller…
Anyone can claim to be a mouthpiece for anything. You’re here acting unwittingly as a mouthpiece for the status quo. Those accepted as mouthpieces, because of the herd mindset, are determined who has the most power. I have no power whatsoever, so what I say has to be rejected. Harper-Collins has mucho power, so those who align with it are acceptable. Humans are only in part logical animals.
wait, infinite jest as phd program lit?
i’m a community college dropout, and IJ is one of my favorite books.
augustine is a troll
Oh dear little Pine, you jealous little turd of mediocrity. Perfect name.
Hi, King. I’m confused. Forgive me if I’m reading you wrong, but it sounds like you are angry about a perceived homogeneity in literature caused primarily by academics (or new york publishing? these things do not correlate, in my opinion), and that you see postmodernism or experimental or avant-garde (or however you’d like to label it) as the the problem with literature, and that you’re calling for a return to the kind of writing you see in a writer like Fitzgerald, a kind of writing (like Friends, maybe?) that would appeal to a mass audience, who, alienated by the current state of literature, do not read? Am I right so far? If not, then I think the rest of what I’m going to write is off, but how do you account for the popularity of writers like Barth, Barthelme, and Coover at their heights? How do you account for the Black Arts Movement? What about late John Coltrane records? William Burroughs? These are examples, I think, of moments when the avant-garde did seem to speak to wider audiences, aren’t they? And Fitzgerald seems like a strange example, as the Great Gatsby is widely accepted by the ‘academy’ as an example of Modernism at its best? Does the academy sometimes get it right?
And more generally, why is it a bad thing for people to write what they want to write? I probably do not produce the kind of writing that you would enjoy, but why does that matter? I’m not that concerned with how many readers I have – certainly, it is nice when somebody acknowledges something I’ve written, but I’m not so bent on audience that I change my writing in any attempt to gain a wider readership. I just write what I write and hope that it connects with some people. What I think you’re suggesting seems anti-art to me, that there’s no place for the individual in writing, that writers should bend their aesthetic in an attempt to gain acceptance. Again, forgive me if I’m reading you wrong – this is a wild thread.
I’m also confused, because what you seem to be looking for in writing (from reading your own work) is minimal realism, which has been the dominant mode for thirty years, so I’m not sure what else you want. Is it the content that bothers you? Like more people need to be writing about ‘real’ stuff (like Jay Gatsby??)
“What I think you’re suggesting seems anti-art to me, that there’s no place for the individual in writing, that writers should bend their aesthetic in an attempt to gain acceptance.”
Wanky believes that the “individual” in writing is “solipsistic,” a “bourgie” convention that ignores the realities of the world. Because see, every story should reflect the “truth” of the world we live in. Every story should have the resonance of the works of Jack London, O’Henry, Steinbeck, et al. He calls the realism you refer to: “narrow realism.” You will be wrong. He will be right. History will prove it. And you can’t argue with that. Because Wanky knows all. He is just a misunderstood genius. You could spend your entire life studying the likes of Shakespeare and Marlowe and Chaucer and still, you wouldn’t come close to accumulating his barroom knowledge.
Read “Kevin & Koreena,” man. It’s up on his blog! A one foot tall woman! Wow!
It’s funny how Ryan gets things backward. In the academy today, Small Audience=Important, and Large Audience=Not Important.
That solitary individual literary writers write for is the self. Unlike the days of Zola, literature is marked now by extremely narrow ambitions, artistically and every other way.
That depends on whether you consider Count of Monte Cristo, or Catcher in the Rye, or Slaughterhouse Five, or Huckleberry Finn, or the Martian Chronicles, to be watered down bullshit. High schools are still doing a few things right– though the texts to really connect with young readers aren’t out there.
It’s in the university where you get the problem.
I’ve known few college grads and college students carrying around Infinite Jest over the years who actually finished it. The work might be most applicable to someone in a Phd program. Certainly you wouldn’t want to inflict that book on high schoolers?
Typically, the folks here miss my point.
my point wasn’t that Twain, Fitzgerald, et.al., were hacks. It was, that by YOUR standards they are.
One of Fitzgerald’s best stories– the one which said the most about the nature of art; the magic and mystery of art– was hack work: “The Captured Shadow,” a Basil and Josephine story written strictly to pay bills. Maybe because he wasn’t trying to be ultra-serious, like today’s literary writers (look in the mirror), he had the freedom to put himself fully into the story, and in the process, create great art.
My poinbt is that the academy’s standards are wrong. When you reject a great portion of the best American literature as hackwork, you’re dead wrong.
Call me a hack all you want. It means nothing. If anything, it’s a compliment!
With all due respect, rk, in everything you say you’re merely regurgitating the input of the academy.
Most intellectuals, without thinking about it, consider “Citizen Kane” the apex of the art. Yet I saw it in the 90’s as part of a summer film series at Detroit’s gigantic Fox Theater. i saw it after “Lawrence,” as did the people I was with. Several of these people I’d told about “Kane.” When we saw it, the effect was jaw-dropping. Like, “Is that all there is?”
A better example is Dreyer’s “Joan.” You know what? It’s a terrible movie! It’s virtually unwatchable. Can we be intellectually honest enough to admit that?
I suggest you read on occasion intellectuals whose ideas are outside the academy. Click on my link and you’ll see a series of quotes from a noted historian about the avant-garde.
The truth of the matter is that dependency on the academy and on nonprofits has narrowed and stagnated the literary art. Disconnecting from the market has been a detriment. There’s no incentive to create new and better art. Instead, solipsism and posturing. New possibilities? Are you serious? The literary story is little changed from fifty years ago.
Without the market, the standard followed instead is the standard of the bureaucracy and the herd.
“My poinbt is that the academy’s standards are wrong. When you reject a great portion of the best American literature as hackwork, you’re dead wrong.
Call me a hack all you want. It means nothing. If anything, it’s a compliment!”
King, who the fuck in the “academy” is calling Twain, Fitzgerald, Vonnegut, etc, hacks?
“Call me a hack all you want. It means nothing. If anything, it’s a compliment!”
Ha ha! Oh, gosh. See what you’re doing there, KW! If you can make it sound as though “everyone’s” putting down the work of Twain, Fitzgerald and Vonnegut… then, when they put down *your* work, it’s as though there’s something in *your* work which is equal to something in the work of the aforementioned giants of Yankee Lit! Right?
Fail.
Wow! With your credentials I should just bow down to anything yoiu say.
Sorry, but you can’t show a single reference in a book or essay before 1960 which considered rock n roll to in any way be avant-garde. The intelligentsia wanted nothing to do with it. The art was not performed on college audiences, who preferred folk and intellectual jazz.
I use the word rock n roll, of course, not to describe its various roots. Be bop among them, but rock n roll wasn’t be bop. By 1953, say, they were becoming distinctive art forms. The strands which led to rock are almost too numerous to list; many of them rural. Haley’s “Crazy Man Crazy” in 1953 was jazz influenced– but it wasn’t jazz. Neither was Turner’s “Shake, Rattle, and Roll,” which had little or no connection to be bop.
This is too large a subject for this blog of course. What I like about the idea of rock n roll was that in the early 50’s low-level musicians of all kinds were influencing one another, creating a new, populist synthesis which took off and revolutionized the culture. It was raw, DIY, visceral music from the ground up with little intellectual about it. Later interpretations are retrospective.
Duh! of ciourse he did. “West Side Story” was a marker of popular music, before the rock explosion, which came from an elite, art from the top down, imposed upon the masses from above. In that sense you can relate it to the “popularity” of David Foster Wallace.
i think some of the troulbe im having following your argument, king, is that i dont understand the statements youve made about the ‘academy’ or ‘the narrow values’ of this blog or ‘these typical folks here’ etc. i mean, i dont accept the warrant that these standards you believe the abovegroups have are as simple/reductive/homogenous as youve suggested. anyhow, thats all, i guess.
Why do you cling to the old notion of “avant-garde” which has been dead for fifty years?
The term was created in the 1880’s. It reached a peak of relevance after WWI. Dada and surrealism considered themselves revolutionary artistically and politically. To claim, from an academic perspective, the avant-garde as a way to defend the status quo seems contradictory. But what do I know.
King, spouting more ignorant, unsupported bullshit to support earlier examples of your ignorant, unsupported bullshit is what you do best, apparently. It’s just too bad nothing will come of this scuffle… you spend more time stirring up scuffles (to advertise yourself) than you do on writing. Write more… improve as a writer… earn the attitude!
Ironically, what you “understand” of “Rock n Roll” is the sanitized corporate history of it (hence your Bill Haley and Elvis reference). Watch (listen to) the Jelly Roll Morton clip I posted… recorded in 1938. It’s straight-up Rock n Roll (if Jerry Lee Lewis is)… and it proves (by Morton’s own account) that, at the turn of the 19th-20th century, when the Mainstream was listening to Caruso and Strauss and considered Popular Music to be something you’d never be vulgar enough to snap your fingers to or shake your ass at, the poorest of the poor were listening to a form of music that wouldn’t go mainstream until 50 years later… and THAT is what’s called “avant garde”. The term has more than one definition and I’m not using it, in this discussion, to refer to, eg, Serialism.
The larger point: you’re not qualified to be a mouthpiece for “The People” (no one is). Call your battle what it really is: a struggle for recognition for King Wenclas. Hiding piously behind “The People” is what’s so irritating about your presentation… that and your ridiculous condescension. I’ve met plenty of Rich Kids who believed /preached fewer stereotypes about the lower classes than you do!
Hey, maybe “The People” should appoint you, King Wenclas, as the Popular Culture Czar, so you can tell them which of the products they consume with pleasure are “from an elite, art from the top down, imposed upon the masses from above” and which are the RIGHT KIND (ie, simple simple fun fun).
So, West Side Story is on the Bad List. Is Jesus Christ Super Star okay? How about Cabaret (no, that’s too fancy: Isherwood)… CATS! That’s good! But, shit… no…it’s based on the work of TS Eliot so it’s BAD, then.
And: Celine Dion good, David Bowie BAD… ? Is most “Rap” okay if the brothers haven’t read too many books? (Mos Def: BAD)…
“Ever story should have. . . .”? Quite a distortion, “Stu.” No, I’m just one solitary voice, among thousands, trying to be heard.
Sure, I hope that some literature presents a social context– which I tried to do with “K and K.”
I don’t expect ‘every’ story to present the truth of the world we live in. I hope, as a reader, that occasionally fiction present the truth about the world that I live in. To me, it’s a sad statement that I find more relevance about today’s dog-eat-dog society in “The Octopus” or “The Iron Heel’ than in most contemporary literature. I’m writing stories because everyone’s been telling me I should be writing. As I’ve said, I’d rather promote writers, as I did for a brief time with the ULA. Unfortunately, there are very few if any writers willing to write “pop,” in the short form; whether because it’s beneath them, or because of my reputation, I don’t know.
*****************************************
Re Fitzgerald. Any analogy is imperfect. Fitzgerald read serious literature but it’s indisputable that he also read a great deal of pop stuff, which influenced his work. While he could write brilliantly, he was also able to write simple declarative sentences in order to advance the plot.
Of course the academy gets a few things right. Even the Soviet Union did some things right– but was the ultimate example at the same time of the bureaucratic mindset out of control. The idea should be to question, always, the assumptions of the academy, or any powerful institution which takes up giant space in our culture.
I’m not saying that there should be no place for the individual in literature. That’s absurd. I’m arguing that the individual shouldn’t be all we get from our literature. The homogeniety of literature isn’t perceived. Examine recent “Best” short story collections and you’ll see a sameness to the works. I’ve addressed this elsewhere.
Coover, Barth, Barthelme were “popular” in the sense that historian Hobsbawm talks about– a relative popularity due to the increase in those attending universities– their popularity scarcely extended beyond the reach of academe.
You ask, Matt, why does it matter if you produce the kind of writing I don’t enjoy?
The question answers itself. Ultimately it doesn’t matter. If you write only for yourself, good for you. More power to you. What I say on any subject shouldn’t matter to you. You’ve removed yourself from the argument. On the other hand, I write only to get my ideas across to others. Likely wasting my time!– but on occasion I’m able to provoke thought or at least reaction among the sleepwalkers.
“The term was created in the 1880’s. It reached a peak of relevance after WWI.”
Oh shit! You mean the term has EXPIRED? Good catch. I’m going to look through a dictionary right after this and cross out all the words that were created on or before Jan 1 1880!!!
??? How so? Do you want total agreement? Do you fear ideas which come from outside the herd?
The herd? Really?
King, I was under the impression that you’re PRO-HERD. Now you’re claiming to come from outside of THE HERD? Isn’t that the very thing you angrily accuse those fancy post-modernists of doing? Or, do you mean there’s a GOOD HERD and a BAD HERD and you’re outside the latter but within the former kind of thing…?
The only difference between us that I can see is how we use the term “avant-garde.” You give it a broad definition, while I’ve been using it to refer to a specific cultural movement– the way the erm was used throughout the creation of rock n roll.
By your light, the Underground Literary Alliance was avant-garde. Which is why I don’t understand your past hostility to the ULA.
What I tried to do with the ULA was little different from what Freed did with rock n roll.
The ULA was created by DIY zine writers– some who, like Bill Blackolive and Jack Saunders, had been doing zines at least since the 70’s. These guys were low-rent artists in the same way as was Jelly Roll Morton. I brought them into the ULA along with many of the best young zine writers of the 1990’s.
At the same time, we witnessed phony DIYers like Mr. Eggers, whose ultra-expensive McSweeney’s was created with money from Simon & Schuster, with work from the most connected elite writers in New York, and yet for street cred in some circles was marketed as a “zine,” to which of course the ULA objected.
How was Eggers in this case not the Pat Boone of contemporary literature?
Yes, the ULA was totally scorned by literary intellectuals– but then, so was the entire history of rock n roll, Jelly Roll Morton inclusive, up until the early 1960s.
I can bow to your superior understanding of the history of rock n roll, and it doesn’t change my overall argument one iota. If anything, it strengthens my argument.
Surely, you don’t believe there’s anything cutting edge– “avant-garde”– about what’s passed off as contemporary literature?
To clarify, I wasn’t trying to remove myself from the argument, only saying that I’m personally not interested in moving my aesthetic on the basis of what I think some perceived readership might connect with. Or writing, specifically, for you. Meaning, I write the way I write, and if that connects with some people, then great. If other people connect with some other writer, that’s great, too. The world is big enough for lots of different kinds of writing. So, I didn’t mean to pull some sort of “I only write for myself” argument, only to say I’m not sure I get your rigid belief in the value of a particular aesthetic, when there are clearly people who enjoy writers like Barth or Barthelme or Gaddis or Stein or Barnes or whoever.
Your response seems reasonable, but I get the feeling that you’ve got a very specific idea of what literature should be (correct me if I’m wrong) and that’s where I’d disagree, because I don’t see how the existence of something like Best American Short Stories matters. It doesn’t stop you from doing your thing. Why is it a bad thing if my vision of what literature is differs from yours?
There’s the dominant herd of contemporary literature. I’m not pro-herd. I don’t read james patterson. My goal has always been not to join the media monopolies– including the book giants– but to compete with them and, as absurd as it sounds, overthrow them.
Re the business history of rock n roll. It was a business revolution. before the rock explosion in the 50s, the top four record companies controlled 90% of the market. Within a few years, hundreds of DIY labels like Sun took away half the bigs market share. (And that was with Sun selling Elvis to RCA.) This was an earth-shattering occurence within the halls of U.S. capitalism. Ergo, Alan Freed and Dick Clark were called before Congress on “payola” charges, in a show trial, and broken. Clark famously said that he was forced to dissolve 100 corporations in one day. The upstarts were turned or, in effect, in Freed’s case, killed.
These low rent guys revolutionized business simply by offering a more populist, more accessible product.
See my “Literature’s Herd” from a couple months ago at my main blog.
??? Strange words from someone who spends as much time online on self-advertisement as I do.
Let’s see– I’ve written ten short stories, now up at my “Pop” and “Detroit” blogs, in the past six months. I have many more in the hopper. How much writing d’ya want?
Re Bernstein. It can easily be shown that West Side Story was acceptable music, in several respects the product of institutions. Bernstein was the apex of academic art. I’m not knocking what he put out– I like much of it– but I’m distinguishing him from the likes of, say, Jelly Roll Morton. There was a huge difference between them. Surely you can acknowledge that.
p.s. I have no power to be a czar of anything. But there are literary czars out there who decide what is or isn’t literature– characters like James Wood connected to powerful status quo institutions, from Harvard to The New Yorker. Sorry if I reject all of that noise.
Would Van Gogh be Van Gogh if his paintings were in black and white?
Yes, “Lawrence” is a superior movie to “High Noon,” in that it provides a superior artistic experience– more moving, more aesthetically overwhelming. That’s the reality.
“Which is why I don’t understand your past hostility to the ULA.”
King, you invite hostility by formulating acceptance-or-rejection of the material you’re hawking as a moral issue! laugh
But, hey: don’t mention Eggers or Foer or Chabon or whoever to me… ain’t into it. My pantheon includes Bowles, Burroughs, DeLillo, Didion, Harlan Ellison, Bradbury, Vonnegut, Kundera, Roth, Miller…
“I write only to get my ideas across to others. Likely wasting my time!– but on occasion I’m able to provoke thought or at least reaction among the sleepwalkers.”
King, examine that statement. How many “sleepwalkers” do you really think your “ideas” are going to reach?
Write what you like but statements like that counter-indicate the presence of a Lit Messiah. I’m a swashbuckling asshole, too (when it comes to NormLibs and Neocons, mostly) but I’m not trying to *sell* anything. Nor do I bash readers around the head with horseshit-laden socks if they don’t read my stuff or if they fail to love the stuff of mine they do read. I have my deranged little clump of avid readers. But I don’t think that the difference between people who share my literary tastes and those who don’t is a Geniuses vs Dupes situation. “Dupes” are people who think we’re in Iraq to help Iraqis, for example… (laugh: sorry: had to slip one in).
Your presentation is at odds with itself in your mission for converts.
Also: seriously: the passion and intelligence (though the logics be wobbly) of your advocacy indicates there’s a decent writer in there if you’d be a little harder on yourself. Writing for “the common man” doesn’t mean relying almost completely on cliches. You can take the same plots but use stronger/finer language and thereby step into the ring. How can you *cut through* at all if your language is no better than millions of the merely-competent? Kerouac’s stuff isn’t built on cliches. Bukowski’s cliches are at least native to his era and milieu. Twain was a technically-proficient MFer.
I’m all for Luci’s line about ruling in Hell instead of serving in Heaven but it has to be a Hell of Excellence. Those are my thoughts (full of shit or not) and I tip my hat to your heroic attempt against overwhelming odds in a possibly-wrong-headed battle.
Anyone can claim to be a mouthpiece for anything. You’re here acting unwittingly as a mouthpiece for the status quo. Those accepted as mouthpieces, because of the herd mindset, are determined who has the most power. I have no power whatsoever, so what I say has to be rejected. Harper-Collins has mucho power, so those who align with it are acceptable. Humans are only in part logical animals.
wait, infinite jest as phd program lit?
i’m a community college dropout, and IJ is one of my favorite books.
augustine is a troll
Oh dear little Pine, you jealous little turd of mediocrity. Perfect name.
Hi, King. I’m confused. Forgive me if I’m reading you wrong, but it sounds like you are angry about a perceived homogeneity in literature caused primarily by academics (or new york publishing? these things do not correlate, in my opinion), and that you see postmodernism or experimental or avant-garde (or however you’d like to label it) as the the problem with literature, and that you’re calling for a return to the kind of writing you see in a writer like Fitzgerald, a kind of writing (like Friends, maybe?) that would appeal to a mass audience, who, alienated by the current state of literature, do not read? Am I right so far? If not, then I think the rest of what I’m going to write is off, but how do you account for the popularity of writers like Barth, Barthelme, and Coover at their heights? How do you account for the Black Arts Movement? What about late John Coltrane records? William Burroughs? These are examples, I think, of moments when the avant-garde did seem to speak to wider audiences, aren’t they? And Fitzgerald seems like a strange example, as the Great Gatsby is widely accepted by the ‘academy’ as an example of Modernism at its best? Does the academy sometimes get it right?
And more generally, why is it a bad thing for people to write what they want to write? I probably do not produce the kind of writing that you would enjoy, but why does that matter? I’m not that concerned with how many readers I have – certainly, it is nice when somebody acknowledges something I’ve written, but I’m not so bent on audience that I change my writing in any attempt to gain a wider readership. I just write what I write and hope that it connects with some people. What I think you’re suggesting seems anti-art to me, that there’s no place for the individual in writing, that writers should bend their aesthetic in an attempt to gain acceptance. Again, forgive me if I’m reading you wrong – this is a wild thread.
I’m also confused, because what you seem to be looking for in writing (from reading your own work) is minimal realism, which has been the dominant mode for thirty years, so I’m not sure what else you want. Is it the content that bothers you? Like more people need to be writing about ‘real’ stuff (like Jay Gatsby??)
“What I think you’re suggesting seems anti-art to me, that there’s no place for the individual in writing, that writers should bend their aesthetic in an attempt to gain acceptance.”
Wanky believes that the “individual” in writing is “solipsistic,” a “bourgie” convention that ignores the realities of the world. Because see, every story should reflect the “truth” of the world we live in. Every story should have the resonance of the works of Jack London, O’Henry, Steinbeck, et al. He calls the realism you refer to: “narrow realism.” You will be wrong. He will be right. History will prove it. And you can’t argue with that. Because Wanky knows all. He is just a misunderstood genius. You could spend your entire life studying the likes of Shakespeare and Marlowe and Chaucer and still, you wouldn’t come close to accumulating his barroom knowledge.
Read “Kevin & Koreena,” man. It’s up on his blog! A one foot tall woman! Wow!
“Ever story should have. . . .”? Quite a distortion, “Stu.” No, I’m just one solitary voice, among thousands, trying to be heard.
Sure, I hope that some literature presents a social context– which I tried to do with “K and K.”
I don’t expect ‘every’ story to present the truth of the world we live in. I hope, as a reader, that occasionally fiction present the truth about the world that I live in. To me, it’s a sad statement that I find more relevance about today’s dog-eat-dog society in “The Octopus” or “The Iron Heel’ than in most contemporary literature. I’m writing stories because everyone’s been telling me I should be writing. As I’ve said, I’d rather promote writers, as I did for a brief time with the ULA. Unfortunately, there are very few if any writers willing to write “pop,” in the short form; whether because it’s beneath them, or because of my reputation, I don’t know.
*****************************************
Re Fitzgerald. Any analogy is imperfect. Fitzgerald read serious literature but it’s indisputable that he also read a great deal of pop stuff, which influenced his work. While he could write brilliantly, he was also able to write simple declarative sentences in order to advance the plot.
Of course the academy gets a few things right. Even the Soviet Union did some things right– but was the ultimate example at the same time of the bureaucratic mindset out of control. The idea should be to question, always, the assumptions of the academy, or any powerful institution which takes up giant space in our culture.
I’m not saying that there should be no place for the individual in literature. That’s absurd. I’m arguing that the individual shouldn’t be all we get from our literature. The homogeniety of literature isn’t perceived. Examine recent “Best” short story collections and you’ll see a sameness to the works. I’ve addressed this elsewhere.
Coover, Barth, Barthelme were “popular” in the sense that historian Hobsbawm talks about– a relative popularity due to the increase in those attending universities– their popularity scarcely extended beyond the reach of academe.
You ask, Matt, why does it matter if you produce the kind of writing I don’t enjoy?
The question answers itself. Ultimately it doesn’t matter. If you write only for yourself, good for you. More power to you. What I say on any subject shouldn’t matter to you. You’ve removed yourself from the argument. On the other hand, I write only to get my ideas across to others. Likely wasting my time!– but on occasion I’m able to provoke thought or at least reaction among the sleepwalkers.
To clarify, I wasn’t trying to remove myself from the argument, only saying that I’m personally not interested in moving my aesthetic on the basis of what I think some perceived readership might connect with. Or writing, specifically, for you. Meaning, I write the way I write, and if that connects with some people, then great. If other people connect with some other writer, that’s great, too. The world is big enough for lots of different kinds of writing. So, I didn’t mean to pull some sort of “I only write for myself” argument, only to say I’m not sure I get your rigid belief in the value of a particular aesthetic, when there are clearly people who enjoy writers like Barth or Barthelme or Gaddis or Stein or Barnes or whoever.
Your response seems reasonable, but I get the feeling that you’ve got a very specific idea of what literature should be (correct me if I’m wrong) and that’s where I’d disagree, because I don’t see how the existence of something like Best American Short Stories matters. It doesn’t stop you from doing your thing. Why is it a bad thing if my vision of what literature is differs from yours?
“I write only to get my ideas across to others. Likely wasting my time!– but on occasion I’m able to provoke thought or at least reaction among the sleepwalkers.”
King, examine that statement. How many “sleepwalkers” do you really think your “ideas” are going to reach?
Write what you like but statements like that counter-indicate the presence of a Lit Messiah. I’m a swashbuckling asshole, too (when it comes to NormLibs and Neocons, mostly) but I’m not trying to *sell* anything. Nor do I bash readers around the head with horseshit-laden socks if they don’t read my stuff or if they fail to love the stuff of mine they do read. I have my deranged little clump of avid readers. But I don’t think that the difference between people who share my literary tastes and those who don’t is a Geniuses vs Dupes situation. “Dupes” are people who think we’re in Iraq to help Iraqis, for example… (laugh: sorry: had to slip one in).
Your presentation is at odds with itself in your mission for converts.
Also: seriously: the passion and intelligence (though the logics be wobbly) of your advocacy indicates there’s a decent writer in there if you’d be a little harder on yourself. Writing for “the common man” doesn’t mean relying almost completely on cliches. You can take the same plots but use stronger/finer language and thereby step into the ring. How can you *cut through* at all if your language is no better than millions of the merely-competent? Kerouac’s stuff isn’t built on cliches. Bukowski’s cliches are at least native to his era and milieu. Twain was a technically-proficient MFer.
I’m all for Luci’s line about ruling in Hell instead of serving in Heaven but it has to be a Hell of Excellence. Those are my thoughts (full of shit or not) and I tip my hat to your heroic attempt against overwhelming odds in a possibly-wrong-headed battle.
Wenclas and his group made it into the Believer years ago: http://www.believermag.com/issues/200307/?read=article_bissell
“That’s when I realized that “compelling narratives” don’t really mean shit.”
I couldn’t disagree more. It depresses me to read that sentence.
http://www.literaryrevolution.com/wenclas.html
Wenclas and his group made it into the Believer years ago: http://www.believermag.com/issues/200307/?read=article_bissell
“That’s when I realized that “compelling narratives” don’t really mean shit.”
I couldn’t disagree more. It depresses me to read that sentence.
Thanks for your remarks– but you don’t get what I’m doing. I’m deliberately writing “pop,” cliches and all. In some ways, the cliches (which I consider artistic motifs) are the point! Wait’ll you see the next stuff I’m putting up– which will bring back “Fake Face” and go further into literary shorthand.
Why?
Because it’s more fun to read and also to write.
Why in the world would I want to create standard “literary” writing, which 400,000 MFA grads already are doing? “Finer” language? No thanks! Fine language has killed the art.
Are there millions of writers out there creating good pop? Really? I haven’t seen it. If you know a few, please have them submit to my American Pop Lit blog.
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What I find kind of funny with much of the posturing that’s been going on here, about writers writing for themself, or for “one reader,” is that it’s not honest. If anyone here was writing for themself, they wouldn’t have spent a fortune on an MFA certificate. They wouldn’t be submitting work to agents. Let’s get real here. All of you seek an audience.
Yes, everyone writes for themself so they can be fully creative and individual yet all their work sounds alike. It conforms to the standards of the pack. A good example is the reaction to my “Kevin and Koreena” story. Hackwork! The herd has spoken! The guy’s a hack!
One can imagine the unwary person entering a writing program and discovering that he/she had better quickly fall into line or be dismissed.
MFA writers aren’t writing what they want, or what they enjoy writing, or anything entertaining, even to themselves. The proof of this is in the recent line of New Yorker stories.
Has Jonathan Franzen ever enjoyed a minute of his writing? I kind of doubt it. His recent story is very serious serious as well as dutiful dutiful. One can envision him very seriously at his laptop seriously creating it. “Literature.” With a capital L. That’s how it reads. There’s not a moment of joy or excitement or life to it.
I thank God I didn’t go through the institutional process. You know what? I like “Kevin and Koreena” and wouldn’t change it. I like calling Detroit “Depressionville” and making Koreena one foot tall and Kevin kind of a stooge. They’re likable characters who I’ve put amid a painted backdrop– albeit some cliches helping this– and I’ve accomplished with the modest tale everything I intended. It’s Pop. It’s what my blog announces. Not pure pop, or even power pop, but I’ll get there after a dozen or so more stories and experimenting.
*****************************************
Fact is that poor Matt, like so many others, turns the argument on its head, possibly because he’s never before seen the moldy assumptions of the literary world challenged.
Again, I’m one guy. One solitary voice, with unorthodox ideas that are scarcely a threat to anyone. Yet the reaction is like an elephant confronting a mouse. “We weak 400,000 MFAers and our hundreds of writing programs and the institutionalized agents book conglomerates etc will all be wiped out– tomorrow! By ‘King’ Wenclas!!” It’s hysteria.
Matt, we’ve already seen in the reaction to my modest story what kind of writer is endangered or marginalized by the crowd. It’s not you, and it’s not anyone connected with this blog. I’m not trying to wipe out your vision or Barth’s vision or anyone’s vision. I’m simply propounding a vision of my own. Relax a little in the face of mild criticism of things-as-they-are.
“If you’re going to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk.”
– Tuco, in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
“I’m simply propounding a vision of my own.” – KW
Question: if a story is composed of a quilt of cliches (as you readily admit to), does it really comprise a ‘vision of one’s own?’ Just asking.
Don’t get me wrong: i’m not an MFAer either, I’m a community college dropout, and entirely self-taught in literature, but your stance on this whole thing seems…. misguided. I wanted to like your story, I really did. I read this whole thread, didn’t agree with hardly a thing you said, but goddamn, i still wished that you could back this up with a good lowbrow and fun and smart story.
I don’t know. I’m no expert on these things, but I think if you’re trying to reach everybody, you’ll end up reaching nobody, and instead of developing a long and healthy relationship with a readership, it just ends up as you jacking off in the middle of town square and making uncomfortable eye contact with everyone.
That’s a pretty wobbly review of my story, Wobbly. Your analogy better applies to the more solipsistic versions of the standard literary story.
No, you’re not an MFA grad. Neither are you a community college dropout. According to your link, you’re a Tums ad.
Yes, obvious paint strokes are part of an overall vision.
p.s. “Trying to reach everybody you end up reaching nobody” is, er, a cliche.
Thanks for your remarks– but you don’t get what I’m doing. I’m deliberately writing “pop,” cliches and all. In some ways, the cliches (which I consider artistic motifs) are the point! Wait’ll you see the next stuff I’m putting up– which will bring back “Fake Face” and go further into literary shorthand.
Why?
Because it’s more fun to read and also to write.
Why in the world would I want to create standard “literary” writing, which 400,000 MFA grads already are doing? “Finer” language? No thanks! Fine language has killed the art.
Are there millions of writers out there creating good pop? Really? I haven’t seen it. If you know a few, please have them submit to my American Pop Lit blog.
**************************************
What I find kind of funny with much of the posturing that’s been going on here, about writers writing for themself, or for “one reader,” is that it’s not honest. If anyone here was writing for themself, they wouldn’t have spent a fortune on an MFA certificate. They wouldn’t be submitting work to agents. Let’s get real here. All of you seek an audience.
Yes, everyone writes for themself so they can be fully creative and individual yet all their work sounds alike. It conforms to the standards of the pack. A good example is the reaction to my “Kevin and Koreena” story. Hackwork! The herd has spoken! The guy’s a hack!
One can imagine the unwary person entering a writing program and discovering that he/she had better quickly fall into line or be dismissed.
MFA writers aren’t writing what they want, or what they enjoy writing, or anything entertaining, even to themselves. The proof of this is in the recent line of New Yorker stories.
Has Jonathan Franzen ever enjoyed a minute of his writing? I kind of doubt it. His recent story is very serious serious as well as dutiful dutiful. One can envision him very seriously at his laptop seriously creating it. “Literature.” With a capital L. That’s how it reads. There’s not a moment of joy or excitement or life to it.
I thank God I didn’t go through the institutional process. You know what? I like “Kevin and Koreena” and wouldn’t change it. I like calling Detroit “Depressionville” and making Koreena one foot tall and Kevin kind of a stooge. They’re likable characters who I’ve put amid a painted backdrop– albeit some cliches helping this– and I’ve accomplished with the modest tale everything I intended. It’s Pop. It’s what my blog announces. Not pure pop, or even power pop, but I’ll get there after a dozen or so more stories and experimenting.
*****************************************
Fact is that poor Matt, like so many others, turns the argument on its head, possibly because he’s never before seen the moldy assumptions of the literary world challenged.
Again, I’m one guy. One solitary voice, with unorthodox ideas that are scarcely a threat to anyone. Yet the reaction is like an elephant confronting a mouse. “We weak 400,000 MFAers and our hundreds of writing programs and the institutionalized agents book conglomerates etc will all be wiped out– tomorrow! By ‘King’ Wenclas!!” It’s hysteria.
Matt, we’ve already seen in the reaction to my modest story what kind of writer is endangered or marginalized by the crowd. It’s not you, and it’s not anyone connected with this blog. I’m not trying to wipe out your vision or Barth’s vision or anyone’s vision. I’m simply propounding a vision of my own. Relax a little in the face of mild criticism of things-as-they-are.
“If you’re going to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk.”
– Tuco, in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
“I’m simply propounding a vision of my own.” – KW
Question: if a story is composed of a quilt of cliches (as you readily admit to), does it really comprise a ‘vision of one’s own?’ Just asking.
Don’t get me wrong: i’m not an MFAer either, I’m a community college dropout, and entirely self-taught in literature, but your stance on this whole thing seems…. misguided. I wanted to like your story, I really did. I read this whole thread, didn’t agree with hardly a thing you said, but goddamn, i still wished that you could back this up with a good lowbrow and fun and smart story.
I don’t know. I’m no expert on these things, but I think if you’re trying to reach everybody, you’ll end up reaching nobody, and instead of developing a long and healthy relationship with a readership, it just ends up as you jacking off in the middle of town square and making uncomfortable eye contact with everyone.
That’s a pretty wobbly review of my story, Wobbly. Your analogy better applies to the more solipsistic versions of the standard literary story.
No, you’re not an MFA grad. Neither are you a community college dropout. According to your link, you’re a Tums ad.
Yes, obvious paint strokes are part of an overall vision.
p.s. “Trying to reach everybody you end up reaching nobody” is, er, a cliche.