Snippets
“But while Lish’s work can always be likened to self-pleasure, self-pleasure—mine and yours—cannot always be likened to Lish’s work. It is in this way—in its personal, private aspect—that his inky spatter is truly seminal. The first person, the ascendant voice of the past two centuries—from Dostoyevsky’s underground origins to Beckett’s authorial endgame—is today the shrillest voice of daily expression: the online overshare, the chat-window confessional. What once was literature—revelatory direct address—has become blogorrhea: the timestamped account of what happened this morning, of what our peeves and attractions are, of what we do to ourselves and one another by night. Lish was former laureate of that plaint, of its degrees of self-knowledge, its valences of tone. If Lish’s soliloquies have any counsel for today’s solipsistic culture it’s this: Every “I” will always be a fiction; every first person is the last person you were.” — Josh Cohen, from his Bookforum review of Lish’s Collected Fictions
Learning about the inner workings of an individual’s mind is one of the great pleasures of literature, especially when the mind is as obsessive, funny and original as Lish’s. It’s not the only pleasure, true, but it is one. To me, having a barcalounger described in detail can be a pleasure, too. Cohen comes across as a little strident and dogmatic in this review. And please, when you find a blog or a twitter page that has been written with as much care as some as Lish’s best work, let me know.
I don’t understand what this review is saying. God, I’m burnt.
good god, i love that last sentence.
I like the whole thing. Reminds me I need to order Lish’s book.
I’m with Gian. But mostly because: what the fuck with all the gawtdam dashes. Lish would be the first person to smash his own writing. Ask him about it sometime.
This review is saying the same thing that Cohen always seems to be saying outside of his fiction: he sucks and I rule. Cohen is starting to remind me of a better-read James Frey, all bluster and shit-tackling.
man. seems like cohen is going to be one of those love/hate people. im reading witz as of a couple of days ago. his writing is incredibly fun to read in a gass sort of way but better than gass in a way, or i prefer cohen to gass, but man, his opinions are too opinionful and like angsty. what he doesnt like about lish is pretty much exactly what i like about witz.
What is this blog’s fascination with Cohen? Does he have a contract or something with HTML Giant that every fart of his will be covered by this site?
You all seem to cover the same set of writers over and over again. “Indie” is starting to stand in for “inclusive.”
i dont know if htmlgiant serves as being everything thats indie, though. i mean, probably should take all indie lit blog/sites everywhere and then see who favorites are and then attribute it to something or other, but this is only one place at the table.
Learning about the inner workings of an individual’s mind is one of the great pleasures of literature, especially when the mind is as obsessive, funny and original as Lish’s. It’s not the only pleasure, true, but it is one. To me, having a barcalounger described in detail can be a pleasure, too. Cohen comes across as a little strident and dogmatic in this review. And please, when you find a blog or a twitter page that has been written with as much care as some as Lish’s best work, let me know.
True, I dunno. Maybe I’m just annoyed in general and just ranting; he seems to come off as a self-important douchebag.
I don’t understand what this review is saying. God, I’m burnt.
For my part, I hadn’t heard of Cohen before the pre-pub hype of Witz began. Seems like recently he has written several reviews/articles and taken part in interviews, so his name is showing up a lot on the web. I’m not under impression HTML G is promoting him.
good god, i love that last sentence.
I like the whole thing. Reminds me I need to order Lish’s book.
I’m with Gian. But mostly because: what the fuck with all the gawtdam dashes. Lish would be the first person to smash his own writing. Ask him about it sometime.
Cohen is a good writer and an insufferable dickweed. He needs to be humbled. He will. Give it time.
baggin’ on another successful writer, awesome
This review is saying the same thing that Cohen always seems to be saying outside of his fiction: he sucks and I rule. Cohen is starting to remind me of a better-read James Frey, all bluster and shit-tackling.
I said he’s a good writer. What more do you want? Kid’s got a big mouth. When you have a big mouth and you like to spew your bullshit to world expect a little flak for it. And what the fuck does being a successful writer have to do with anything? You mean it’s not cool to rip on someone because they’re making some scratch and getting a lot of hype? That’s absurd. Especially since I JUST READ A REVIEW WHERE HE BAGS ON ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL LITERARY EDITORS OF THE LAST 40 YEARS. So it’s okay for Cohen to write a louche, tactless review, but no one can call him on it? Don’t be so intellectually lazy, bro. Tighten up.
cohen’s ‘success’ is relevant because otherwise dissent against him would have no meaning. just let the guy enjoy well deserved attention, christ, witz took him like 8 years. it doesn’t help to make moral judgments on his character, it’s so irrelevant.
man. seems like cohen is going to be one of those love/hate people. im reading witz as of a couple of days ago. his writing is incredibly fun to read in a gass sort of way but better than gass in a way, or i prefer cohen to gass, but man, his opinions are too opinionful and like angsty. what he doesnt like about lish is pretty much exactly what i like about witz.
It’s not irrelevant when he’s making moral judgements on other writers. He’s a snot with a case of the Kill Daddy Blues. He wants this kind of attention and he’s going to get it, from all ten losers like me who care about shit like this and have nothing else better to do.
What is this blog’s fascination with Cohen? Does he have a contract or something with HTML Giant that every fart of his will be covered by this site?
You all seem to cover the same set of writers over and over again. “Indie” is starting to stand in for “inclusive.”
That’s what I figured. Dude definitely needs to be humbled. I haven’t read his work so I can’t comment on his writing.
i dont know if htmlgiant serves as being everything thats indie, though. i mean, probably should take all indie lit blog/sites everywhere and then see who favorites are and then attribute it to something or other, but this is only one place at the table.
True, I dunno. Maybe I’m just annoyed in general and just ranting; he seems to come off as a self-important douchebag.
For my part, I hadn’t heard of Cohen before the pre-pub hype of Witz began. Seems like recently he has written several reviews/articles and taken part in interviews, so his name is showing up a lot on the web. I’m not under impression HTML G is promoting him.
What is that? The self-awareness, Karl. Heehawing all “Man I’m being such a violent murderer right now!” as you bash someone’s head in doesn’t change the fact that you’re bashing their head in. What did you think that clause would achieve?
I left my copy of Witz at a friend’s house at the other end of England this morning. Pretty pissed off at myself about it. I only just got past Benjamin Israelien’s birth, and now it’s stuck 320 miles from where I am.
Christ, it’s like he’s strangling himself to death with his own sentences. I like the last one, though.
Seems more like an html fascination with Gordon Lish, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
Cohen is a good writer and an insufferable dickweed. He needs to be humbled. He will. Give it time.
we do not have a contract with cohen.
baggin’ on another successful writer, awesome
I said he’s a good writer. What more do you want? Kid’s got a big mouth. When you have a big mouth and you like to spew your bullshit to world expect a little flak for it. And what the fuck does being a successful writer have to do with anything? You mean it’s not cool to rip on someone because they’re making some scratch and getting a lot of hype? That’s absurd. Especially since I JUST READ A REVIEW WHERE HE BAGS ON ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL LITERARY EDITORS OF THE LAST 40 YEARS. So it’s okay for Cohen to write a louche, tactless review, but no one can call him on it? Don’t be so intellectually lazy, bro. Tighten up.
cohen’s ‘success’ is relevant because otherwise dissent against him would have no meaning. just let the guy enjoy well deserved attention, christ, witz took him like 8 years. it doesn’t help to make moral judgments on his character, it’s so irrelevant.
but you do have a contract with brian evenson, right?
Gordon Lish, Josh Cohen, Brian Evenson, Gary Lutz and Tao Lin are all the same person, and we do have a contract with her.
we do not have a contract with brian evenson.
It’s not irrelevant when he’s making moral judgements on other writers. He’s a snot with a case of the Kill Daddy Blues. He wants this kind of attention and he’s going to get it, from all ten losers like me who care about shit like this and have nothing else better to do.
That’s what I figured. Dude definitely needs to be humbled. I haven’t read his work so I can’t comment on his writing.
What is that? The self-awareness, Karl. Heehawing all “Man I’m being such a violent murderer right now!” as you bash someone’s head in doesn’t change the fact that you’re bashing their head in. What did you think that clause would achieve?
I left my copy of Witz at a friend’s house at the other end of England this morning. Pretty pissed off at myself about it. I only just got past Benjamin Israelien’s birth, and now it’s stuck 320 miles from where I am.
Half the writers that “HTML Giant loves,” I have no idea who they are. For real.
Christ, it’s like he’s strangling himself to death with his own sentences. I like the last one, though.
Seems more like an html fascination with Gordon Lish, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
we do not have a contract with cohen.
but you do have a contract with brian evenson, right?
Gordon Lish, Josh Cohen, Brian Evenson, Gary Lutz and Tao Lin are all the same person, and we do have a contract with her.
we do not have a contract with brian evenson.
Half the writers that “HTML Giant loves,” I have no idea who they are. For real.
Cohen is really a very good reviewer. The Lish review is good, and the “Henry Roth” review in the new Harper’s is about as good as reviewing gets. What I like about the reviews is how he doesn’t neglect his duty to describe the book, but the description is integrated so seamlessly into the argument (there’s always a strong argument — Cohen has spent enough time with the book to have something to say about it) that it doesn’t seem like a chore.
I also like how the reviews are themselves performances that are enjoyable to read. There’s nothing perfunctory about them. They have value as prose.
I want to write reviews this good one day. One way I’m learning is by studying Cohen’s reviews, the way I’ve also studied Wood, Deresewiecz, Kael, Metcalf, and Lee, and Kermode.
But: If Lish hadn’t “traduced” Carver, nobody would be talking about Carver all these years later. And: Cohen writes like a guy who reads like a guy who doesn’t have time to read. Keep him away from the Harold Brodkey story in which a guy needs thirty pages of going down on his GF to make her almost come… there might be trouble!
“Sitting here in my Barca, reading the Collected Fictions of Gordon Lish, I could be doing anything else.”
Kind of a non-sequitur in a book review of the book he could have been doing anything else but reading, no?
The last paragraph in the review (meant to knock our socks off with Josh’s cleverly-rationed wisdom, erudition and style) is nicely stocked with A) iffy theories about literary history (the mighty Third Person has, arguably, been the dominant voice of fiction since before the Epic of Gilgamesh) and B) fancy lines that don’t really mean much (“every first person is the last person you were”…cool! uh, what…?) and C) the blog-blashing that no up-and-coming “serious” critic would be without. Only, considering the fact that Josh opens the review with a first-person narrative about his dick (in the present-continuous, thanks), isn’t this a case of the bloggish calling the blogger blag?
Let him duke it out with Kirsch.
This comment confuses me: on one hand, you’re completely condescending (“Give it time,” you say, to imply that you’re much more mature and humble than Cohen), while on the other, you display your own immaturity and egoism by 1. being in such a position of authority as to deem who is a “good” v “bad” writer (you so generously put Cohen into the “good” category) and 2. calling him a “dickweed.” Are we back in middle school folks?
I haven’t yet tackled Witz, but everything I’ve read so far by/about Cohen convinces me more and more that he’s full of shit. “The ascendant voice of the past two centuries,” really? This “review” is no more worthwhile than James Wood’s.
“Cohen writes like a guy who reads like a guy who doesn’t have time to read” sums up my impression of him perfectly, and also sums up my (limited) impressions of his fiction.
“Kid’s got a big mouth. When you have a big mouth and you like to spew your bullshit to world expect a little flak for it.”
YES.
Yeah, I am with Kyle on this one. Don’t understand the hate.
Cohen is really a very good reviewer. The Lish review is good, and the “Henry Roth” review in the new Harper’s is about as good as reviewing gets. What I like about the reviews is how he doesn’t neglect his duty to describe the book, but the description is integrated so seamlessly into the argument (there’s always a strong argument — Cohen has spent enough time with the book to have something to say about it) that it doesn’t seem like a chore.
I also like how the reviews are themselves performances that are enjoyable to read. There’s nothing perfunctory about them. They have value as prose.
I want to write reviews this good one day. One way I’m learning is by studying Cohen’s reviews, the way I’ve also studied Wood, Deresewiecz, Kael, Metcalf, and Lee, and Kermode.
But: If Lish hadn’t “traduced” Carver, nobody would be talking about Carver all these years later. And: Cohen writes like a guy who reads like a guy who doesn’t have time to read. Keep him away from the Harold Brodkey story in which a guy needs thirty pages of going down on his GF to make her almost come… there might be trouble!
“Sitting here in my Barca, reading the Collected Fictions of Gordon Lish, I could be doing anything else.”
Kind of a non-sequitur in a book review of the book he could have been doing anything else but reading, no?
The last paragraph in the review (meant to knock our socks off with Josh’s cleverly-rationed wisdom, erudition and style) is nicely stocked with A) iffy theories about literary history (the mighty Third Person has, arguably, been the dominant voice of fiction since before the Epic of Gilgamesh) and B) fancy lines that don’t really mean much (“every first person is the last person you were”…cool! uh, what…?) and C) the blog-blashing that no up-and-coming “serious” critic would be without. Only, considering the fact that Josh opens the review with a first-person narrative about his dick (in the present-continuous, thanks), isn’t this a case of the bloggish calling the blogger blag?
Let him duke it out with Kirsch.
Hmmm, I’d say Cohen writes like a guy who has all the time in the world to read–in fact, who reads endlessly, insatiably. His first novel is the soliloquy of a violinist on-stage delivering an extended riff, a cadenza…straightforwardness and concision is not the issue at hand. It’s self-absorption that he’s taking Lish to task for, a linguistic variety which is disengaged from a larger world and which fails to transcend a contented solipsism. I haven’t read Lish’s fiction so I can’t weigh in on this; I kind of enjoyed the passage he quoted, which did recall Brodkey, good allusion. But also, I think it’s important to recognize in the review something deeper than a pot-shot at a luminary–there is genuine critique here on aesthetic (not moral) grounds.
Steven, in spite of the persistent power of the third person, would you really disagree that the first person has become “ascendant” in the last couple of centuries? Also, I’m pretty sure one thing you’re calling Cohen to task for is meant to be ironic, i.e. the opening–he says pretty straightaway that he’s impersonating Lish.
This comment confuses me: on one hand, you’re completely condescending (“Give it time,” you say, to imply that you’re much more mature and humble than Cohen), while on the other, you display your own immaturity and egoism by 1. being in such a position of authority as to deem who is a “good” v “bad” writer (you so generously put Cohen into the “good” category) and 2. calling him a “dickweed.” Are we back in middle school folks?
I haven’t yet tackled Witz, but everything I’ve read so far by/about Cohen convinces me more and more that he’s full of shit. “The ascendant voice of the past two centuries,” really? This “review” is no more worthwhile than James Wood’s.
“Cohen writes like a guy who reads like a guy who doesn’t have time to read” sums up my impression of him perfectly, and also sums up my (limited) impressions of his fiction.
“Kid’s got a big mouth. When you have a big mouth and you like to spew your bullshit to world expect a little flak for it.”
YES.
Yeah, I am with Kyle on this one. Don’t understand the hate.
Hmmm, I’d say Cohen writes like a guy who has all the time in the world to read–in fact, who reads endlessly, insatiably. His first novel is the soliloquy of a violinist on-stage delivering an extended riff, a cadenza…straightforwardness and concision is not the issue at hand. It’s self-absorption that he’s taking Lish to task for, a linguistic variety which is disengaged from a larger world and which fails to transcend a contented solipsism. I haven’t read Lish’s fiction so I can’t weigh in on this; I kind of enjoyed the passage he quoted, which did recall Brodkey, good allusion. But also, I think it’s important to recognize in the review something deeper than a pot-shot at a luminary–there is genuine critique here on aesthetic (not moral) grounds.
Steven, in spite of the persistent power of the third person, would you really disagree that the first person has become “ascendant” in the last couple of centuries? Also, I’m pretty sure one thing you’re calling Cohen to task for is meant to be ironic, i.e. the opening–he says pretty straightaway that he’s impersonating Lish.
Tim:
I felt too much the presence of Bloggy Snark in Josh’s take on Lish but I’m not qualified to review anything *but* this review. I can go along with the idea that there’s an awful lot of First Person online but I just don’t see it as “ascendant” (“a state or position of dominant power or importance”) these past 2 centuries (confessionals have always been with us but it’s still my sense that most tales were about the exploits of He and She). I think we’d need science to prove it either way, probably, so I wouldn’t press my argument.
But, listen: this “self-absorption” charge was first leveled at a few other “Great White Narcissists” of Lish’s vague age by DFW and I always thought D was being Art-betrayingly sanctimonious (or fishing for a Lesbian Blowjob) in that. There’s some kind of zeitgeisty Nuremberg for the Mailer-Updike-Lish generation at work here and I’m suspicious of it. Even if Lish writes 1,000 self-absorbed characters, that doesn’t A) prove Lish to be self-absorbed or B) prove self-absorption, in and of itself, to be some kind of literary failing.
Or, maybe it’s this: post 9/11, suddenly, there was this quasi-Mullah thing (see Wood, BR Meyers, Peck, Kirsch, Kookootani (sic) ) heavy in the Literary Air and I’m still sensitive to it.
A) iffy theories about literary history (the mighty Third Person has, arguably, been the dominant voice of fiction since before the Epic of Gilgamesh) and B) fancy lines that don’t really mean much (“every first person is the last person you were”…cool! uh, what…?) an
_________________
I agree. His comments on POV don’t make sense. He argues against the preponderance of first-person via a critique of a short story writer. A basic understanding of Narrative Theory and a cursory grasp of Bakhtin should be enough to understand the similarities between first-person and the kinds of close, inflected third-person POV’s most often used in short fiction (there is a difference, but not enough to focus solely on the first-person, as if the kinds of third-person used in short fiction are radically different from the first-person). Effective limited third-person has as much “voice” as first-person.
The review is tangential, lacks focus, and is disengaged with its own critical methods.
“Every first person is the last person you were.”
This is easy. It’s punny, so I can see where one would miss the meaning, but he’s talking about the way that any “I” is a construction: we can’t actually express ourselves, we only create ourselves, and as soon as we set down the I, we also pass out of it. Ergo, the “I” on the page can only describe the person you were last, not the person you are now — and as you continue to write, it recedes from you.
It feels like this stuff is not to your tastes, or you’re not reading it closely enough, and you’re getting mad about it, and that seems weird to me. So the guy’s critical of Lish and you don’t buy it. You’re uncritical of Lish and apparently Cohen doesn’t buy that. Not sure why this has to be a thing.
“This is easy. It’s punny, so I can see where one would miss the meaning, but he’s talking about the way that any “I” is a construction: we can’t actually express ourselves, we only create ourselves, and as soon as we set down the I, we also pass out of it.”
Got that already, Mike! My problem with it was that it was too obvious and only seems “clever” at all due to a “pun” that isn’t earned by (or contingent on) a deeper meaning. That’s the kind of facile flourish you can just about get away with if you *don’t* use it as the last line of a review.
“If Lish’s soliloquies have any counsel for today’s solipsistic culture it’s this: Every “I” will always be a fiction; every first person is the last person you were.”
Read the whole sentence closely: it’s less a literary insight than a chunklet of pop psychology; worse, it’s not even presented as the reviewer’s position or observation, but in the extremely passive construction of the “counsel” of Lish’s “soliloquies”. The tortured logic of that conclusion was necessitated by the fact that Josh had to find a way to get away with using that “pun”. It’s a long way around in order to get to a modest pay-off. Think about it.
Also: “for today’s solipsistic culture”… again, isn’t it possible to be a Literary Critic nowadays without imitating the tired old Saul Bellow young-fogey routine? I was hoping that Kirsch had used that one up.
Yeah. The whole thing is overblown in prose (“underground origins”) and empty in substance. It’s like a run-down of stock reviewing tropes. Dull imitation of author’s style, check. Claim that the writer “needs an editor,” check. Vapid blast at modern culture, check.
And I say this as someone who already thinks Lish is mostly hot air, and greatly resents his influence on the contemp writing scene.
i read this review again now and maybe my thouhgts are this. i tend to always have the backheaded thought that all writing is masturbatroy. like its something ive accepted. i read everything this way, i dont care much about anyone’s opinion or social perspective, no one’s attempt to be meaningful in fiction ever does anything, everything is always just some elses semin. cohen’s take on lish is not new, and lish doesnt hide it. he called one of his collections Self-imitation of Myself for h sakes. what i lvoe about lish though is exactly that he doesnt try to pretend that writing is anything but what cohen takes him to task for. cohen makes it seem like lish’s writing is utterly selfish, when i tend to think lish’s writing is selfish only because he believes that’s all it can ever be.
didnt meant this as a reply to you, kyle. meant it to be down there.
also, im not sure i agree that anyone’s collected fictions should be ‘reviewed.’ it gets too close to being a review of the person and not of the work. cohen’s not really reviewing the individual works here at all, or how they function within their own collections, etc. its more like, here’s all of lish and now what do you think.
Good to see you admit you understood it.
Don’t really follow what’s wrong with it other than that you don’t like or agree with it, or that you don’t enjoy the style, though. Seems like a complaint based on Cohen’s wearing a hat you don’t want him wearing. Think I am going to let this one go. Looks like you’ve got half an idea and quite a lot of resentment of someone else’s little bit of success to me. Seems like you could use this energy more productively.
I understand the sentence’s literal meaning; doesn’t mean he’s saying anything.
The lazy conflation of fictional first-person with forms of first-person cultural “confession” is weak, unoriginal, and tired. It’s also a myopic view for such a young writer, which is why some probably get the sense that he’s posturing in his reviews and indirectly pitting himself against other writers.
Also, my decision to focus on the reviewer’s review has nothing to do with my thoughts on Lish’s work.
anyway, maybe in closing this set of comments, cohen fascinates me as a writer right now and i plan to pay attention to his work in the near future. witz is slowly becoming one of my favorite books (to read) ever. its like kyle says, a performance. but im still trying to maybe get at the guts of his rhetoric. hooray!
Tim:
I felt too much the presence of Bloggy Snark in Josh’s take on Lish but I’m not qualified to review anything *but* this review. I can go along with the idea that there’s an awful lot of First Person online but I just don’t see it as “ascendant” (“a state or position of dominant power or importance”) these past 2 centuries (confessionals have always been with us but it’s still my sense that most tales were about the exploits of He and She). I think we’d need science to prove it either way, probably, so I wouldn’t press my argument.
But, listen: this “self-absorption” charge was first leveled at a few other “Great White Narcissists” of Lish’s vague age by DFW and I always thought D was being Art-betrayingly sanctimonious (or fishing for a Lesbian Blowjob) in that. There’s some kind of zeitgeisty Nuremberg for the Mailer-Updike-Lish generation at work here and I’m suspicious of it. Even if Lish writes 1,000 self-absorbed characters, that doesn’t A) prove Lish to be self-absorbed or B) prove self-absorption, in and of itself, to be some kind of literary failing.
Or, maybe it’s this: post 9/11, suddenly, there was this quasi-Mullah thing (see Wood, BR Meyers, Peck, Kirsch, Kookootani (sic) ) heavy in the Literary Air and I’m still sensitive to it.
A) iffy theories about literary history (the mighty Third Person has, arguably, been the dominant voice of fiction since before the Epic of Gilgamesh) and B) fancy lines that don’t really mean much (“every first person is the last person you were”…cool! uh, what…?) an
_________________
I agree. His comments on POV don’t make sense. He argues against the preponderance of first-person via a critique of a short story writer. A basic understanding of Narrative Theory and a cursory grasp of Bakhtin should be enough to understand the similarities between first-person and the kinds of close, inflected third-person POV’s most often used in short fiction (there is a difference, but not enough to focus solely on the first-person, as if the kinds of third-person used in short fiction are radically different from the first-person). Effective limited third-person has as much “voice” as first-person.
The review is tangential, lacks focus, and is disengaged with its own critical methods.
“Every first person is the last person you were.”
This is easy. It’s punny, so I can see where one would miss the meaning, but he’s talking about the way that any “I” is a construction: we can’t actually express ourselves, we only create ourselves, and as soon as we set down the I, we also pass out of it. Ergo, the “I” on the page can only describe the person you were last, not the person you are now — and as you continue to write, it recedes from you.
It feels like this stuff is not to your tastes, or you’re not reading it closely enough, and you’re getting mad about it, and that seems weird to me. So the guy’s critical of Lish and you don’t buy it. You’re uncritical of Lish and apparently Cohen doesn’t buy that. Not sure why this has to be a thing.
“This is easy. It’s punny, so I can see where one would miss the meaning, but he’s talking about the way that any “I” is a construction: we can’t actually express ourselves, we only create ourselves, and as soon as we set down the I, we also pass out of it.”
Got that already, Mike! My problem with it was that it was too obvious and only seems “clever” at all due to a “pun” that isn’t earned by (or contingent on) a deeper meaning. That’s the kind of facile flourish you can just about get away with if you *don’t* use it as the last line of a review.
“If Lish’s soliloquies have any counsel for today’s solipsistic culture it’s this: Every “I” will always be a fiction; every first person is the last person you were.”
Read the whole sentence closely: it’s less a literary insight than a chunklet of pop psychology; worse, it’s not even presented as the reviewer’s position or observation, but in the extremely passive construction of the “counsel” of Lish’s “soliloquies”. The tortured logic of that conclusion was necessitated by the fact that Josh had to find a way to get away with using that “pun”. It’s a long way around in order to get to a modest pay-off. Think about it.
Also: “for today’s solipsistic culture”… again, isn’t it possible to be a Literary Critic nowadays without imitating the tired old Saul Bellow young-fogey routine? I was hoping that Kirsch had used that one up.
Yeah. The whole thing is overblown in prose (“underground origins”) and empty in substance. It’s like a run-down of stock reviewing tropes. Dull imitation of author’s style, check. Claim that the writer “needs an editor,” check. Vapid blast at modern culture, check.
And I say this as someone who already thinks Lish is mostly hot air, and greatly resents his influence on the contemp writing scene.
i read this review again now and maybe my thouhgts are this. i tend to always have the backheaded thought that all writing is masturbatroy. like its something ive accepted. i read everything this way, i dont care much about anyone’s opinion or social perspective, no one’s attempt to be meaningful in fiction ever does anything, everything is always just some elses semin. cohen’s take on lish is not new, and lish doesnt hide it. he called one of his collections Self-imitation of Myself for h sakes. what i lvoe about lish though is exactly that he doesnt try to pretend that writing is anything but what cohen takes him to task for. cohen makes it seem like lish’s writing is utterly selfish, when i tend to think lish’s writing is selfish only because he believes that’s all it can ever be.
didnt meant this as a reply to you, kyle. meant it to be down there.
also, im not sure i agree that anyone’s collected fictions should be ‘reviewed.’ it gets too close to being a review of the person and not of the work. cohen’s not really reviewing the individual works here at all, or how they function within their own collections, etc. its more like, here’s all of lish and now what do you think.
Good to see you admit you understood it.
Don’t really follow what’s wrong with it other than that you don’t like or agree with it, or that you don’t enjoy the style, though. Seems like a complaint based on Cohen’s wearing a hat you don’t want him wearing. Think I am going to let this one go. Looks like you’ve got half an idea and quite a lot of resentment of someone else’s little bit of success to me. Seems like you could use this energy more productively.
I understand the sentence’s literal meaning; doesn’t mean he’s saying anything.
The lazy conflation of fictional first-person with forms of first-person cultural “confession” is weak, unoriginal, and tired. It’s also a myopic view for such a young writer, which is why some probably get the sense that he’s posturing in his reviews and indirectly pitting himself against other writers.
Also, my decision to focus on the reviewer’s review has nothing to do with my thoughts on Lish’s work.
anyway, maybe in closing this set of comments, cohen fascinates me as a writer right now and i plan to pay attention to his work in the near future. witz is slowly becoming one of my favorite books (to read) ever. its like kyle says, a performance. but im still trying to maybe get at the guts of his rhetoric. hooray!
Ha ha! Don’t worry, Mike you’re still free to love and admire Josh Cohen. He probably doesn’t need you to have a hissy-fit on his behalf, though. Save the ad hominems for when someone criticizes *you*, okay? Feeling secure in the quality of your arguments would probably help.
Ha ha! Don’t worry, Mike you’re still free to love and admire Josh Cohen. He probably doesn’t need you to have a hissy-fit on his behalf, though. Save the ad hominems for when someone criticizes *you*, okay? Feeling secure in the quality of your arguments would probably help.