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April 15th, 2011 / 7:31 am postitbreakup—

I mean, I guess we can always have the debate about separating an author from their life, but… seriously… how can an indie-oriented blog support James Frey after his shittiness http://nymag.com/arts/books/features/69474/ here…

April 15th, 2011 / 4:05 pm Jscho—

lol…. r u serious

April 15th, 2011 / 4:31 pm Franklin Goodish—

“….big, bad James Frey” bahaha gotta admire a guy who can say that with the smell of oprah’s balls still in his mouth

April 15th, 2011 / 4:36 pm Franklin Goodish—

and, DON’T EVEN question me about “Charta” – you’ll see that the original was written at the Chart House and the “h”, due to a scarcity of ink, was dropped just before it was published

April 15th, 2011 / 4:50 pm SteampunkFurrySciFiFart—

Big, bad James Frey… who sat there whining as Oprah farted all over him.

April 15th, 2011 / 5:03 pm JimR—

What did you love about Bright Shiny Morning?

April 15th, 2011 / 5:24 pm postitbreakup—

Since I just realized that people might not click the link, I wanted to clarify that I’m talking about his “fiction factory” exploiting young writers and not the bogus memoir Oprah thing

April 15th, 2011 / 5:44 pm Franklin Goodish—

loooooong pause as Roxane grabs the book and then the microphone: “Everything” – cue up some Stillwater and we’re all set.

April 15th, 2011 / 5:46 pm Franklin Goodish—

hmm, not pleased vis-a-vis their desperation, just pleased I didn’t get my mfa.

April 15th, 2011 / 5:53 pm deadgod—

Argh. mister jimmy: http://htmlgiant.com/author-spotlight/two-little-pieces/ .

April 15th, 2011 / 5:59 pm deadgod—

– and don’t even question me about “ed”.

April 15th, 2011 / 6:24 pm STaugustine—

What’s all this talk about the “death of the novel”? As long as people with little taste enjoy books of little value by writers of zero talent… ! BIG-ASS PIPELINE OF LITCHA!!!

April 15th, 2011 / 9:31 pm Roxane—

I loved how it was told episodically. I loved the families the novel focused on. The approach Frey took in Bright Shiny Morning, I know, wasn’t the most original approach but he had an idea and he was so consistent with it and I thought he handled it well. I loved the odd details throughout and there was a lot of hear to the writing. I’ve read it a few times now and I love it more each time. It has surprised me, really. I don’t love all of Frey’s work but this book< I find outstanding.

April 15th, 2011 / 9:33 pm Roxane—

I meant what I said but had not considered a lot of hits/comments because this was just a snippet, not a full blown exegesis on James Frey.

April 15th, 2011 / 9:34 pm Roxane—

We’ve talked about his fiction factory here. I even wrote about it myself. That has little bearing on whether or not I’ll read this book which, as far as I know, he wrote himself, and not via his fiction factory.

April 15th, 2011 / 9:43 pm SteampunkFurrySciFiFart—

If he wrote it himself is it written in his horrible style.
Horrible style.
So Fucking horrible and lazy.
Takes no time to write.
Like some mother fucking frat boy who read one Hemingway story and his momma gave him cookie.
One cookie.
ONE MOTHER FUCKING COOKIE.
The pain.
The pain.
The pain.
Of reading James Frey.

April 15th, 2011 / 9:51 pm Jimmy Chen—

is that supposed to be a dong? odd way of rendering it. the accepted way is:

UU===D

April 15th, 2011 / 9:54 pm STaugustine—

“Fortunate” for crap, definitely.

April 15th, 2011 / 9:58 pm Roxane—

Haha

April 15th, 2011 / 10:12 pm SteampunkFurrySciFiFart—

Mine was a steampunk fart being expelled through fictional technology from a anthropomorphic fox’s butt.

April 15th, 2011 / 10:56 pm Jimmy Chen—

i wanna sleep next to deadgod and decide if there will be more

April 15th, 2011 / 11:13 pm Sean—

Jimmy Chen is one of the last humorists on earth. Not funny or clever, a humorist. Dorothy Parker would fuck Jimmy Chen. Not fuck him up (she would that, too) but FUCK him. Sex. But damn us all if Chen dies without making money off his wit. That WILL be tragedy. Go Mark Twain, Jimmy Chen. Twain knew being funny meant $$$$$. It is rare and glow as uranium to be funny, not blar reality show funny or pun in headline funny or even a good ol’ pratfall (damn, I miss pratfalls–dude who brings pratfalls back will make GaGa look like an insect), but uranium funny. And uranium costs. Mark Twain went all Mark Twain on his own self. Jimmy Chen needs to go all Jimmy Chen.

April 16th, 2011 / 3:27 am Ufa—

This reminds me of the first day of film school. We went around the class and everyone gave an example of the kind of movies that had inspired them to want to go to film school and this girl said, ‘Ghostbusters.’ At first we thought she was joking, and then we figured out she wasn’t. And we felt bad for her. That’s how I feel right now, how I feel for Roxane. I feel bad for her. That she would read a book by James Frey and get pleasure out of it. Aesthetic pleasure. Because he’s a bad writer. Not even a mediocre writer. He’s just plain bad. It’s like someone telling you that they’ve been listening to the new album by some random American Idol loser/contestant and it’s really, really good. I mean, what do you say to that, other than, You obviously don’t like music, do you? And spare me your discourse on taste and low and high culture and elitism. A chunk of shit slapped in between two slices of artisan Rosemary-Parmesan bread is still a shit sandwich.

April 16th, 2011 / 3:41 am Kyle Minor—

Roxane, I like Ghostbusters, too. I also like Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, reruns of Cheers, and the occasional meal at the Olive Garden. Last week I bought a shirt at JC Penney. I’m kind of excited because my father wants to go to a Triple-A baseball game next time he comes to visit. Probably while he’s here, we’ll drink some Coca-Cola and listen to Paul McCartney. I hope we will.

There’s a difference between being sophisticated enough to make fine distinctions about things and being frightenedly pseudo-sophisticated in a manner that requires the aspiring sophisticate to erect a big wall between what’s in and what’s out, and then tell everybody to get on one side or the other. The writers I admire the most have spent their lives saturated in high things and low things, and they sure as hell don’t run from pleasure for fear of being labeled a philistine. Roxane, I admire you for being honest about what you like instead of playing the holier-than-thou game that this chorus of anonymous commenters is playing. Last week I re-read parts of Finnegan’s Wake that I wanted to re-read. This week I read a few pages of Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October. I admired the way he described the nuclear submarines.

April 16th, 2011 / 5:09 am SteampunkFurrySciFiFart—

(__)==3

April 16th, 2011 / 6:23 am postitbreakup—

I went and looked up your article now. “He knows this and is comfortable with exploiting that desperation by creating a Ponzi scheme or a lottery, where he dangles the hope of commercial success in the faces of the relatively hopeless.” So… you are defensively, provocatively promoting someone who by your own words “exploits the desperation” of your fellow artists. Seems bizarre.

And I’m not even talking about someone like Polanski or whatever, where maybe they did something in their past and can we still read/watch their work, etc etc… This is a writer who is actively, continually, unapologetically making a business out of exploiting the community I thought this blog was for, and you wanna promote his new book? What the hell…?

April 16th, 2011 / 6:32 am Roxane—

Lots of people take advantage of writers. Let’s not act as if James Frey invented the practice. Here’s the thing, I’m not even that familiar with Frey’s canon. I was certainly not so familiar with him beyond knowing he got in trouble with Oprah and lied about his memoir as to realize that people had such strong feelings about his work. I wasn’t promoting his book though if I like the book, I will. I was noting that an excerpt of his work is now up at Vice and that I want to read the book. This is a very common practice around here, sharing such information, for writers who are well known and less than well known. I also named one book of his that I love. I do love that book and I don’t feel bad about it and I don’t think I have to take all this flack for it. Still, you have a problem with Frey and my providing a goddamned link to an excerpt from his book, fine, we’re each entitled to our opinions. It never crossed my mind that this would be an issue. I guess that was the cold medicine I was on. I don’t feel I should boycott Frey’s work because of his stupid business practices just as I don’t want to boycott Amazon. I find the fiction factory pretty troubling (wrote about it, briefly, here: http://htmlgiant.com/behind-the-scenes/lets-get-real/) but as long as we’re talking about adults who can read, which I assume writers in MFA programs are, if you read that contract and sign it, you should take some responsibility for doing so. The terms of that contract are revolting. I don’t care how starry eyed or unschooled an MFA student is. There’s nothing about that contract that makes sense for a writer. Some of the responsibility has to fall on our shoulders. It’s unfortunate and disturbing that Frey is so craven as to come up with the fiction factory but he did it because he understands writers will always be willing to sell their souls to the devil for a taste of literary fame and fortune and maybe a more productive conversation would be about a literary culture that compels young writers to consider signing this contract. I also tend to believe we should be able to talk about writers both as writers and people. Lots of writers are assholes but that doesn’t mean their work can’t be appreciated.

April 16th, 2011 / 7:42 am Roxane—

Look, I said writers should accept some responsibility, not all, and of course I am sympathetic to the plight of MFAs but it’s not as if people are choosing between the fiction factory and starvation. Writers do not join the fiction factory to escape poverty. That is not the kind of choice being made here as far as I can tell, nor are people joining the fiction factory to make art. And bringing rape into the equation is so… out of line. You cannot equate rape with signing a fiction factory contract. Anyway, I too have little else to say on the matter. It’s bizarre to get here from saying I like one book but such is the way of the Internet.

April 16th, 2011 / 7:50 am postitbreakup—

I guess I should have included a better thesis statement. I was not comparing rape to the fiction factory. I was saying that, while I was upset about the contract signing, when I looked at another, different case–the use of alcohol and then something bad happening–I have mixed feelings and would sympathize with people sometimes but not other times. I was actually trying to say that it’s understandable how I could see the contract thing as exploitation and you couldn’t, when even I myself, who try to be consistent like I think everyone does, can have two opposite opinions about the “drinking and then something bad happening” situation. Everyone draws their own boundaries, like you were saying above how taste is subjective. That’s what I was saying. I’m sorry if I’m not expressing myself super skillfully, as I mentioned I’m exhausted, and I’m actually done with this conversation, but I wouldn’t ever compare a fiction factory to rape.

April 16th, 2011 / 7:54 am postitbreakup—

*a better thesis statement than “hm. I don’t know”, i mean. which i know is not at all a good thesis statement but you’ll just have to take my word for it (or not, i guess) that i was trying to say “it’s complicated and contradictory” and not “fiction factory=rape”

April 16th, 2011 / 7:55 am Roxane—

Gotcha.

April 16th, 2011 / 10:05 am STaugustine—

Amen. One of the cultural illnesses of late capitalism is the consumerist delusion that knowing what one likes is a form of cultural expertise; not knowing the difference between film-as-art and film-as-populist-entertainment-craft is the kind of ignorance this delusion generates. Liking “Ghostbusters” and taking it *seriously* as Art are easily separable states (I liked “Ghostbusters” as simple fun though it’s hard to imagine needing to see it twice, unless children are involved)… but there’s an army of consumers out there who won’t know what I’m talking about and their ignorance sometimes makes them hostile: no biggie. Until they start flooding the film business. At which point the possibility of many new films, deeper than “Ghostbusters”, coming out, recedes into the nostalgic recollection of a Golden Age. Which is where we’re at.

And this syndrome threatens the practice of Literature-as-Art. Of course taste is subjective. That’s a given. But if that were the aesthetic-arguments-escape-hatch that some (eg Roxanne) seem to think it is, there’d be no place for cultural criticism. “De gustibus non est disputandum” needs a Godwin’s law for litblogs.

Reading-and-writing-as-entry-level-therapy is a useful thing until it crowds out the whole spectrum of uses. Which is what is happening.

And “Feel bad for yourself and the need to judge what others enjoy!!!” could be a banner in a mob of the narcissistically-ignorant. You aren’t being judged as a human (ie broader category of) for liking a piece-of-shit-writing… but as a practitioner of Lit. By all means, own your ignorance but have the good sense to protect the rest of us from it. Contrary to what we’ve been cynically led to believe, the narcissistic pride in ignorance is not empowering. Why not burn down the Louvre because you can’t fucking paint?

And @ Kyle: the argument is not between “high” and “low”; it’s between “exquisite” and “shit” and about the common practice of asserting that the difference between the two is merely a matter of taste. “High” and “low” (in your comment) are social registers, not levels of technique. Here, have a look at this painting by an elephant… right next to Guernica. The ten-year-old in the audience prefers the painting by the elephant. So what?

But @ Ufa: Roxanne *is* right: don’t feel bad for her: she’s in the majority. The majority usually wins. Feel bad for Lit.

April 16th, 2011 / 2:44 pm STaugustine—

But that’s just it: you haven’t taken any “analogy” further because you’re unable to; you’re lashing out, in the dull old standard witless way, because the idea that some cultural artifacts are *much* finer, and deserving of serious critique, than other artifacts, threatens you (for obvious reasons); let me guess the “arthouse” movies you consider “dull”…! Laugh. Stupid shits from your army have already essentially wiped out the modern market for decent films and now you’re working on Lit. Bravo, Doofie!

If wanting to preserve a little corner in the “cultural conversation” for material that isn’t aimed at dim-bulb teens is a sign of snobbery, I’m the fucking Mengele of Snobs and proud of it. Only in *this* analogy, the cattle cars are headed for Disney World and I didn’t even have to force your stupid asses on it.

Love,

Josef

April 16th, 2011 / 3:21 pm Sean—

Who in the fuck doesn’t like Ghostbusters?

April 16th, 2011 / 3:44 pm SteampunkFurrySciFiFart—

You guys deleted my response that was mostly just quoting the (completely awful) writing in the very link in the thread post?

April 16th, 2011 / 4:24 pm Roxane—

It is actually the project that interests me most, much the same way I am interested in this recent (though certainly not new) trend of literature that rises, in some way, out of scripture/religious canon–Adam Novy’s The Avian Gopels, Joshua Cohen’s Witz, Adam Levin’s The Instructions. At some point, I’ll probably post about all these books and how they inform one another because I think there’s an interesting connective thread there. Anyway.

April 16th, 2011 / 4:56 pm SteampunkFurrySciFiFart—

I, for one, couldn’t care less if Roxane or anyone else reads a James Frey book. Read whatever you want. But I do think it is odd that she finds it odd that people would have a negative reaction to talking about a really really bad mainstream author who can’t write, is most famous for being such a bad writer that he had to sell a crappy novel as a memoir to get people to buy it, who has such low literary aspirations that he spends is time co-writing crappy young adult genre books, and who, I may have forgotten to mention, is a really bad writer.

This board caters to people interested in the indie lit world and, theoretically, embraces challenging and innovative writing. If this was an underground noise rock messageboard and someone posted about how excited they were for the new Limp Bizkit CD, they’d have to expect some blowback as well.

April 16th, 2011 / 5:02 pm Roxane—

It’s actually fine, blow away. I did not know people consider Frey a bad writer. Lesson learned. And while this site indeed embraces challenging and innovative writing, there are also regular discussions of Gucci Mane. This site is not any one thing and the contributors reflect a diversity of thought.

April 16th, 2011 / 3:02 pm What’s wrong with liking what other people like? | HTMLGIANT—

[…] couple days ago, Roxane posted something about how she likes James Frey and a riot broke out. I wonder: are we supposed to dislike things just because the majority of the American people like […]

April 16th, 2011 / 8:49 pm deadgod—

Not having any personal contact with either of them, I don’t care if Frey or Ellis is creepy – though I entitle myself (?) to judging them for being creepy, ha ha ha. Being a straight-up liar about ‘memory’ is, what, a Bad Sign, but, as has been claimed in occult exculpation of Frey, almost every memoir has factual-accuracy problems. Reading should be about the sentences, structure, image/emotion/thought – the life (or scorn for life!) that a book enables resonantly. For me, Ellis is too – way too – infrequently glib to carry his sour Tragedy of Emotion in a Cold, Cruel World act, and, from the little I’ve read, Frey’s ambition To Change the Lives of Readers is left ridiculous by his, eh, talent.

April 16th, 2011 / 8:57 pm Kyle Minor—

deadgod, I think that if the criticism had been leveled in the thoughtful register you just offered, it might have been met with conversation of the sort your response opens up. But what happened here was Roxane posted one sentence about a book that interested her, without making any claims to its literary veracity or whatever, and people immediately responded with personal attacks, broadsides against arguments she didn’t make, news from freshman-ish ha-has from film school, and drawings of penises. If I’m going to be a snob about something, it’s probably discourse of that base sort, and I find it a little bit sad that this is the way the self-appointed guardians of high literary culture frame their attacks. If you want to claim the high ground in these areas, you probably ought to have the critical wheels to frame an argument with sufficient authority that your high ground credentials are vetted by even a middling intellect such as me. If you want to talk smart, I mean, you probably ought to talk your smart talk smartly.

For whatever it’s worth, I’m not a fan of James Frey. I am a fan of Roxane Gay, and also of civility.

April 16th, 2011 / 10:39 pm deadgod—

Well, the first of the two germane sentences in the blogicle is, indeed, an innocuous intro/link to the next Frey book. – as has been said, one of the purposes of this site, one that the complainers might each usually defend.

The second sentence in the blogicle is a declaration of eagerness for that book based on “love” for Frey’s previous novel – a recommendation of the earlier book to any fan of the declarer, in my view.

I’m not sure what you mean by “literary veracity”. The “loved” book is a novel – A Million Little Pieces was Frey’s “veracity”, eh, experiment – , and it’s “literary” value (to some) is at least hinted at by that expression of attachment.

– which probably is what led to the incivility that offends you: people are provoked to rudeness by extolments of writing they despise (and, ad hominem, of writers they despise). You’ll note some incivility in spurious support of Frey’s fan — it’s opinionated people (lucky us, right??), it’s the internet, it’s quarrels about taste, value, and meaning.

–

You don’t enjoy phatic – even when off-topic – drawings of penises (and vaginas, you misogynistic scalawag)???

April 16th, 2011 / 11:56 pm Sean—

I like a lot of what Augustine is saying on this thread, though the undercurrent of some past wrong, bitterness is clouding things up for me.

BUT

I really find the what is art: lump of mud versus a Michelangelo sculpture argument as fascinating.

April 17th, 2011 / 10:12 am STaugustine—

The only “bitterness” I feel is that an art-form I cherish is being fucked for future generations by lazy-assed, narcissistic, anti-intellectual products of the Entitlement Factory (and, no, I don’t mean college) who have colonized almost every square mile of the territory of this art-form.

Talented young artist/writers are being co-opted by the leveling-out effect of the “joining” function of the hive or discouraged/confused by all the easy praise and attention given to utter shit. Very , very few are able to produce good work (and continue to grow) under these conditions. Where you might’ve gotten ten really good writers out of 1,000 wannabes, in the past, it feels more like 1-in-1,000 now. If you’re concerned about Endangered Species…

I also have a problem with the use of the word “elitist” (implicit or explicit) in this “conversation”, because it’s being deployed as a description of some kind of ultimate evil (like “racism”)… but there are two different kinds of “elitism”. The conversation has not addressed this duality because it appears to be ignorant of it.

The truly evil version of the word refers to a belief-system (or unconscious mindset) that would exclude certain classes/races/nationalities from the “better” things (or even from sharing space with the “higher” classes/races/nationalities).

What I’m arguing for is the opposite: that class/race/gender/whatever shouldn’t limit anyone’s access to the full spectrum of the better things (which aren’t material or materially status-affirming). The Better Things are a multi-cultural inheritance of thousands of years’ worth of human (aesthetic) creativity. Ie you can be dirt-poor, trapped in the meanest ghetto, and have the tone and texture of your life enriched by Art (as an audience or a practitioner). That’s the way it should be (but, as we know, it’s generally not). And guess what: Lil Wayne ain’t Art in the same way a salad bowl ain’t Art (though there are some admittedly fancy salad bowls out there). Lil Wayne (and GaGa and Rhianna, et al) are Craft. They are tools to make their owners rich; they exist *only for that reason*. Without a nuanced critical framework in place, you aren’t in a position to meaningfully discriminate between an Art and a Craft (or third-way, blended genres like Film). There’s a spiritual element in Art, which humans have sacrificed their lives mastering, driven by obsessions beyond money.

But that’s my form of “elitism”: I think there’s a place for disposable shit in our lives but we’re committing spiritual suicide if we treat the exquisite aesthetic products of lifetimes of mastery as no better than cynically-engineered commercial bullshit the primary appeal of which is that you don’t have to do any thinking to “get” it. Which leads me to the “Machiavellian dumbing-down” riff.

If you don’t think the culture is Dumber, as a mean value, than it was about thirty years ago, you haven’t been paying attention. And if you don’t realize that this is the result of deliberate interventions, you’re naive.

We can’t understand *anything* about the Real State of the world if we’re unwilling or unable to do lots of rather intense reading. We won’t get this info from “news” clips or from headlines or from four-paragraph “articles” on Yahoo; we damn-sure won’t get it on Twitter. The people who buy and sell our futures every day prefer us to be lazy critical thinkers, suspicious of the intellect, limitlessly open to emotional manipulation and only literate enough to follow instructions.

Obviously, I’m not saying that Roxane *knows* that she’s doing her part to speed the Devil’s agenda along (not only by advertizing shitty Frey but by writing lazy shit herself and installing various pipelines of lazy writing); she’s just doing what everyone does, which is trying to find her place in the world. My “bitterness” comes from the fact that she’s oblivious to the damage she does and will remain so and will continue to encourage others to remain so.

April 18th, 2011 / 12:22 pm Yikes—

Dont flatter yourself, SAugustine, your just a grade A bore who posts long, dull posts in the comments sections of a literary blog. Dont start thinking you’re James Wood… Steve, youre just another anonymous internet bore with delusions of grandeur.

Some of us dont have to go around trying to prove how “serious” and “intellectual” we are probably because we arent as insecure about our own place in this world as you are.

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