How to revive literature?
Jeff Potter
the elite, produced by a bunch of out of touch rich people. Yuck.
Our culture won't make a comeback until literature makes a comeback. We
need a populist revolution in literature all over again. It's happened
before, it can happen again.
Literature is how a culture can know itself and explore its options in a
given climate. It's the artform directly related to the Queen Muse
(memory). It's the King Art that others descend from. It determines a
cultural climate. It...or else the lack thereof. When lit isn't on its
toes the first that happens is doublethink prevails. That's what we got
today.
Now, we can be proud that there's no more book banning. Yet we aren't
reaping positive social change from such freedom. Why? Because we've
encountered a more powerful form of banning than the law: the market.
Just ask Orwell, he wrote about this (see his collected letters for his
unpublished foreward to Animal Farm that declared the market to be more
dangerous than the law). Legal banning only makes books more popular. A
truly new and powerful book would be quashed silently. It simply
wouldn't fit any publisher's "market demographic," as they say. It won't
be promoted on TV due to fear of offending advertisers. And books need
TV today. What would Oprah say? We've had a limiting in the range of
expression without legal prohibition. You can even publish it, but you
can tell it to a hole in the ground. If you're outside the market loop,
you're off the map, out of sight. No impact. Actually, private lawsuits
have taken the place of criminal prosecution. A great book today would
be actionable in terms of: sex/race/libel, you can bet your booty. Would
any publisher today risk bankruptcy and jail? When is the last time this
happened? Naked Lunch? Can a publicly owned publisher do something
actionable even if he thought it was the right thing? His hands are
tied, right? You can't publish your conscience if you're publicly
traded. And some say the small press is even more risk averse! The books
are out there, though, more needed than ever before, and suppressed more
firmly. If a few somehow ever do get out and get promoted, they will
spark a new interest in reading, which will trickle down to uplift other
forms of reading which are similar. I think that we can expect CANDOR
and penetrating insight and honesty in particular to be a part of the
new era if it ever comes to pass.
Like all new movements, I think revival in lit will be led by the
underground. I suspect that ZINING is the dormant force here.
Lit is bad today because our delivery system is bad. The conditions of
lit production work against quality and candor and books which are
helpful to the everyday person. What are these conditions?
No literature is published today without it being connected with
academia and grants or prizes. This is a recent situation. It has not
yielded anything of quality. It yields a term paper style of fiction
which gives what the professor asks for. Ugh. Raymond Carver Lookalikes
and Hot House Flowers. It's a big reason why reading has plummeted.
Another essential condition of production today is Film Rights. Lit
writers today don't live on book sales but on film rights. A caring
publisher knows that a serious work will sell 5,000 copies (because it's
unreadable by the average joe and only insults him and makes him laugh
at its fool author). So to help his genius survive, he gets him film
sales via his connections. Options don't have to ever see the big screen
but they pay the bills for writers. Today there is an ironclad bond b/w
NYC literature and Hollywood. This used to be considered evil and deadly
for quality. For good reason. We have yet to see good books come from
this alliance or good work supported. The connection has wrecked good
potential, though. (Faulkner being the beginning of the end and Algren a
casualty.)
We have to break the chain. In all these respects.
To this end, some folks have started the Underground Literary Alliance,
the ULA. Its goal is to break the chain of reliance by literary
publishing on academia. They're exposing the lit-book hustle and gravy
train. They're agitating to get populist voices restored to literature.
Populism is the missing link they say and key to reviving the popularity
of reading in general. Hardhitting books are VITAL to reviving respect
in books. Search for discussions and articles about them on the web.
They're quite new but have already started several wild actions,
including hosting a press conference debate with George Plimpton and a
protest of millionaire socialite Rick Moody being awarded a Guggenheim
based on need, for the quality of his work which few people read and
which does not seem destined to make any kind of longlasting
contribution to the arts. They've published some zine issues on this
whole problem. But the first issue of their collective mag is just now
off the press and will get a release party in a couple weeks. They're
trying to work some tricky angles to build cachet, trying to play some
media hardball for a change. They're also going to agitate that populist
judges get placed on all grants and prizes panels. They say that the NPR
approach to lit is failing rapidly and miserably. You can easily find
contact addresses if you're interested. I'm a supporter, not a member.
--
Jeff Potter j...@outyourbackdoor.com
"Out Your Backdoor": Friendly Zine of Modern Folkways and Culture
Revival outyourbackdoor.com ... for a full line of alternative
outdoor culture books, bookstore & forum
Michael Zeleny
>Literature is anemic. It's losing readership fast. It's comfort food to
>the elite, produced by a bunch of out of touch rich people. Yuck.
You are monolingual at the most, aren't you?
Just a wild guess.
Cordially -- Mikhail Zel...@math.ucla.edu * M...@ptyx.com ** www.ptyx.com
God: "Ego sum qui sum." ** 7576 Willow Glen Road, Los Angeles, CA 90046
Descartes: "Cogito ergo sum." * 323.876.8234 (fon) * 323.876.8054 (fax)
Popeye: "Sum id quod sum et id totum est quod sum." ****** ICQ 25259231
established on 2.26.1958 ** itinerant philosopher * will think for food
Sayan Bhattacharyya
>Literature is anemic. It's losing readership fast. It's comfort food to
>the elite, produced by a bunch of out of touch rich people. Yuck.
The problem is that most `literature' in the US is written by academics
these days. Being an academic, while in some ways a vastly rewarding
experience intellectually, limits one's range of life experiences. The
academic world, in many ways, is a petty, inbred and boring world. Thus,
when someone who has been an academic in the West all their lives writes
a novel or a book of poems, it is not surprising that these works are
often anemic.
If we look at the giants of yesteryear, we see that writers were people
who *lived*, and often lived dangerously. Marlowe died in a tavern brawl.
Pushkin died in a duel. Byron died participating in the Greek War of
Independence. Jean Provost and St-Exupery died fighting in the French
Resistance. Hemingway fought in the Spanish civil war. These were people
who went out and did things, and their writing could not but reflect
the engagement that their lives lived.
Contrast them, then, to the sclerotic academics, living in sterilized
US suburbia, driving their SUVs to work every morning. Can such
circumscribed lives produce great literature that stirs the soul. It
is not possible. Their lot forbids.
Paul Ilechko
Jeff Potter wrote:
>
> Literature is anemic. It's losing readership fast. It's comfort food to
> the elite, produced by a bunch of out of touch rich people. Yuck.
Bullshit. Come back when you grow up.
Paul Ilechko
Sayan Bhattacharyya wrote:
>
> Jeff Potter <j...@glpbooks.com> wrote:
>
> >Literature is anemic. It's losing readership fast. It's comfort food to
> >the elite, produced by a bunch of out of touch rich people. Yuck.
>
> The problem is that most `literature' in the US is written by academics
> these days.
You mean like Cormac McCarthy, or David Foster Wallace ?
Michael Zeleny
David Foster Wallace is a fellow grad school dropout. My stint at the
Emerson Hall coincided with his aborted participation in the Harvard
philosophy Ph.D. program. He has taught at ISU since the fall of 1993.
I'd say that qualifies him as an academic.
doug bassett
must begin with a reconnection of writers to their common society.
doug
"Sayan Bhattacharyya" <bhat...@engin.umich.edu> wrote in message
news:_MYJ6.988$96....@srvr1.engin.umich.edu...
doug bassett
Cormac McCarthy is wonderful, but he's an oddball, isolate figure compared
to most contemporary writers, and is thus not a good example here.
I don't care for DFW
doug
"Paul Ilechko" <pile...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:3AF86511...@worldnet.att.net...
doug bassett
doug
"Paul Ilechko" <pile...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:3AF864B0...@worldnet.att.net...
doug bassett
Any responses I make in this thread should be read with that in mind.
doug
"Jeff Potter" <j...@glpbooks.com> wrote in message
news:3AF8406D...@glpbooks.com...
David Latane
Sayan Bhattacharyya wrote:
>
> If we look at the giants of yesteryear, we see that writers were people
> who *lived*, and often lived dangerously. Marlowe died in a tavern brawl.
> Pushkin died in a duel. Byron died participating in the Greek War of
> Independence. Jean Provost and St-Exupery died fighting in the French
> Resistance. Hemingway fought in the Spanish civil war. These were people
> who went out and did things, and their writing could not but reflect
> the engagement that their lives lived.
This seems awfully morbid. But death comes to academics too: What about
Barthes? he was an academic who he died after being run down by a laundry
truck. Walking in Paris is dangerous! Or Foucault, died after bonking have
the leatherboys in SF, or part-time academic Plath, gassing away . . .
>
>
> Contrast them, then, to the sclerotic academics, living in sterilized
> US suburbia, driving their SUVs to work every morning. Can such
> circumscribed lives produce great literature that stirs the soul. It
> is not possible. Their lot forbids.
Remember Wallace Stevens, says I. It's the ones who pretend to be bohemians
with scruffy leather jackets and old harleys while holding down their
high-paying government jobs you have to suspect.
D. latane
Jeff Potter
CM is esoteric. Not sociable. Not readable by the 'man on the street.' It
could make no difference to him. CM is for those who wish to savor an exotic,
coarse ambience exquisitely depicted. Populist writers do this when they're
resting and tackle bigger fish in their real work.
But I do quite like a lot of CM. It comes close. But even he is not gung ho
enough. Too polished and circumspect.
David Latane
doug bassett wrote:
> This is absolutely true. A reconnection of literature to the common society
> must begin with a reconnection of writers to their common society.
>
But the stagnant bureaucracy of academia is fully representative of the common
society, sadly enough. The appeal to "populism" is sentimental and nostalgic.
The best way to revive literature is not to rant and rave but to read and
write. The reason most "Zine" writers are shut out of most publishing venues
is not because they're rilly "populist" but because they're no more
interesting or pleasurable than the average usenet post.
D. latane
Maureen Scobie
Wordsworth, forefather of the 'zine crowd. Preface to the Lyrical
Ballads.
Maureen
smw
Sayan Bhattacharyya wrote:
> Contrast them, then, to the sclerotic academics, living in sterilized
> US suburbia, driving their SUVs to work every morning.
If you still think that academic salaries provide for SUVs, you ought to
reconsider your grad school plans.
s
hind al-hunud
<_MYJ6.988$96....@srvr1.engin.umich.edu> :
>
>>Literature is anemic. It's losing readership fast. It's comfort food to
>>the elite, produced by a bunch of out of touch rich people. Yuck.
>
>The problem is that most `literature' in the US is written by academics
>these days. Being an academic, while in some ways a vastly rewarding
>experience intellectually, limits one's range of life experiences. The
>academic world, in many ways, is a petty, inbred and boring world. Thus,
>when someone who has been an academic in the West all their lives writes
>a novel or a book of poems, it is not surprising that these works are
>often anemic.
>
>If we look at the giants of yesteryear, we see that writers were people
>who *lived*, and often lived dangerously
..like oh, Emily Dickinson and the Brontes and Jane Austen and Henry James?
_______________________________________________
Submitted via WebNewsReader of http://www.interbulletin.com
Jean Clarke
must now be politically correct, we dare not tell the truth for fear of
dire results. Morality is fast becoming passe, the work ethic is
something that old timers reflect on and younguns' have no time for.
Education is swept into an expensive blue bin because we must except
diversity for diversity's sake. We are fed a constant barrage of how we
must think, what we must feel, what we should know and not know. Steve
Allen's Dumbth tells it like it is, and I used to think Limbaugh was on
the track; now he has gotten artificially, rhetorically repetitious
since he has gotten married and built his nest egg, I have a healthy
reverence for academia, but I also recognize the diploma does not
guarantee strength of character and goodwill. " Can't we all just get
along." were only words after all, as hollow as our recent touchy feely
reasoning. Our colleges are over run with people, and scholars are
rare. But then......the stalls and seats that echoed the laughter and
the enthusiasm for Shakespeare, in his time, probably reeked with the
essence of the unwashed.....there never has been a perfect society.
Technology has separated us somewhat, but as a mass we are bores and
bored. I do find some solace on RAB, I love the tinkers and the
thinkers. I have hardly emptied the sand from my sandals and I am back
on the web reading threads and enjoying the voyeurism!
Just a Jeanie
Marko Amnell
I find all this talk of how literature today is estranged
from life a bit misguided, if not naive. Hasn't literature
always been an activity not just at one remove from life
(as a representation of it) but also an activity, that if
pursued wholeheartedly, whether as a serious reader
or a serious writer, leads to estrangement from life?
One thinks here of especially of Flaubert and Proust,
and 'absolute literature'. To read books, novels, too
many of them, is to remove oneself from ordinary
concerns, and in some sense to become liberated from
the banal pursuits of the majority. Practical men have
never read too many books, and have always considered
such a pursuit misguided. And the serious writer is not
really in touch with life as it truly is, but sacrifices his life to
recreate a magical mirror of life, whether accurate or--more
often--purposefully distorted in one way or another (such as
in satire). But one has to be careful here, for the writer
can actually be aware of elements in the life of many different
kind of people that the individuals themselves are not aware
of, or don't understand as well as the writer. That is
the writer's special, rare gift, to feel and understand the
motives, aims, worldviews and struggles of many very different
kind of people. But the writer's ultimate presentation of these
findings about life and society are never entirely accurate,
neither in their details nor their meaning. It is through that
very distortion of reality that the writer's art is expressed, and
his message, if he has one, transmitted to the reader. Aristotle
already stressed the exaggeration of all poetical characters,
and how, for example, they must be either much better or
much worse than any real person. So, I don't think the
problem with literature today is that novels, or poetry or,
plays, don't accurately reflect modern life. I think the
problem is the changed status of the writer, and more
specifically the loss, or great diminishment, of his political
significance. At the height of the success of the social
novel in the nineteenth century, writers like Dickens could
really affect the course of events in society. Dickens's
social critique of capitalism in fiction was almost as influential
in bringing about reforms as Marx's political writings
were in inspiring revolution. Even Salman Rushdie, perhaps
the most politically explosive writer today, cannot boast a
comparable political influence. So, I don't think literature
today is anemic and out of touch with life because it is
written mostly by academics. I think that is putting it
backwards. Literature is mostly written by academics
simply because there is no-one else around to continue
writing serious novels after literature lost the centrality
it once had in political life. I'm talking here about novels
that go beyond mere entertainment. Of course the
Stephen Kings and Tom Clancys are still around and
selling maybe more copies than ever before. But films
today are much more influential than books. Oliver Stone's
movies are a bit like Dickens's novels in that Stone
tries to tackle a certain socially controversial issue,
hoping to actually bring about change through his critique.
So, technological change, the shift from print culture to
film and TV, is one explanation for the decline in the
importance of literature. I think democracy is another
reason. The nineteenth century novel was always an
elitist institution, and with the rise of popular culture
over the last one hundred years, few are willing to accept
the authority of the Great Writer to speak on behalf
of 'ordinary people'. Everyone trusts their own
judgement.It's not that high culture has disappeared,
but just that the majority have little respect for the
authority of the producers of high culture to speak on
their behalf. We've gone, not from high-brow to
low-brow culture, but from high-brow to no-brow.
Culture is now fragmented, and subcultures proliferate.
Everyone is doing their own thing. The novel, or at
least the Great Novel, perhaps a bit surprisingly, does
not thrive under such conditions. Maybe no-one is
trying to write a Great Novel today because he or she knows
that even if one were to succeed according to some
objective aesthetic criteria of literary greatness, no
one, aside from a few critics, would recognize or
acknowledge the work as Great Novel because no-one
today accepts anyone's claim to be a Great Writer.
It's not that literature has lost its centrality to life, it's
more that the writer's status in society has been greatly
diminished due to both technological and social changes.
Of course, once this fact is generally known, less talented
writers are attracted to literature as a career, so the
process becomes self-reinforcing.
Jeff Potter
We're not talking about 'most' writers. An era doesn't need that many good ones
to be jumpstarted. One would do.
Populism isn't the same as that which has mass appeal.
David Latane
Maureen Scobie wrote:
Was this the same Wordsworth who insisted that his works be published in quarto at
a guinea a pop (probably $200 bucks in today's tin)?
D. Latane
Jeff Potter
> [ ]
> rare. But then......the stalls and seats that echoed the laughter and
> the enthusiasm for Shakespeare, in his time, probably reeked with the
> essence of the unwashed.....there never has been a perfect society.
I'll spare the unwashed. They're not as bad as TV watchers. There are many
rungs on the ladder.
We don't need perfection. No need to ask for the moon. Just ask that
reading that works like it should is available. Good old stuff is out
there. Just get us some new stuff that works like that, for today. A
populist novel that kicks the old progressive abstract thinkin machine into
gear. That's the ticket! ...And an author and publisher who are willing, as
a reward, to do the jailtime and suffer the bankruptcies and endure the
pillorying and pass as a fool and a churl, for a long season, as Emerson
said to Whitman. Just like the days of old only more so! Hey, if times are
better, shouldn't we be braver? Why would anyone think we'd get off easier?
Well, there's only one writer today I know who has paid this kind of price,
or close to it: Jack Saunders. A web search will do ya. I have some of his
stuff at my website. The Best of Jack "Evil Genius" Sampler textfile is a
great starter kit.
smw
Jean Clarke wrote:
> Hasn't contemporary literature always mirrored the mood of the day? We
> must now be politically correct, we dare not tell the truth for fear of
> dire results. Morality is fast becoming passe,
What you call PC is a moral practice. Whether to your taste or not.
> the work ethic is
> something that old timers reflect on and younguns' have no time for.
Funny, I could have sworn these kids I teach _expect_ 80h weeks. My in-laws,
by contrast, now in their late 70s, had cocktails at 5 and still attend
more parties than all the graduate students I know.
s
Jeff Potter
> > We are fed a constant barrage of how we must think, what we must
> > feel, what we should know and not know.
>
> And this you could not say about, for instance, the McCarthy era in the
> U.S. (or other analogous situations in other countries)?
We're the same old country. Only more so.
So show me the equivalent of blacklist lives ruined and publishers/writers
being jailed/fined.
Yeah, I know it still happens. I mean on a similar scale, for like cause,
for similar risk. ---White collar people standing up and taking the heat
and getting the big ax. With attendant media exposure and critical
uprising.
Jim Ward
> Cormac McCarthy is wonderful, but he's an oddball, isolate figure compared
> to most contemporary writers, and is thus not a good example here.
The exception that proves the rule?
Jim Ward
> You are monolingual at the most, aren't you?
You say that like it's a bad thing :)
Francis Muir
smw wrote:
Faculty in the Schools of Business, Medicine, Law, Engineering, Computer
Science and Earth Sciences, &c., may have been what Sayan had in mind. The
Humanities and Such represent a miniscule portion of life in the Academy.
Actually, it's not so much SUVs but ratty old sports cars that seem to
attract academics, although one of my colleagues does have a Range Rover
which he claims are very good buys second-hand.
David Latane
Jeff Potter wrote:
> David Latane wrote:
>
> > doug bassett wrote:
> >
> > > This is absolutely true. A reconnection of literature to the common society
> > > must begin with a reconnection of writers to their common society.
> > >
> >
> > But the stagnant bureaucracy of academia is fully representative of the common
> > society, sadly enough. The appeal to "populism" is sentimental and nostalgic.
> > The best way to revive literature is not to rant and rave but to read and
> > write. The reason most "Zine" writers are shut out of most publishing venues
> > is not because they're rilly "populist" but because they're no more
> > interesting or pleasurable than the average usenet post.
>
> We're not talking about 'most' writers. An era doesn't need that many good ones
> to be jumpstarted. One would do.
>
> Populism isn't the same as that which has mass appeal.
The reified notion of "era" is also lame and nostalgic. And a definition of
"populism" might be a nice contribution at this point.
D. latane
smw
Francis Muir wrote:
> smw wrote:
>
> > Sayan Bhattacharyya wrote:
> >
> > > Contrast them, then, to the sclerotic academics, living in sterilized
> > > US suburbia, driving their SUVs to work every morning.
> >
> > If you still think that academic salaries provide for SUVs, you ought to
> > reconsider your grad school plans.
>
> Faculty in the Schools of Business, Medicine, Law, Engineering, Computer
> Science and Earth Sciences, &c., may have been what Sayan had in mind.
Are you suggesting it's those who write the books?
> The
> Humanities and Such represent a miniscule portion of life in the Academy.
> Actually, it's not so much SUVs but ratty old sports cars that seem to
> attract academics
yeah... sigh...
s
Francis Muir
hind al-hunud wrote:
> bhat...@engin.umich.edu (Sayan Bhattacharyya) wrote in article
> <_MYJ6.988$96....@srvr1.engin.umich.edu> :
> >Jeff Potter <j...@glpbooks.com> wrote:
> >
> >>Literature is anemic. It's losing readership fast. It's comfort food to
> >>the elite, produced by a bunch of out of touch rich people. Yuck.
> >
> >The problem is that most `literature' in the US is written by academics
> >these days. Being an academic, while in some ways a vastly rewarding
> >experience intellectually, limits one's range of life experiences. The
> >academic world, in many ways, is a petty, inbred and boring world. Thus,
> >when someone who has been an academic in the West all their lives writes
> >a novel or a book of poems, it is not surprising that these works are
> >often anemic.
> >
> >If we look at the giants of yesteryear, we see that writers were people
> >who *lived*, and often lived dangerously
>
> ..like oh, Emily Dickinson and the Brontes and Jane Austen and Henry James?
Not clear how much the persons in your little list screwed around, although in
the case of the Siblings Brundy it would have been among themselves.
Emanuel Brown
Clarke) wrote:
>Hasn't contemporary literature always mirrored the mood of the day? We
>must now be politically correct, we dare not tell the truth for fear of
>dire results.
Airy-headed nonsense like political correctness tends to rush into
those areas where lack of common sense has created a void. On another
newsgroup I read, someone recently claimed that he was standing by the
"politically incorrect" truth that crime has escalated in the US since
the police stopped harassing black men in white neighborhoods. That
"truth" has no fewer than four errors in it, and if being PC means
said poster would have prevented the flame-war that ensued (as well as
looking like a racist arsehole), more power to it.
It's too bad that zealots have weakened the case for being PC,
which was initially to help people realize that other cultures may
have a different but valid perspective on things.
Emanuel
"Everybody wants a normal life and a cool car;
most people settle for the car." Chris Titus
1983 Porsche 911
1966 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow
Phyllis Chamberlain
Jeff Potter wrote in message <3AF93B5E...@glpbooks.com>...
>> write. The reason most "Zine" writers are shut out of most publishing
venues
>> is not because they're rilly "populist" but because they're no more
>> interesting or pleasurable than the average usenet post.
>
>We're not talking about 'most' writers. An era doesn't need that many good
ones
>to be jumpstarted. One would do.
Yeah. But still not to everyone's taste. Although of the era of the Beats,
I've always thought Allan Ginsberg a terrible poet, and also Ferlinghetti.
The word for them should have been poseur, not poet.
This new style populist writer would need a new style. What could that
possibly be that wouldn't be grotesque??
Personally I prefer insight presented in standard English of the British
type, with clear images, subtle distinctions, and the consequences of
choices of behavior shown.
Right now I'm reading _The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay_ by Michael
Chabon. There's a new writer for you, with a breath-taking imagination.
The one thing required of a writer worth reading is high intelligence. Such
folk will not be found in your suburban haunts.
Phyllis Chamberlain
Joan Marie Shields
>I find all this talk of how literature today is estranged
>from life a bit misguided, if not naive. Hasn't literature
>always been an activity not just at one remove from life
>(as a representation of it) but also an activity, that if
>pursued wholeheartedly, whether as a serious reader
>or a serious writer, leads to estrangement from life?
No - I don't think so. Of course, there are those writers who
have absented themselves from 'life' to write and there are those
readers who are somewhat obssesive-compulsive in their reading.
However, I don't think that it's a requirement for literature.
Doesn't the naming of a work to be literature tend to come much
later after the writing and publication?
>One thinks here of especially of Flaubert and Proust,
>and 'absolute literature'. To read books, novels, too
>many of them, is to remove oneself from ordinary
>concerns, and in some sense to become liberated from
>the banal pursuits of the majority.
By the same token it can be used to avoid dealing with life as
it is - desperate attempt to create a world because one cannot
seem to cope with the present reality. No - that's far too
simplistic and far to extreme - but then so is the above. Still,
a reader can read a lot of books and none of them be literature.
>Practical men have
>never read too many books, and have always considered
>such a pursuit misguided. And the serious writer is not
>really in touch with life as it truly is, but sacrifices his life to
>recreate a magical mirror of life, whether accurate or--more
>often--purposefully distorted in one way or another (such as
>in satire).
A very romantic thought this (and the rest) - but how true is
it? Or is it more what we would prefer to believe? Are writers
such as Proust and Flaubert the norm or are the simply more
interesting because they were odd?
Writers write - some well and some poorly. Of all writers, are
the ones who wrote what we consider literature more likely to
have cut themselves off from the world than those who wrote works
that we do not view as literature?
yiwf,
joan
--
Joan Shields jshi...@uci.edu http://www.ags.uci.edu/~jshields
University of California - Irvine School of Social Ecology
Department of Environmental Analysis and Design
I do not purchase services or products from unsolicited e-mail advertisements.
Don Tuite
Along with Salinger, Pynchon, Vidal inter alia.
And heaven save us from the two-fisted, hard-drinking likes of Mailer
et al.
This thread is littered with strawmen.
Don
Sayan Bhattacharyya
>
>> The
>> Humanities and Such represent a miniscule portion of life in the Academy.
>> Actually, it's not so much SUVs but ratty old sports cars that seem to
>> attract academics
>
>yeah... sigh...
Well, at least they get to drive cars, however ratty. Where I come from,
affording any car is simply impossible for a university professor.
My parents, both of whom were/are professors, have used public
transportation all their lives.
Jeff Potter
>
> > Sayan Bhattacharyya wrote:
> >
> > > Contrast them, then, to the sclerotic academics, living in sterilized
> > > US suburbia, driving their SUVs to work every morning.
> >
> > If you still think that academic salaries provide for SUVs, you ought to
> > reconsider your grad school plans.
OK, today's important literary fiction writers live how? --They are tenured
faculty. They hold chairs. They do Visiting Scholar gigs, honoraria. They get
grants/prizes. They edit mags/books/texts. They sell film rights. They earn
tiny royalties. They get inheritances.
Did I miss anything?
They don't just live on a faculty salary. And actually since we're talking
about today's "heavy hitters," you know they're considered franchise faculty.
They are doing just fine.
This is the gravy train that such-like is after.
It's the system that the ULA is looking to expose and bust up.
But why stop at the writers? They're just content. They hop when editorial
says "We want a Civil War Era suppressed gay cat detective perspective
twister, please, and make it snappy!" You have to consider the networks of
NYC publishing houses.
There's one aspect that might still be out there that might have important
side effects. What's the demographic of elite literary publishing today? Does
the culture of low-paid financially independent elite young women who (at
least used to) dominate the assistants ranks have any impact on what gets
read and pushed at the office and eventually published? Actually, they've
probably moved up and out of such ranks and widened their horizons quite a
bit. One might think that financial independence in any part of the system
might free up staffers (regardless of gender) to consider riskier prospects.
Or it might let them pat themselves on the back in dozens of different ways.
David Latane
Francis Muir wrote:
Speaking from Stanford of course. In the real world Humanities and such make
up a very healthy proportion, since a large number of colleges and university
don't have medicine, law, engineering, etc. but they all have English classes
that can't be taught in 300 student lectures. Of course most English teachers
are beaten down adjuncts who can only dream of owning a ratty old sports car.
D. latane
Jeff Potter
> Jeff Potter wrote in message <3AF93B5E...@glpbooks.com>...
> >> write. The reason most "Zine" writers are shut out of most publishing
> venues
> >> is not because they're rilly "populist" but because they're no more
> >> interesting or pleasurable than the average usenet post.
> >
> >We're not talking about 'most' writers. An era doesn't need that many good
> ones
> >to be jumpstarted. One would do.
>
> Yeah. But still not to everyone's taste. Although of the era of the Beats,
> I've always thought Allan Ginsberg a terrible poet, and also Ferlinghetti.
> The word for them should have been poseur, not poet.
Agreed. And not that many read Ginsberg. Think Keroauc instead, of course. I
think he had a big social impact across class lines. Same with Henry Miller. We
need a new writer that GI's will read.
> This new style populist writer would need a new style. What could that
> possibly be that wouldn't be grotesque??
>
> Personally I prefer insight presented in standard English of the British
> type, with clear images, subtle distinctions, and the consequences of
> choices of behavior shown.
How common is straightforward storytelling in plain language today? It can't be
found. What's out there today is what is grotesque. Coy straining and special
effects galore. The next big thing will be plain talk about someone's life in
terms of things that matter in general. As per Whitman, the real war will
finally make it into the books. That's what's been missing the past 30 years.
> Right now I'm reading _The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay_ by Michael
> Chabon. There's a new writer for you, with a breath-taking imagination.
> The one thing required of a writer worth reading is high intelligence. Such
> folk will not be found in your suburban haunts.
Come now. They're found everywhere. Where they haven't been heard from lately
is where the next one will come from. They won't come from a writing program,
though, that's for sure.
I would say high intelligence, sure, but using plain language about everyday
topics that matter. He won't be above anyone who is willing to open their eyes.
The future of the novel...
“I’ve met a number of academically-oriented writers in my travels and teaching,
but they are pale shadows of Miller. And as for most of the better-known
writers in America—well, most of them write fiction, mainly, which immediately
takes them out of the bigger game. For fiction can be a high art, of course,
who doesn’t love it? But America is drowning in “make-believe”—that is, I’m
afraid, the point here: We simply do not know who we are anymore! (I wonder if
we ever did as a nation?).” ---Em McElderry,
“These novels will give way, by and by, to diaries or
autobiographies—captivating books, if only a man knew how to choose among what
he calls his experiences that which is really his experience, and how to record
truth truly.” ---Emerson
Jeff Potter
> Doesn't the naming of a work to be literature tend to come much
> later after the writing and publication?
How often have publishers been right about what has made an impact in western
culture in terms of reading material?
Call it good whenever you like.
Readers are thirsty for it no matter what it's called, but there's nothing to
drink, so they're turning to TV. According to plan.
Have publishers ever known what they were doing in this regard? ---Except to the
extent that they want to ENCOURAGE reading that is like TV. They see no
difference you can bet your life on it. They're owned by firms that own TV
networks as it is. It's no loss to them. Passive reading is the best kind.
Obsession: what a great sales tool! Brainless consumption---it works for the
readers, too! But have they ever really met a cultural need, dealt with a pent-up
social issue, by doing this? Have they ever published anything true or good in so
doing?
Damn the bean-counters. They're worse than ever. There's probably a "discovering
unknown talent" committee at the big houses each using the same stockbroker
approved checklist for Kwality. The bosses really think that they're not missing
anyone who can write! Publisher's Weekly publisher Gottleib(?) said it
himself---"There are no undiscovered geniuses out there." Something like that. Of
all the nerve. They're writing their own (death)wish to be bought by a cable TV
company. (Time Warner anyone?)
What does it mean "America has a passion for the inedite'"? Didn't Gertrude Stein
say that?
Jeff Potter
> [ ]
> So, I don't think the
> problem with literature today is that novels, or poetry or,
> plays, don't accurately reflect modern life. I think the
> problem is the changed status of the writer, and more
> specifically the loss, or great diminishment, of his political
> significance.
The writers had no part in this change? I'm thinking it happened because
they were chickens.
> [ ] today are much more influential than books. Oliver Stone's
> movies are a bit like Dickens's novels in that Stone
> tries to tackle a certain socially controversial issue,
> hoping to actually bring about change through his critique.
> So, technological change, the shift from print culture to
> film and TV, is one explanation for the decline in the
> importance of literature.
It still seems like lit can do things that other media can't. They get
inspired by lit. Literary climate sets pace for climate of other arts.
>
> reason. The nineteenth century novel was always an
> elitist institution, and with the rise of popular culture
> over the last one hundred years, few are willing to accept
> the authority of the Great Writer to speak on behalf
> of 'ordinary people'.
You're skipping social impact of modern novels and cross-class impact of
pulps.
> Everyone trusts their own
> judgement.It's not that high culture has disappeared,
> but just that the majority have little respect for the
> authority of the producers of high culture to speak on
> their behalf. We've gone, not from high-brow to
> low-brow culture, but from high-brow to no-brow.
> Culture is now fragmented, and subcultures proliferate.
> Everyone is doing their own thing.
Nah, there's huge predictability. Don't confuse groups being scattered
for a lack of general culture. There's a zeitgeist like always. There's
a system, and those who benefit and who are hurt by it. Subcultures
still take their cue from the dominant paradigm. Literature uniquely
explores, challenges, and helps create the dominant paradigm.
> The novel, or at
> least the Great Novel, perhaps a bit surprisingly, does
> not thrive under such conditions. Maybe no-one is
> trying to write a Great Novel today because he or she knows
> that even if one were to succeed according to some
> objective aesthetic criteria of literary greatness, no
> one, aside from a few critics, would recognize or
> acknowledge the work as Great Novel because no-one
> today accepts anyone's claim to be a Great Writer.
No one ever did accept such claims beside pointyheads. It's whether the
work hits you or not, that determines whether there's something to it
for more people. Does critical acclaim come first? Or word of mouth:
"Here's a great book man, check it out."
I think lit today is getting smaller because it's focusing ever more
closely on its supposed niche. It's letting itself be roped into the
niche game. When it should be guiding the whole way we think about
niches. And in fact it is doing the guiding but by default: since it
does not talk about niches it is saying "Don't look at niches, just
shop." Whatever lit is not dealing with directly today is where it is
having a big impact even by its avoidance. It's being fleeced and
letting others quietly be led away to the shearing as well. Anyway,
today's literary niche is comfort food for the effete elite. A small
peevish lot. A bad pond to try to swim in for anyone. Not many left
unmaimed who try it. Talk about "watch yer back!" Not very promising or
fertile. There's your diminishing returns.
Francis Muir
smw wrote:
hey, I'll take you for a spin in my Miata any time you go West, young woman.
Francis Muir
Jim Ward wrote:
Q: Do forked tongues encourage bilinguality?
jimC
I could point you to my old XKE which showed up in a Fletcher Jones
(actually Fletcher Jones Sr.) ad on after-hours movies one night back in
the late 1970s. Junior now claims to have the largest Mercedes
inventory in the universe at his mega-showroom in Newport Beach. You
could probably get a deal there, too. Cruise on down Coast Highway, and
bring your umbrella to avoid the seagulls.
ObTVCarAdDog - Storm, the German shepherd that climbed upon a new '57
in order to take a crap, to the wide-eyed fascination of a cameraman and
half a million Angelenos.
jimC
Francis Muir
David Latane wrote:
You'll explain how a university cannot have medicine, law, engineering &c. in
the curriculum. Either that or the ones you have in mind have an incredibly
sloppy understanding of how "university" is defined.
ObBook: John Cardinal Newman's *The Idea of a University*
Emanuel Brown
wrote:
>> Doesn't the naming of a work to be literature tend to come much
>> later after the writing and publication?
>
>How often have publishers been right about what has made an impact in western
>culture in terms of reading material?
Individually, not too often, but collectively they're batting a
.1000 - that's how the book got published, after all; some editor in a
publishing house liked it.
Don Tuite
wrote:
>On Wed, 09 May 2001 13:04:13 -0400, Jeff Potter <j...@glpbooks.com>
>wrote:
>>> Doesn't the naming of a work to be literature tend to come much
>>> later after the writing and publication?
>>
>>How often have publishers been right about what has made an impact in western
>>culture in terms of reading material?
>
> Individually, not too often, but collectively they're batting a
>.1000 - that's how the book got published, after all; some editor in a
>publishing house liked it.
Then there was a guy named Cerf. . . .
If all Potter's saying is that there aren't many venues like the old
magazines, he has a point.
Don
smw
Francis Muir wrote:
> yeah... sigh...
>
> hey, I'll take you for a spin in my Miata any time you go West, young woman.
How nice!
this reminds me, tangentially of course, of an old "dictionary of American
slang" I picked up once at a garage sale, where it was claimed that "to go West"
is a synonym for death.
s
Francis Muir
smw wrote:
Of course. Curiously, your expression, which was commonplace in England when I was
a nipper, seems to have been replaced by "go South", but in the past tense. "Oh,
she went South."
However, for you, Dear Silke, nothing but flourishing for you and your tribe.
David Latane
Francis Muir wrote:
yes, that's the book that makes the distinction between knowledge that is an end
in itself (the humanities) and utilitarian training (engineering, business,
medicine. . . .) if I remember correctly. He defends the former as the proper aim
of a university education.
But we were talking about "academic salaries" that one earns after graduate
school. The bulk of those go to teachers at community colleges, etc. You've
switched the ground to "university with multiple graduate and professional
schools" only. Anytime you change the terms of the discussion to make it
unreasonable for me to disagree, I'll be glad to agree with you.
D. Latane
Jeff Potter
> On Wed, 09 May 2001 13:04:13 -0400, Jeff Potter <j...@glpbooks.com>
> wrote:
> >> Doesn't the naming of a work to be literature tend to come much
> >> later after the writing and publication?
> >
> >How often have publishers been right about what has made an impact in western
> >culture in terms of reading material?
>
> Individually, not too often, but collectively they're batting a
> .1000 - that's how the book got published, after all; some editor in a
> publishing house liked it.
Ha...good one!
Usually, the publishing house didn't like it at all but was dragged into it, did
against all their best judgement, etc.
Did you hear the good one about "Confederacy of Dunces"? I think it was Bob
Gotteib (again!) who was at the publishing house that finally published the book.
Today he says that it was only published because the suicide writer's mom
pestered them so much and that all the publishers were right to refuse it earlier
(driving the writer to kill himself) and that it should not have been published
and that he'd reject it again if he had to do it over again. Yeah, the guy has
faith in his system. ---A fresh, rare book that was. Anathema! they still say.
Jeff Potter
> In article <3AF93FD1...@glpbooks.com>,
> Jeff Potter <j...@glpbooks.com> wrote:
>
> > stefan wrote:
> >
> > > > We are fed a constant barrage of how we must think, what we must
> > > > feel, what we should know and not know.
> > >
> > > And this you could not say about, for instance, the McCarthy era in the
> > > U.S. (or other analogous situations in other countries)?
>
> > We're the same old country. Only more so.
> >
> > So show me the equivalent of blacklist lives ruined and publishers/writers
> > being jailed/fined.
>
> That is my point, telling people "what they must know" etc. is certainly
> not something new. If anything there is less ability to restrict
> information today.
Well, I'm lost a bit now, but that never stopped me. : )
I think that information is more tightly controlled today. Impt info that is.
Not teasers tossed our way. Sure, info wants to be free, but there's contract
law singing a different tune. I think that the new lit will deal dramatically
(somehow) with the way that nondisclosure agreements impact publicity
surrounding lawsuits and even trail plea bargains, but mainly private lawsuits
and insurance settlements. There's a lot we won't know because people have
accepted $ to be quiet. It's a new FAR MORE effective form of info quashing.
And when THAT cat gets out of the bag, the book will be a runaway hit. Maybe.
Maybe everyone is now part of the hustle is why things are going so well for
the NWO.
doug bassett
Yeah, sure, a lot of zine writers suck. Hell, a lot of everything sucks.
What's Sturgeon's Law? Ninety percent of everything sucks? But there are
fine things to be found in the underground, if one is willing to look, and I
do think that the best of what's to be found there suggests an interesting
new path out of the current status quo.
Yeah, the appeal to populism is sentimental and nostalgic. But I'm not sure
that's necessarily so bad. IMO, the last real halycon period for American
Literature was, oh, about 1946-1964 (or so), a time when Sartre and Spillane
sat cheek by jowl on paperback racks in drugstores. It was the last time I
can think of that writers and writing really seemed to matter in the popular
culture. So, I make no excuses for wanting to see, not so much a return to
that time, but the spirit of that time recaptured. Sure it's kind of
sentimental. So what? :) One man's sentiment is another man's dream.
I do disagree that academia is reflective of anything but itself, and I've
spent enough time there to feel that I know what I'm talking about. Hell,
one of the big selling points on a lot of college campuses is that you're
isolated from the hustle and bustle of the world, and therefore really ready
to engage the Life of the Mind.
As for your point about reading and writing, I actually feel that's kind of
a complicated point, and my response would be too long to comfortably fit
here. I'll just say that nobody reads and writes in a vacuum, and that
therefore intellectual contexts are important.
doug
"David Latane" <dla...@vcu.org> wrote in message
news:3AF8A767...@vcu.org...
>
>
> doug bassett wrote:
>
> > This is absolutely true. A reconnection of literature to the common
society
> > must begin with a reconnection of writers to their common society.
> >
>
> But the stagnant bureaucracy of academia is fully representative of the
common
> society, sadly enough. The appeal to "populism" is sentimental and
nostalgic.
> The best way to revive literature is not to rant and rave but to read and
> write. The reason most "Zine" writers are shut out of most publishing
venues
> is not because they're rilly "populist" but because they're no more
> interesting or pleasurable than the average usenet post.
>
> D. latane
>
>
>
>
doug bassett
intelligent, I personally don't equate that with artistry. John Barth and
Thomas Pynchon both seem to be incredibly intelligent, but I find their
works dull beyond measure, puzzles to decode rather than stories to be
enjoyed.
Certainly no one can be a complete ignoramus and write, either, but I think
some other kind of criteria -- "talent", for lack of a better word -- is
useful. Certainly there's room for both Jack London and [insert highbrow
philosopher of your choice].
doug
"Phyllis Chamberlain" <ph...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:1jdK6.1682$Ak7.1...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
Joan Marie Shields
>> Doesn't the naming of a work to be literature tend to come much
>> later after the writing and publication?
Jeff Potter <j...@glpbooks.com> wrote:
>How often have publishers been right about what has made an impact in western
>culture in terms of reading material?
How far back you want to go, hoss?
>Call it good whenever you like.
>Readers are thirsty for it no matter what it's called, but there's nothing to
>drink, so they're turning to TV. According to plan.
Ah, the plan... I get it now.
There's quite a lot to read at your local library. Don't get out much,
do you?
Paul Ilechko
Jeff Potter wrote:
> CM is esoteric. Not sociable. Not readable by the 'man on the street.'
Oh, I see. You want writers who write books that have "Red Storm" in the
title. You're welcome to all the badly written trash you can handle,
bub. Give me the esoteric every time.
Joan Marie Shields
>>Speaking from Stanford of course. In the real world Humanities and such make
>>up a very healthy proportion, since a large number of colleges and university
>>don't have medicine, law, engineering, etc. but they all have English classes
>>that can't be taught in 300 student lectures. Of course most English teachers
>>are beaten down adjuncts who can only dream of owning a ratty old sports car.
jimC <jimc...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>I could point you to my old XKE which showed up in a Fletcher Jones
>(actually Fletcher Jones Sr.) ad on after-hours movies one night back in
>the late 1970s. Junior now claims to have the largest Mercedes
>inventory in the universe at his mega-showroom in Newport Beach. You
>could probably get a deal there, too. Cruise on down Coast Highway, and
>bring your umbrella to avoid the seagulls.
In Newport Beach you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a Mercedes -
or an SUV - better yet, a Mercedes SUV.
While it's a pretty good size I've seen much bigger car lots - maybe they
have more stashed away at another local. I will say one thing though,
they have the cleanest car-repair bays I've ever seen. I had a flat not
far from there (I pass this place twice a day) and they were kind enough
to put a little more air in the spare. I was still waiting 20 minutes
later so I went looking where I discovered I wasn't supposed to be. I
swear, they must wax those floors. Of course, it costs $300+ to get an
oil change...
As for the sea gulls... they're not that bad there, the pelicans are
worse.
Paul Ilechko
for the overwrought and overrated "Giles Goat Boy".
Paul Ilechko
doug bassett wrote:
>
>
> Yeah, the appeal to populism is sentimental and nostalgic. But I'm not sure
> that's necessarily so bad. IMO, the last real halycon period for American
> Literature was, oh, about 1946-1964 (or so), a time when Sartre and Spillane
> sat cheek by jowl on paperback racks in drugstores. It was the last time I
> can think of that writers and writing really seemed to matter in the popular
> culture. So, I make no excuses for wanting to see, not so much a return to
> that time, but the spirit of that time recaptured. Sure it's kind of
> sentimental. So what? :) One man's sentiment is another man's dream.
Maybe you need to read some JK Rowling ...
Paul Ilechko
Joan Marie Shields wrote:
> Doesn't the naming of a work to be literature tend to come much
> later after the writing and publication?
Depends on who the writer's agent is, and what preferred market segment
they're after.
Paul Ilechko
Francis Muir wrote:
>
> You'll explain how a university cannot have medicine, law, engineering &c. in
> the curriculum. Either that or the ones you have in mind have an incredibly
> sloppy understanding of how "university" is defined.
If they're located in Florida ?
doug bassett
"Marko Amnell" <marko_...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:9dbddj$j3u$1...@news.kolumbus.fi...
>
> I find all this talk of how literature today is estranged
> from life a bit misguided, if not naive. Hasn't literature
> always been an activity not just at one remove from life
> (as a representation of it) but also an activity, that if
> pursued wholeheartedly, whether as a serious reader
> or a serious writer, leads to estrangement from life?
> One thinks here of especially of Flaubert and Proust,
> and 'absolute literature'. To read books, novels, too
> many of them, is to remove oneself from ordinary
> concerns, and in some sense to become liberated from
> the banal pursuits of the majority. Practical men have
> never read too many books, and have always considered
> such a pursuit misguided. And the serious writer is not
> really in touch with life as it truly is, but sacrifices his life to
> recreate a magical mirror of life, whether accurate or--more
> often--purposefully distorted in one way or another (such as
> in satire).
This is quite eloquently written, and yes, ultimately this is necessarily
the case. I guess my group is talking more about matters of degree. That is,
there are degrees of alienation and isolation -- compare, say, Dickens to
somebody in a creative writing program. We argue that the general culture of
"writing" has shifted too far to one side of the spectrum, the "creative
writing program side", and we'd like to reorient things more along the
"Dickens" side.
But one has to be careful here, for the writer
> can actually be aware of elements in the life of many different
> kind of people that the individuals themselves are not aware
> of, or don't understand as well as the writer. That is
> the writer's special, rare gift, to feel and understand the
> motives, aims, worldviews and struggles of many very different
> kind of people. But the writer's ultimate presentation of these
> findings about life and society are never entirely accurate,
> neither in their details nor their meaning. It is through that
> very distortion of reality that the writer's art is expressed, and
> his message, if he has one, transmitted to the reader.
Yes, certainly, realism is never "real". That doesn't mean, though, that
it's not good, or valuable, or worth a repursuit (I think I just made that
word up!). One way to think of it is that we are arguing for a paradigm
shift.
Aristotle
> already stressed the exaggeration of all poetical characters,
> and how, for example, they must be either much better or
> much worse than any real person. So, I don't think the
> problem with literature today is that novels, or poetry or,
> plays, don't accurately reflect modern life. I think the
> problem is the changed status of the writer, and more
> specifically the loss, or great diminishment, of his political
> significance
I think you're right here, though I feel more comfortable with the phrase
"cultural significance", because I (speaking for myself now, not the group)
am leery of overtly political writing, feeling that too often it's merely
broadsheets in fictional fancy dress. I don't think that's really what
you're talking about here, but the phrase "political significance" does tend
to lead one down a slippery slope.
. At the height of the success of the social
> novel in the nineteenth century, writers like Dickens could
> really affect the course of events in society. Dickens's
> social critique of capitalism in fiction was almost as influential
> in bringing about reforms as Marx's political writings
> were in inspiring revolution. Even Salman Rushdie, perhaps
> the most politically explosive writer today, cannot boast a
> comparable political influence. So, I don't think literature
> today is anemic and out of touch with life because it is
> written mostly by academics. I think that is putting it
> backwards. Literature is mostly written by academics
> simply because there is no-one else around to continue
> writing serious novels after literature lost the centrality
> it once had in political life.
Again, I would say "cultural life". I guess I tend to look at these things,
when I get academic about it, from a sociological, and not a political
perspective.
I'm talking here about novels
> that go beyond mere entertainment. Of course the
> Stephen Kings and Tom Clancys are still around and
> selling maybe more copies than ever before.
The success of King and Clancy and the like shows that there are people who
read, that there have always been people who read, and that there still is a
potential audience out there, perhaps, for a certain kind of literature. At
least, I speculate that there *might* be. Consider Oprah's Book Club, for
instance -- mostly middlebrow entertainments, certainly, but also a step up
from hackwork.
But films
> today are much more influential than books. Oliver Stone's
> movies are a bit like Dickens's novels in that Stone
> tries to tackle a certain socially controversial issue,
> hoping to actually bring about change through his critique.
> So, technological change, the shift from print culture to
> film and TV, is one explanation for the decline in the
> importance of literature.
One can overplay this point -- Stone is a widely ridiculed figure, for
example. Certainly, technological change has added to the amount of choices
the average citizen has, and so therefore literature must compete in a way
it didn't have to in 1865, say. But that's not to say one technology
immediately supplants another. People still listen to radio, and while there
are no radio dramas anymore, in musical terms it remains immensely
influential.
I think democracy is another
> reason. The nineteenth century novel was always an
> elitist institution, and with the rise of popular culture
> over the last one hundred years, few are willing to accept
> the authority of the Great Writer to speak on behalf
> of 'ordinary people'. Everyone trusts their own
> judgement.It's not that high culture has disappeared,
> but just that the majority have little respect for the
> authority of the producers of high culture to speak on
> their behalf.
I don't agree with this critique, mainly, I think, because I don't share the
underlying assumptions behind it. I'm not interested in political
significance as much as I am in cultural significance, which can *encompass*
political relevance, but also shares other qualities -- do the stories the
author tells resonate with the mass culture? Is the author widely read? Is
the author's influence noticeable in other aspects of culture? etc. And I
really think there is a great yearning in America for somebody to fill that
void.
We've gone, not from high-brow to
> low-brow culture, but from high-brow to no-brow.
> Culture is now fragmented, and subcultures proliferate.
> Everyone is doing their own thing. The novel, or at
> least the Great Novel, perhaps a bit surprisingly, does
> not thrive under such conditions. Maybe no-one is
> trying to write a Great Novel today because he or she knows
> that even if one were to succeed according to some
> objective aesthetic criteria of literary greatness, no
> one, aside from a few critics, would recognize or
> acknowledge the work as Great Novel because no-one
> today accepts anyone's claim to be a Great Writer.
Well, the hunt for the Great American Novel and Writer was always a little
bogus. But if you substitute the word "important"...I wasn't around in the
Sixties, but wasn't Mailer, say, considered an "important" writer? That's
what I would like to see again -- The Important American Writer, in that
kind of a context.
Very well written post, though, sir. I commend you.
doug
doug bassett
overrated, Pynchon a bore, Vidal not particularly interesting. Actually, to
be frank about it, I would like a good old fashioned two-fisted
hard-drinking type.
But each his own.
doug
"Don Tuite" <don_...@kvo.com> wrote in message > Along with Salinger,
Pynchon, Vidal inter alia.
>
> And heaven save us from the two-fisted, hard-drinking likes of Mailer
> et al.
>
> This thread is littered with strawmen.
>
> Don
ted samsel
>
> Well, we'll just have to disagree, I guess. I find Salinger okay but
> overrated, Pynchon a bore, Vidal not particularly interesting. Actually, to
> be frank about it, I would like a good old fashioned two-fisted
> hard-drinking type.
He's buying! Shouting the house, eh?
--
TBSa...@infi.net
http://home.infi.net/~tbsamsel/
'Do the boogie woogie in the South American way'
Hank Snow (1914-1999)
THE RHUMBA BOOGIE
Susan Young
> slang" I picked up once at a garage sale, where it was claimed that "to go
West"
> is a synonym for death.
"bought the farm" is my personal favorite.
Susan
jimC
So, how do Waldenbooks distinguish between their Literature
and Fiction shelf classifications? For a long time, it seemed obvious
that Literature was written by dead novelists. Then Louis
Auchincloss, living author of many potboilers, began showing up
there. I was going to write him, but then I read that he was in the
hospital with a bad case of flu or something and I thought better of
alarming him. The distinctions are probably: "Dead or Upper Wasp" goes
to Literature and "Living White Trash and Everybody Else" goes to
Fiction.
jimC
jimC
doug bassett wrote:
>
> Well, we'll just have to disagree, I guess. I find Salinger okay but
> overrated, Pynchon a bore, Vidal not particularly interesting. Actually, to
> be frank about it, I would like a good old fashioned two-fisted
> hard-drinking type.
What you need is Lou Grant. Now there was a writer!
jimC
Sayan Bhattacharyya
>> > slang" I picked up once at a garage sale, where it was claimed that "to go
>> West"
>> > is a synonym for death.
>>
>> "bought the farm" is my personal favorite.
>
>fine! shall we make a list? I can only remember "stare at the radishes from below"
>now, but I know there's better than that.
>
>s
>
"started a worm farm" (this one is from a poem by e.e. cummings).
-Sayan.
ted samsel
"pushing up daisies",
"gone to their reward",
"headed to the last roundup"....
"he ain't never gonna see his mamma again.."
Maureen Scobie
>
> Sayan Bhattacharyya wrote:
> >
> > In article <3AFA0454...@umich.edu>, smw <sm...@umich.edu> wrote:
> >
> > >> > slang" I picked up once at a garage sale, where it was claimed that "to go
> > >> West"
> > >> > is a synonym for death.
> > >>
> > >> "bought the farm" is my personal favorite.
> > >
> > >fine! shall we make a list? I can only remember "stare at the radishes from below"
> > >now, but I know there's better than that.
> > >
> > >s
> > >
> >
> > "started a worm farm" (this one is from a poem by e.e. cummings).
>
> "pushing up daisies",
>
> "gone to their reward",
>
> "headed to the last roundup"....
>
> "he ain't never gonna see his mamma again.."
And Francis' "popped his clogs"
M.
Francis Muir
I'm fond of "popped 'is/'er clogs".
Francis Muir
smw wrote:
> fine! shall we make a list? I can only remember "stare at the radishes from below"
> now, but I know there's better than that.
Pushing up the daisies.
Arindam Banerjee
>affording any car is simply impossible for a university professor.
>My parents, both of whom were/are professors, have used public
>transportation all their lives.
They are the elites, who live where such is available. Most Indians
do not have the fortune to run vehicles, but 200,000+
have the fortune to be run over by vehicles annually.
_______________________________________________
Submitted via WebNewsReader of http://www.interbulletin.com
Arindam Banerjee
>Q: Do forked tongues encourage bilinguality?
A forked tongue spontaneously energises the vocal chords to impart
information relating to state simultaneously in all languages,
Fourierwise.
Marko Amnell
doug bassett wrote:
> Yeah, sure, a lot of zine writers suck. Hell, a lot of everything sucks.
If only this were true of women.
Francis Muir
But it is, Marko, it is. It is your particular misfortune always to have
landed up with the ten-percenters.
Francis Muir
Arindam Banerjee wrote:
>
> Francis Muir <Fra...@stanford.edu> wrote in article
> >Q: Do forked tongues encourage bilinguality?
>
> A forked tongue spontaneously energises the vocal chords to impart
> information relating to state simultaneously in all languages,
> Fourierwise.
The source, no doubt, of the mediaeval exhortation: "Go and get forked!".
Francis Muir
Arindam Banerjee wrote:
>
> >Well, at least they get to drive cars, however ratty. Where I come from,
> >affording any car is simply impossible for a university professor.
> >My parents, both of whom were/are professors, have used public
> >transportation all their lives.
>
> They are the elites, who live where such is available. Most Indians
> do not have the fortune to run vehicles, but 200,000+
> have the fortune to be run over by vehicles annually.
Mostly public transportation vehicles, I imagine. Cars in Calcutta would
make no sense to me. Buzzing around on a scooter or an Enfield would be
more realistic.
Robert Whelan
Fortunately, you've got it covered.
Jim Ward
> But it is, Marko, it is. It is your particular misfortune always to have
> landed up with the ten-percenters.
Speaking of percenters, has anyone ever noticed that both the Hell's Angels
and the Mensa members both pride themselves on being one-percenters?
I wonder if anyone has belonged to both gangs.
Jim Ward
> So, how do Waldenbooks distinguish between their Literature
> and Fiction shelf classifications? For a long time, it seemed obvious
> that Literature was written by dead novelists. Then Louis
> Auchincloss, living author of many potboilers, began showing up
> there. I was going to write him, but then I read that he was in the
> hospital with a bad case of flu or something and I thought better of
> alarming him. The distinctions are probably: "Dead or Upper Wasp" goes
> to Literature and "Living White Trash and Everybody Else" goes to
> Fiction.
Lit has penguins on the spines. Or is it puffins?
Jim Ward
> "pushing up daisies",
> "gone to their reward",
> "headed to the last roundup"....
> "he ain't never gonna see his mamma again.."
"Took a dirt nap".
Susan Young
> fine! shall we make a list? I can only remember "stare at the radishes from
below"
> now, but I know there's better than that.
A Google search for "euphemisms for death" yielded an embarrassment of
riches, mostly of the jokey type. The definitive non-joke list appears to be
at http://personal.nbnet.nb.ca/som/dead.html, along with a lot of pictures
of dead people. (**NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH**)
ObBluegrassSong: "O Death" sung by Ralph Stanley on the "O Brother"
soundtrack
Susan
Philip Nikolayev
> Jim Ward wrote:
>
> > Michael Zeleny <zel...@oak.math.ucla.edu> wrote:
> >
> > > You are monolingual at the most, aren't you?
> >
> > You say that like it's a bad thing :)
>
> Q: Do forked tongues encourage bilinguality?
W.N.Herbert, one of UK's finest poets today, has a book called Forked
Tongue: it's in English and Scots (and variations
thereon). Recommended.
Philip
Don Tuite
wrote:
Referring to a military aviator whose insurance paid off.
It's possible that "going West" refers to Tir na n'Og, from which none
save Ossian ever returned. (For all the good it did him)
Don
Meg Worley
Susan wrote:
>>>this reminds me, tangentially of course, of an old "dictionary of American
>>>slang" I picked up once at a garage sale, where it was claimed that "to go
>>>West" is a synonym for death.
Don writes:
>It's possible that "going West" refers to Tir na n'Og, from which none
>save Ossian ever returned. (For all the good it did him)
It's also a common conceit among Irish saints -- the *Navigatio
Sancti Brendani* and so forth.
Rage away,
meg
--
Meg Worley _._ m...@steam.stanford.edu _._ Comparatively Literate
Jeff Potter
Does anyone find it interesting or indicative that Grove Press to celebrate its
25th Anniversary doesn't go out and try to find another Naked Lunch, which
launched them into world culture, but instead it does a revival of Valley of
the Dolls, a kitschy niche item.
Has Black Sparrow tried to find another Buk? There's been total silence in the
candid lit dept since he died. And no rush to replace him. Do the pro's perhaps
prefer him to stay the aberration that he was? Wasn't he our last "up from
nowhere" + "no holds barred" world writer? He burst up thru zining. Is that an
avenue that any (academic) lit pro wants to see become well-trod?
Burroughs, Miller, Buk----all popular/published in Europe before here. Anyone
in the US academic lit scene proud of this? Any U.S. writer currently looking
to go the same route?
OK, the word is that Euros read books, Ami's read mags. Any recent major shifts
in Euro lit publishing? What's their most recent heyday? Is Kundera anyone to
brag about? Their last big social impact due to a book? Maybe theirs is less of
a "feast or famine" scene like ours, and they have more historic continuity and
integration of innovation. Or used to.
Of course, why were Burroughs, Miller, Buk popular in Europe? Euro's like
trash, the gutter. It was the sex'n'dirt'n'heroin that did it. Now that that is
old, writers won't be breaking thru that way. What will be the new way?
I propose the next new thing will be something relating to the difficulty and
nobility of staying true to something that looks like a normal life. Boring
family stuff...shown for its life-affirming, creative aspects...revived from
being the butt of jokes. Yet not saccharine or rosied over. Warts'n'all view of
the hard work involved with staying true to something basic. Showing the
relation of virile to virtue.
--
Jeff Potter j...@outyourbackdoor.com
"Out Your Backdoor": Friendly Zine of Modern Folkways and Culture Revival
outyourbackdoor.com ... for a full line of alternative outdoor culture books,
bookstore & forum
Meg Worley
Jeff writes:
>Burroughs, Miller, Buk----all popular/published in Europe before here. Anyone
>in the US academic lit scene proud of this?
Why's this *our* problem? Leave us out of it; talk to the people
who make books popular in this country. That wouldn't be us; we
have the plutonium touch. Anything that lies down with academics
gets up with David Foster Wallace. Surely we need no more of that.
Bruce McGuffin
I don't know about Calcutta, but Delhi is wall-to-wall cars from
sunrise to well after sunset.
The way people there drive (and walk in the street), its a miracle
only 200,000 get run over in a year.
I spent the second most frightening 8 hours of my life, riding from
Jaipur to Agra in a car. It was an auspicious night for weddings, and
every mile or so a roadside wedding was spilling out onto the highway.
In between were broken down trucks parked in the middle of the
highway, camel and horse carts with no running lights, and other
cars, driven by other drivers who (like mine) thought the whole lane
concept was kind of a waste of paint.
The most frightening 8 (or so) hours were driving through Nepal at
night in a car with failing brakes. Brakes are a key element in the
South-West Asian driving technique.
On the othe hand, I never saw a wreck in India. In Singapore, where
driving practice is much saner (better than Italy, worse than US),
except for the motor scooters and motorcycle weaving in and out, it
was a pretty common sight to see a totaled motorcycle or scooter by
the side of the road, with a dead/dying rider being hauled off by
ambulance. Usually there was a car with a small dent in the back
pulled over too.
Bruce McGuffin
David Latane
Meg Worley wrote:
> Jeff writes:
> >Burroughs, Miller, Buk----all popular/published in Europe before here. Anyone
> >in the US academic lit scene proud of this?
>
> Why's this *our* problem? Leave us out of it; talk to the people
> who make books popular in this country. That wouldn't be us; we
> have the plutonium touch. Anything that lies down with academics
> gets up with David Foster Wallace. Surely we need no more of that.
>
> Rage away,
>
> meg
Well, right. But as an Pedant (yes, that's capital "P") let's note that "Buk" as
he's so charmingly denoted was publishing in Matrix (Philly) in 1946--and which
European publication was it that preceded this? One should more plausibly throw
in Frost, as a non-ex-pat (and ex-pats shouldn't really count--did they even try
to get the work in questioned placed with a US publisher?) whose first book had
to be published in Pagany.
But to our eternal glory, _Sartor Resartus_ first saw print in Massachusetts.
D. latane
David Latane
Philip Nikolayev wrote:
Yes--let's give a cheer for W. N.--
Nikoleyev's right, he's worth the tin;
I'd recommend his "Laurelude"
A poem that doesn't make one brood
But shivvies Wordsworth (with respect)
And Fescennine idiolect.
So read and join the Herbert party
(The epigraph's from Oliver Hardy).
D. latane
Paul Ilechko
Paul Ilechko
Paul Ilechko
Jeff Potter wrote:
> I propose the next new thing will be something relating to the difficulty and
> nobility of staying true to something that looks like a normal life. Boring
> family stuff...shown for its life-affirming, creative aspects...revived from
> being the butt of jokes. Yet not saccharine or rosied over. Warts'n'all view of
> the hard work involved with staying true to something basic. Showing the
> relation of virile to virtue.
Dreamer, you know you are a dreamer
Well can you put your hands in your head, oh no!
I said dreamer, you're nothing but a dreamer
Well can you put your hands in your head, oh no!
I said "Far out, - What a day, a year, a laugh it is!"
You know, - Well you know you had it comin' to you,
Now there's not a lot I can do
Dreamer, you stupid little dreamer;
So now you put your head in your hands, oh no!
I said "Far out, - What a day, a year, a laugh it is!"
You know, - Well you know you had it comin' to you,
Now there's not a lot I can do.
3 rab points to the first person to name the band who sang the above
quoted abomination ...
Actually, Jeff's dream sounds remarkably like something Oprah would jump
all over.
Paul Ilechko
smw wrote:
>
> Susan Young wrote:
>
> > > this reminds me, tangentially of course, of an old "dictionary of American
> > > slang" I picked up once at a garage sale, where it was claimed that "to go
> > West"
> > > is a synonym for death.
> >
> > "bought the farm" is my personal favorite.
>
> fine! shall we make a list? I can only remember "stare at the radishes from below"
> now, but I know there's better than that.
>
> s
Paul Ilechko
Joan Marie Shields wrote:
> In Newport Beach you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a Mercedes -
> or an SUV - better yet, a Mercedes SUV.
The Mercedes SUV has pretty much replaced the Volvo wagon as the car of
choice of wealthy WASPy mothers in and around Princeton.
Francis Muir
Meg Worley
Paul falsettoes:
>Dreamer, you stupid little dreamer;
>So now you put your head in your hands, oh no!
>I said "Far out, - What a day, a year, a laugh it is!"
>You know, - Well you know you had it comin' to you,
>Now there's not a lot I can do.
>
>3 rab points to the first person to name the band who sang the above
>quoted abomination ...
Gee, thanks for waking up the dormant Supertramp cells in
my medial temporal lobe. I was hoping that given enough
neglect, they'd die completely, but now you've woken them
up and upgraded their lodgings to the hippocampus. I'm
ever so grateful.
ObBook: *To the Lighthouse*, a book I liked very much around
that time. Rather less so now.
Stephen Hayes
Jeff Potter wrote in a message to All:
JP> From: Jeff Potter <j...@glpbooks.com>
JP> OK, today's important literary fiction writers live how? --They are
JP> tenured faculty. They hold chairs. They do Visiting Scholar gigs,
JP> honoraria. They get grants/prizes. They edit mags/books/texts. They
JP> sell film rights. They earn tiny royalties. They get inheritances.
Do they prescribe their own books to students?
That should increase their royalties, if not their readership.
Keep well
Steve Hayes
WWW: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/steve.htm
E-mail: haye...@yahoo.com
FamilyNet <> Internet Gated Mail
http://www.fmlynet.org
Stephen Hayes
Jeff Potter wrote in a message to All:
> Yeah. But still not to everyone's taste. Although of the era of
> the Beats,
> I've always thought Allan Ginsberg a terrible poet, and also Ferlinghetti.
> The word for them should have been poseur, not poet.
JP> Agreed. And not that many read Ginsberg. Think Keroauc instead, of
JP> course. I think he had a big social impact across class lines. Same
JP> with Henry Miller. We need a new writer that GI's will read.
Does anyone know any of Ginsberg's poetry after "Howl"?
That one's been anthologised, but I've seen little else of his in print. But
there's a continuing demand for Kerouac's novels.
Stephen Hayes
smw wrote in a message to All:
> hey, I'll take you for a spin in my Miata any time you go West,
> young woman.
s> How nice!
s> this reminds me, tangentially of course, of an old "dictionary
s> of American slang" I picked up once at a garage sale, where it was
s> claimed that "to go West" is a synonym for death.
I remember that saying from my youth.