Wednesday, March 07, 2007
The Collector, by John Fowles.
CONCEPT
Part of the noir reading list I put together for my thesis with the help of Robert Polito and Jeffery Allen. As such, it was "required reading."
Something that wouldn't have changed my choice of thesis project, but that would have nevertheless been good to consider, is the fact that where one is writing about serial killers, institutional dysfunction, adolescent rage, and the holocaust, research will delve into the same subjects. It's been an interesting juxtaposition. My life is great. I'm in touch with friends here and elsewhere, the future looks bright, and I even have a new Smashing Pumpkins album to look forward to.
On the other hand, I'm reading the most depressing stuff in the world.
So it went with The Collector by John Fowles. Not only did the creepy, first person noir launch Fowles career, but has purportedly turned up in the collections of all kinds of sex murders. Even though I was reading the book at Tom's of Seinfeld and Suzanne Vega fame, when it was over I had a headache and wanted a good cry. So. Taking a look at that.
It would be wrong to say to say that the story does not have a plot, though this is a simplified statement of my impression. More to the point, the novel has the texture of having been crafted only on the levels of character and setting, and that the plot moves deistically: the pieces are put into motion and swing about according to their own laws.
The storytelling itself doesn't suffer as a result of this. Sometimes the characters themselves are surprising. Throughout, conventions of perspective are disrupted in a way that not only challenges readers to empathize with a somewhat loathsome narrator, but also requires second guessing in both other characters as well as the narrative itself.
That being said, a byproduct of the deistic approach is a feeling of inevitability. The ending feels as predestined at page twenty as at page one fifty, and in a book that dwells in the muck of sociopathic hungers, this is more than exhausting. It feels enervating.
Yes, I learned something about writing from unconventional points-of-view. Yes, I learned something new about the progression of sociopathy. But it's not the sort of book I'd read for pleasure. As I picture it in my mind, everything just seems to wind down.
This is, ultimately, a call I'm making based on taste and not craft.
Then again, I also start to think that a case can be made that inertia itself can be seen as a social and critical liability.
In short, if you like dwelling on criminal obsessions in a stifling environment, Fowles storytelling will surely work for you. Mxzzy?
END OF POST.
Monday, March 05, 2007
The Shanty Boy, by John W. Fitzmaurice
CONCEPT
I've kind of worked myself into a conversational corner, in part, with this thesis project. There's no incentive to share my research with people who aren't fixated on serial killers (only a few of you) or lumberjacks (only very few of you). That said, for anyone who doesn't have a reading list murderously sorted by relevance to your LIFE, I really would recommend The Shanty Boy by Fitzmaurice. Of all the background I've explored on lumbering, which includes not only contemporary accounts but collected stories, newspaper articles, and even museums such as that at Hartwick Pines State Park, nothing was as enjoyable as The Shanty Boy.
Which is probably what it would be: enjoyable. There is something to learn there, certainly. The specialization that developed in 1800s lumbering led to skills such as swamping, cutting, and river driving, accommodated by a specialized vocabulary: "toot" "bagnio" "stake" "chummy." Fitzmaurice was a journalist who became an insurance salesman traveling from one lumber camp to another. He was at the center of this world for long enough to familiarize himself with the language, and then he evokes his experiences quite vividly. As such, there is a lot to learn here about lumbering at a time when it was integral to national growth and expansion, and two, was antecedent to the sometimes quite different practices used today.
At least as significant are what a 21st century reader can glean from Fitzmaurice himself. He was relatively well-traveled for the time, having spent time in Chicago, and New England, as well as Michigan. But he was also involved politically with the temperance movement. His prose is a verile example of the ornate and sparkling prose favored during the gilded age and his politics has a practical, pragmatic edge which seems to visibly germinate the midwestern work ethic many of us still identify with today.
But again, mostly the book is just enjoyable. It's fascinating to pick up a book published in 1892 and read stories as collected and chronicled from the woods themselves. Even poetically rendered, I cannot imagine a river drive depicted with more force and investment than Fitzmaurice's account. His stories, which tend toward the sentimental, are placed directly alongside fanciful accounts of time travel (in one instance, a lumberjack falls asleep in a brandy barrel and wakes in the year 1988, where all travel is conducted in Velocipedes, and Chicago has a population of some 130 million). His lurid accounts of the Catacombs in Bay City (think of a wilder version of the barn you saw in the opening credits to The Gangs of New York) segue into an eloquent speech on the evils of alcohol.
In short, Fitzmaurice was both educational and enjoyable to read. It was impossible to not read him un-selfconsciously, because the differences between his perspective and my own were so conspicuous. It was difficult to read him ironically, because of his skill and imagination. I would probably recommend above any other book I've read on Michigan lumbering.
END OF POST.
I've kind of worked myself into a conversational corner, in part, with this thesis project. There's no incentive to share my research with people who aren't fixated on serial killers (only a few of you) or lumberjacks (only very few of you). That said, for anyone who doesn't have a reading list murderously sorted by relevance to your LIFE, I really would recommend The Shanty Boy by Fitzmaurice. Of all the background I've explored on lumbering, which includes not only contemporary accounts but collected stories, newspaper articles, and even museums such as that at Hartwick Pines State Park, nothing was as enjoyable as The Shanty Boy.
Which is probably what it would be: enjoyable. There is something to learn there, certainly. The specialization that developed in 1800s lumbering led to skills such as swamping, cutting, and river driving, accommodated by a specialized vocabulary: "toot" "bagnio" "stake" "chummy." Fitzmaurice was a journalist who became an insurance salesman traveling from one lumber camp to another. He was at the center of this world for long enough to familiarize himself with the language, and then he evokes his experiences quite vividly. As such, there is a lot to learn here about lumbering at a time when it was integral to national growth and expansion, and two, was antecedent to the sometimes quite different practices used today.
At least as significant are what a 21st century reader can glean from Fitzmaurice himself. He was relatively well-traveled for the time, having spent time in Chicago, and New England, as well as Michigan. But he was also involved politically with the temperance movement. His prose is a verile example of the ornate and sparkling prose favored during the gilded age and his politics has a practical, pragmatic edge which seems to visibly germinate the midwestern work ethic many of us still identify with today.
But again, mostly the book is just enjoyable. It's fascinating to pick up a book published in 1892 and read stories as collected and chronicled from the woods themselves. Even poetically rendered, I cannot imagine a river drive depicted with more force and investment than Fitzmaurice's account. His stories, which tend toward the sentimental, are placed directly alongside fanciful accounts of time travel (in one instance, a lumberjack falls asleep in a brandy barrel and wakes in the year 1988, where all travel is conducted in Velocipedes, and Chicago has a population of some 130 million). His lurid accounts of the Catacombs in Bay City (think of a wilder version of the barn you saw in the opening credits to The Gangs of New York) segue into an eloquent speech on the evils of alcohol.
In short, Fitzmaurice was both educational and enjoyable to read. It was impossible to not read him un-selfconsciously, because the differences between his perspective and my own were so conspicuous. It was difficult to read him ironically, because of his skill and imagination. I would probably recommend above any other book I've read on Michigan lumbering.
END OF POST.
Friday, February 02, 2007
Thoughts on Billy Corgan.
BODY
I feel very restless today.
I have to get out of this apartment.
Which is difficult to do whilst typing. Hmm.
Selfish Wish #1.
I wish I could sit down and drink a cup of coffee with Billy Corgan.
And I don't just say that in an idle, fanfreak sort of way.
For starters, It would help my thesis project immeasurably, to lay out the case I'm making, to also clarify my own intentions, and then hear his response, straight from his mouth. That would be a beautiful thing.
Maybe more importantly, though, we could just talk. I've always felt that getting to know someone is a highly compromised task... that in some ways, we barely know the people closest to us. Do I what you were seeing and feeling at 9:57 this morning? No. Or what music am I listening to right now? What is my full response to it, not simply a sense of approval or disapproval. How does it resonate or alienate?
Anyway...
All that aside, there has to be a highly constrained ability to empathize through a limited medium. In the case of Mr. Corgan, this would have to be the amount of time involved (I've been following his career for thirteen years now), his statements and actions in public, and his body of work. It is offset by the fact that he is inconsistently but purposefully and persistently obfuscating. Which leaves me with, I think, a region of empathy with indistinct boundaries.
He wants to transform institutions. He realizes that he cannot to this in strict opposition; numerically his efforts would be canceled. At the same time, he does not want to conform. He has to be like Andy Kaufman or Loki about it.
Why do I believe this? Because it's absolutely consistent with his statements and actions, his body of work, and most of all, because it is the most compelling explanation I can supply for inconsistent but purposeful obfuscating.
This is the relationship he has established with the press, with the music industry, with God and mysticism (if his statements are to be taken at face value...). This is the relationship he has formed with a fan base that adores him but does not trust him and is often frustrated with him. This is evidently the relationship he has had with most of his collaborators. It goes a long way, in fact, to justify their admiration for the man despite a ten-page resume of personality conflicts.
So yes, I would very much like to speak with him about all this.
These are the lyrics to a Smashing Pumpkins rarity I have fallen in love with.
I feel very restless today.
I have to get out of this apartment.
Which is difficult to do whilst typing. Hmm.
Selfish Wish #1.
I wish I could sit down and drink a cup of coffee with Billy Corgan.
And I don't just say that in an idle, fanfreak sort of way.
For starters, It would help my thesis project immeasurably, to lay out the case I'm making, to also clarify my own intentions, and then hear his response, straight from his mouth. That would be a beautiful thing.
Maybe more importantly, though, we could just talk. I've always felt that getting to know someone is a highly compromised task... that in some ways, we barely know the people closest to us. Do I what you were seeing and feeling at 9:57 this morning? No. Or what music am I listening to right now? What is my full response to it, not simply a sense of approval or disapproval. How does it resonate or alienate?
Anyway...
All that aside, there has to be a highly constrained ability to empathize through a limited medium. In the case of Mr. Corgan, this would have to be the amount of time involved (I've been following his career for thirteen years now), his statements and actions in public, and his body of work. It is offset by the fact that he is inconsistently but purposefully and persistently obfuscating. Which leaves me with, I think, a region of empathy with indistinct boundaries.
He wants to transform institutions. He realizes that he cannot to this in strict opposition; numerically his efforts would be canceled. At the same time, he does not want to conform. He has to be like Andy Kaufman or Loki about it.
Why do I believe this? Because it's absolutely consistent with his statements and actions, his body of work, and most of all, because it is the most compelling explanation I can supply for inconsistent but purposeful obfuscating.
This is the relationship he has established with the press, with the music industry, with God and mysticism (if his statements are to be taken at face value...). This is the relationship he has formed with a fan base that adores him but does not trust him and is often frustrated with him. This is evidently the relationship he has had with most of his collaborators. It goes a long way, in fact, to justify their admiration for the man despite a ten-page resume of personality conflicts.
So yes, I would very much like to speak with him about all this.
These are the lyrics to a Smashing Pumpkins rarity I have fallen in love with.
TOWERS OF RABBLE
Be yourself, don't be yourself.
Speak your mind, don't speak your mind.
Stand alone, don't stand alone.
Be on your own, be all alone.
As the bells ring the graces
of a newborn day,
the voices sing the praises
of your promised youth, promised whenever.
No one can see you so do what you want to.
You're invisible next to forever.
Be yourself, don't be yourself.
Speak your mind, don't speak your mind.
Stand alone, don't stand alone.
Be on your own, be all alone.
Take some time to thank the souls
for all their emptiness,
upon the fever dreams of distant sons
and daughters dressed for ransoms, for never.
Nobody knows you even if they pretend to.
They all sure that they're all so clever.
Truth is rare as ivory.
The truth is in their pure deceit.
Blessed in your naivete.
I thank you all.
END OF POST.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
American Idol Defense.
CONCEPT
I'm not feeling quite as energetic about this post as I was yesterday.
It's my day off, and with my revision finally finished, I don't want to spend it in front of the computer. So here's a short version, and if I get some bites, then I'll wade in a little deeper.
- People complain that the program is mean to entrants.
But the show requires substantial initiative all along the line... getting in front of the judges requires registering, waiting in line for a long time, a preliminary screening in front a set of judges that weed out the mediocre and leave the good and the horrific. Without doubt entrants have to sign disclaimers. Given so much initiative, I don't buy that any entrant is unable to acquaint themselves with the show, and see how they treat people. From a viewer's perspective, I'm not a huge fan of the ridicule, but there are many more outrageous things worth my concern and anger.
More globally, there's even a redeeming aspect of this part of the show. I don't think it's necessary a bad thing if America develops a better sense of how difficult performing can be, of the subjectivities involved in judgment and audition, and the subtlety and nuance of the skills involved.
- People complain that it is a product of Fox, and thereby conservative demon Rupert Murdoch.
I don't like the guy either. He's actually really creepy, and Fox News is out-and-out scary, but when was the last time this prevented you from watching The Simpsons? It certainly doesn't stop me from watching The O.C., which itself has a decidedly liberal bias.
This is actually a difficult point to make in a little space, because it involves a lot of subtleties in how we interpret Fox as an entity and what action we could consider to be in support of Fox. The fact that Fox and Fox News are not strictly synonymous shold not be completely comforting, but it is at least mitigating, in that prime time network programming is held up to a different set of criteria, both generally and by Fox specifically, than their selection and presentation of "the news." Even if we reject this logic, however, the issue has to revolve around influence (the hypnosis argument) and support (the boycott argument). A short version of a response might go something like this: watching a television station is not like buying tickets to a play or a CD or a Happy Meal or whatever. They generate their revenue through advertising as influenced by ratings. Unless we're actually calculated in the ratings ourselves (of which the odds are some 1 in 700, and I think any network is required to notify of you this) and unless you go out and buy the products, you could watch Fox morning noon and night without contributing a cent.
There might be something to be said for the idea of influence... that we watch Fox and absorb the news (even in only in advertisements)... I do not have a complete and ready answer for this, except that to say that by scrutinizing our information and its source, we will probably come closer to objectivity than a lack of scrutiny. In other words, the scrutiny itself is necessary, whether we get our information from Fox or the New York Times or the Onion. Knowing that I take what I see on Fox with a grain of salt probably does more to keep me circumspect than simply avoiding all contact.
Very incomplete arguments here, but I didn't really want to wade into semantics, and here I have anyway.
The point I feel most passionately, however, is that this contest has a positive effect on popular music in this nation. Which brings me to the third point-counterpoint, and the most interesting.
- People complain that it benefits the recording company's status quo.
It certainly profits the recording industry, by very effectively generating massive advertisement to new arists that supply and market themselves. In fact, the relationship between the performers, the network, and the recording industry is probably delicate and weird.
The problem with this complaint, however, is that it creates a binary (public control vs. music industry control) that is not representative of the actual situation. What we have is an increased amount of public input.
The usual program for "manufacturing" a pop star involves talent agents, recording execs, and a very small percentage of performers who not only fill out a formula by style, expreience, skill, and subject, but also physique, age, status, and dress. It is a closed door process.
An oversimplified rebuttal might then state that American Idol is an "open door" process, but this is not true. It is, in fact, a heavily mitigated and edited encounter, especially early on in the process. But some level of compromise does not mean that the whole project lacks merit, and frankly the word "compromise" itself implies at least two parties with some measure of influence and a stake.
However we might criticize the judges for their (and ultimate selectors), I have been surprised at this shows circumspection in choosing a contestants with a wide range of styles, experiences, backgrounds, physiques, and abilities. Last year's Kelly Pickler was exactly the sort of annoying dumb-girl stereotype that most of my friends probably identify with this show. Yet the program also featured Mandisa, a marvelous singer, a heavy-set African American woman with a full-out style that seemed to suggest gospel meets Vegas. Perhaps even more to the point, when the competition reaches the point of voting, the public is more circumspect than we might expect.
In five seasons of American Idol, one winner was a very very large black man, one was illiterate, and the most recent winner had salt-and-pepper hair, a face a couple degrees shy of Jay Leno, and a style that seemed like a very over-the-top karaoke. Stylistically, the music at that level has been just as varied. Kelly Clarkson had a straight-on pop appeal. Taylor Hicks sings soul. Last year's running up will soon release her debut album which features heavy electronic sampling. Other performers have done very well with gospel, country, rock, and even showtunes. And another aspect of the show are the "genre series" that dominate the second half of the season. It essentially weed out one-trick ponies by requiring singers to be truly versatile. Last year the contestants sang Stevie Wonder and Queen, for godsakes.
The final word is this:
The Apollo Theater in Harlem, which anyone in her right mind regards as sacred ground, has for twenty years featured a singing competition that might fairly be seen as American Idol's predecessor. The audience is the judge, but they are downright merciless in their treatment of contestants, and sometimes their taste seems to be incomprehensible. This forum, however, has helped to launch the careers of Salt N Pepa, Patti LaBelle, the Beastie Boys, Mary J. Blige, and the Digital Undergronud, as just some stand outs on a long long long list.
So stop hating.
American Idol is not the ideal of populist adjudication, but it gives listerners a more engaging and committed stake in who and what they listen to.
END OF POST.
I'm not feeling quite as energetic about this post as I was yesterday.
It's my day off, and with my revision finally finished, I don't want to spend it in front of the computer. So here's a short version, and if I get some bites, then I'll wade in a little deeper.
- People complain that the program is mean to entrants.
But the show requires substantial initiative all along the line... getting in front of the judges requires registering, waiting in line for a long time, a preliminary screening in front a set of judges that weed out the mediocre and leave the good and the horrific. Without doubt entrants have to sign disclaimers. Given so much initiative, I don't buy that any entrant is unable to acquaint themselves with the show, and see how they treat people. From a viewer's perspective, I'm not a huge fan of the ridicule, but there are many more outrageous things worth my concern and anger.
More globally, there's even a redeeming aspect of this part of the show. I don't think it's necessary a bad thing if America develops a better sense of how difficult performing can be, of the subjectivities involved in judgment and audition, and the subtlety and nuance of the skills involved.
- People complain that it is a product of Fox, and thereby conservative demon Rupert Murdoch.
I don't like the guy either. He's actually really creepy, and Fox News is out-and-out scary, but when was the last time this prevented you from watching The Simpsons? It certainly doesn't stop me from watching The O.C., which itself has a decidedly liberal bias.
This is actually a difficult point to make in a little space, because it involves a lot of subtleties in how we interpret Fox as an entity and what action we could consider to be in support of Fox. The fact that Fox and Fox News are not strictly synonymous shold not be completely comforting, but it is at least mitigating, in that prime time network programming is held up to a different set of criteria, both generally and by Fox specifically, than their selection and presentation of "the news." Even if we reject this logic, however, the issue has to revolve around influence (the hypnosis argument) and support (the boycott argument). A short version of a response might go something like this: watching a television station is not like buying tickets to a play or a CD or a Happy Meal or whatever. They generate their revenue through advertising as influenced by ratings. Unless we're actually calculated in the ratings ourselves (of which the odds are some 1 in 700, and I think any network is required to notify of you this) and unless you go out and buy the products, you could watch Fox morning noon and night without contributing a cent.
There might be something to be said for the idea of influence... that we watch Fox and absorb the news (even in only in advertisements)... I do not have a complete and ready answer for this, except that to say that by scrutinizing our information and its source, we will probably come closer to objectivity than a lack of scrutiny. In other words, the scrutiny itself is necessary, whether we get our information from Fox or the New York Times or the Onion. Knowing that I take what I see on Fox with a grain of salt probably does more to keep me circumspect than simply avoiding all contact.
Very incomplete arguments here, but I didn't really want to wade into semantics, and here I have anyway.
The point I feel most passionately, however, is that this contest has a positive effect on popular music in this nation. Which brings me to the third point-counterpoint, and the most interesting.
- People complain that it benefits the recording company's status quo.
It certainly profits the recording industry, by very effectively generating massive advertisement to new arists that supply and market themselves. In fact, the relationship between the performers, the network, and the recording industry is probably delicate and weird.
The problem with this complaint, however, is that it creates a binary (public control vs. music industry control) that is not representative of the actual situation. What we have is an increased amount of public input.
The usual program for "manufacturing" a pop star involves talent agents, recording execs, and a very small percentage of performers who not only fill out a formula by style, expreience, skill, and subject, but also physique, age, status, and dress. It is a closed door process.
An oversimplified rebuttal might then state that American Idol is an "open door" process, but this is not true. It is, in fact, a heavily mitigated and edited encounter, especially early on in the process. But some level of compromise does not mean that the whole project lacks merit, and frankly the word "compromise" itself implies at least two parties with some measure of influence and a stake.
However we might criticize the judges for their (and ultimate selectors), I have been surprised at this shows circumspection in choosing a contestants with a wide range of styles, experiences, backgrounds, physiques, and abilities. Last year's Kelly Pickler was exactly the sort of annoying dumb-girl stereotype that most of my friends probably identify with this show. Yet the program also featured Mandisa, a marvelous singer, a heavy-set African American woman with a full-out style that seemed to suggest gospel meets Vegas. Perhaps even more to the point, when the competition reaches the point of voting, the public is more circumspect than we might expect.
In five seasons of American Idol, one winner was a very very large black man, one was illiterate, and the most recent winner had salt-and-pepper hair, a face a couple degrees shy of Jay Leno, and a style that seemed like a very over-the-top karaoke. Stylistically, the music at that level has been just as varied. Kelly Clarkson had a straight-on pop appeal. Taylor Hicks sings soul. Last year's running up will soon release her debut album which features heavy electronic sampling. Other performers have done very well with gospel, country, rock, and even showtunes. And another aspect of the show are the "genre series" that dominate the second half of the season. It essentially weed out one-trick ponies by requiring singers to be truly versatile. Last year the contestants sang Stevie Wonder and Queen, for godsakes.
The final word is this:
The Apollo Theater in Harlem, which anyone in her right mind regards as sacred ground, has for twenty years featured a singing competition that might fairly be seen as American Idol's predecessor. The audience is the judge, but they are downright merciless in their treatment of contestants, and sometimes their taste seems to be incomprehensible. This forum, however, has helped to launch the careers of Salt N Pepa, Patti LaBelle, the Beastie Boys, Mary J. Blige, and the Digital Undergronud, as just some stand outs on a long long long list.
So stop hating.
American Idol is not the ideal of populist adjudication, but it gives listerners a more engaging and committed stake in who and what they listen to.
END OF POST.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Don't Let Me Be Lonely, by Claudia Rankine.
CONCEPT
Well. What a depressing book to read over the Thanksgiving holiday!
Although, while it was depressing, it wasn't precisely discouraging. This contradiction was one of the most fascinating aspects of this piece to me… that while the subject matter was not only somber, but entropically somber (ie. our brains are controlled by drugs dispensed by evil and all-powerful pharmaceutical companies, and so on, so what is the point of even getting out of bed, much less resistance), it rarely left me in a shitty mood. Some of this may have been due to being in a good mood generally, but I do think there was something pertinent in the work itself. I found myself comparing it a lot with Don DeLillo's Mao II. While Mao II deals with anonymity in the context of writers and dictators, the sense of universal victimization was very similar. In the case of Mao II, I was so exasperated by the end (because do we really need so much help merely to continue feeling bleak?) that I literally threw the book. I'm intrigued then, by what could have made Don't Let Me Be Lonley so palatable, enjoyable even, when it seems to follow a similar course and reach similar conclusions.
And immediate possibility is the visual look of the piece. The cover was slightly off-putting, in that an elongated shape and colorful image are offset by the obvious Photoshop insertion of the title. Not only do the words lack the graininess and light effects of, say, the clouds and sunflowers, but the angle is offset slightly from that of the billboard. I later wondered if this was an intentional "mistake."
With this sole exception, the physical presentation is meticulous. While poems are not identified, or even decisively set apart, there is an implied division in the form of eighteen static-filled television screens. This is in keeping with one of the predominant themes of the piece; loneliness and insomnia. Inasmuch as there is a strong sense of human absence from most of these poems, Rankine does evoke a sense of companionship from the television in her frequent bouts of insomnia.
There were also many images. They all had an immediate relationship to their place in the book. For example, photos of Diallo and Byrd accompany references to their murders, and the description of Mr. Tool’s artificial heart is alongside a diagram of the apparatus. Even when the references are at their most deceptive, Rankine is quick to point out the idiosyncrasy in the endnotes. An example of this is the screenshot that accompanies an evocation of The Wild Bunch. Since both represent Westerns, it is easy to assume that the screenshot is from The Wild Bunch. It is not, but Rankine admits this openly.
The piece is also very open about itself thematically. Insomnia, pharmaceutical companies, drugs, health problems, political turmoil, and racism all intersect frequently. Often the actual encounters are almost identical, or at least the sleepy way Rankine describes them causes differences to blur. The Diallo and Byrd accounts are one example of this; while their settings and circumstances, and even the cause and nature of the crime itself may differ significantly, the narrative seems to drive toward similarities. Here the emphasis falls on the fact that a individual black man was murdered by many white men through excessive, sensational, and even grotesque use of force. But more subtle examples include her multiple references to her sister’s attempts to negotiate an insurance claim regarding her deceased family. There is no conveyance of the amount of time that has passed between these encounters, or on the sister’s progress or lack thereof.
This all seems relevant to me in helping to understand why I enjoyed this book. Whereas Mao II took up a debater’s position that activity is self-defeating, and set about building an argument about unaccountability to prove its point, Don’t Let Me Be Lonely doesn’t attempt to put forth an argument at all. Or if it does, the argument is so submerged beneath layers of sleep deprivation and disorientation that it never mounts a frontal assault upon a reader. In these words, it may seem hard to believe that this could possibly be “a good thing,” but I am convinced that it is. First, given the lack of a irreducible argument, the language itself is very robust and forceful, as are the images invoked:
What do I care about the liver? I could have told her it is because the word live hides within it. Or we might have been able to do something with the fact that the liver is the largest single internal organ next to the soul, which looms large though it is hidden. (54)
Second, because the terms of the piece seem to be set down by a narrator struggling against insomnia and sickness herself, as opposed to a narrator imposing this condition upon a helpless reader, the piece not only avoids intentional hostility, but what hostility remains is organic and integral to the book’s universe.
Finally, I have to say that I thought there were moments of beauty in here, and while they stayed true to the atmosphere of the piece as a whole, only appearing vaguely and momentarily, and sometimes without narrative recognition, they make this a three-dimensional piece. In other words, despite the omnipresence of inertia and horror, there is at least an illusion of something else:
In a taxi speeding uptown on the West Side Highway, I let my thoughts drift below the surface of the Hudson until it finally occurs to me that feelings fill the gaps created by the indirectness of experience. (89)
END OF POST.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
When the Sacred Ginmill Closes, by Lawrence Block.
CONCEPT
Part of the noir reading list I put together for my thesis with the help of Robert Polito and Jeffery Allen. As such, it was "required reading."
Matthew Scudder is an ex-cop without a job per se. Instead, he bums around Manhattan doing detective-style "favors" for friends in exchange for their donations. This keeps him in liquor, pays his hotel room, and occasionally a visit to the ex and their kids. This story, then, follows Matthew as three mysteries revolve around each other. He decides to tackle two, and to leave the third alone, but of course they're all entangled, so...
An appropriate place to start, perhaps, is with this book's evocative power. I haven't encountered much else, literature-wise that has made me feel so gooey and delicious about living in New York City. This comment is almost more powerful, being a thoroughly noirish piece set in the midtown of the seventies, with its million rundown parts, murders daily, burt-out buildings and sleazy strip clubs. But who am I killing. That scene has a romance all of its own (and one which most New Yorkers seem to wax nostalgic about).
The greatest strength in the book is its ability to balance out something unredeemably icky with an odd, idiosyncratic appeal. This is most powerfully demonstrated in the relationship of the protagonist to alcohol. He is clearly an alcoholic, in a very un-subtle way (both in the way his public and private lives completely revolve around drinking at the expense of all else, and also with his capacity to drink enough to kill a horse). He frequently demonstrates how nasty he bourbon can be. And yet... and yet... he makes that burning brown liquid that almost ended North by Northwest a half hour in the most tempting thing in the world.
This ambivalence toward the stuff, which is evidently an issue in other books featuring Matt Scudder, is echoed in every major relationship in the story, including that of the protagonist to the reaser. He's incredibly sympathetic, to the extent that his actions become not so much an issue of accountability as expectation. However I am inclined to judge what he does, I am rarely tempted to judge him. This extends to the morose and grim and somehow warm depictions of Midtown and Brooklyn, to his shady bartender friends (most evocatively Skip and the Morriseys), and even to the plot itself. In fact, something truly impressive that I almost lost beneath the striking characterizations was that this is a true example of narrative idiosyncracy. While the "story" is hardly experimental in the modern tradition of a conspicuous variations, it trumps both whodunnit conventions and those of a linear story by upsetting expectations. The upset(s) (which I won't disclose) is not so much an unexpected plot twist as much as a lack thereof. That is, for once this is a novel where a "plausible/lifelike" resolution does not rest upon an assumption of balanced and suspended symmetries. Things need not be all tied up, and they don't.
It might sound like a story that ends without much of acrescendo, but this is where the building of suspense, raising of stakes, revelation of information (all, strictly speaking, "convention") are so well executed that the ending does have the feeling of a climax.
And it's dark... dark and gritty.
You'll want to floss afterwards, it's that gritty.
But also a lot of fun.
I enjoyed reading this book a lot. It had enough energy and ingenuity to drag its subject matter out of the gutters.
END OF POST.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Logicalogics, by Ronald Palmer.
CONCEPT
I think this syllabus is unreasonably biased toward people with the last name Palmer.
Logicalogics was a fun way to go out. It strikingly reminded me of the sort of work I saw working on my high school's literary magazine. I realize that has to come off as a pretty dubious compliment, but it's only meant as positive. Obviously, the spoiler here is the level of craft; in the sense that Palmer knows very well what he's doing, and most high school students don't (I certainly didn't). This important distinction aside, what strikes me as common to both sets is the directness of emotional vectors and an openness in experimentation.
These statements deserve some clarification. Every text we've read has been "experimental," in varying degrees and contexts. To a lesser extent, many texts have been charged with an emotional translucence: Claudia Rankine, E. E. Cummings, Diana Vreeland, and so on. One of the things that was interesting in the work submitted by high schoolers is first that experimentation does not appear to be hierarchically sorted as it does by older writers. If I am going to choose to experiment with a poem or a story, for example, I might act on an inspiration for a draft, but in revision I am very soon considering in a more discrete, abstract way the intent and effects of whatever variation I've introduced. Ironically (and almost with chagrin), I suspect that Ronald Palmer is doing the same thing… the fact that this collection took a decade to assemble, and his consideration of physical space, balance, rhyme, and meter can only suggest that things are very closely considered indeed. There's something inexplicable and almost deceptive, then, in the conspicuous and seemingly spontaneous idiosyncracies in Logicalogics.
Part of his, I think, is simply a matter of flair. The frequent use of colons ("Their fears: then jump up to reinvent the world for us:" (18)), occasional bolding and italicizing of text ("All entries must hook the mind into a question." (23)), and almost constant interruption of words mid-utterance ("Don't get hysteric: al: beit eso: teric:" (34)) are not only very visual choices, but on first glance, they have the appearance of chaos. The same could be said of the liberal use of blank space, but between stanzas and paragraphs and between individual sentences and words, the unusual shape of the book, the texture of the paper, and even the seamless way that poems proceed unannounced from the dedication and acknowledgments, as if these were poems themselves. On a deeper level, the free play between sex (as seen in Sex Addicts: In Love: "I lick it like a steady job: like a tedious pig: like a studious slob." (56)), metaphysics ("I have failed at being: falsely ecto: morphic." (56), "So let me dine: on Wittgen:Steinian color: logic" (57)), literature ("I picture Foucault's bald head: with a lyrical halo:" (56)), and politics ("In 1978: / when I was twelve: my body became a game of logic // with a patent." (57)) seems equally extemporaneous. As a result, Palmer's experimentation feels improvised and a little wild.
The directness of emotional vectors is equally apparent. As with experimentation, I felt that in reading high school submissions one common feature was a measure of unself-consciousness in exhibiting emotion, Logicalogics arrives at a similar effect, perhaps by coming from a very different direction. Quite simply, I just think that Palmer was restrained in use of irony. Certainly, both joking ("75: Co: lons: for A: R: Am: mons" (2)) and sarcasm ("(O holographic ideal world!)" (31)) are common. However, both are clearly positioned at points within a poem as a device, whereas each poem has its own emotional signature, some providing evidence on nearly every line: ("Maybe we should pause this: till I move to the city: / Till we stir in the nitty gritty: with Pity me: Pit me: / Now you gotta trust me: (Your body's so easy to free!) / And I'm counting hour: by hour: beyond the logic of power: / Where every berry: gripes: then re-ripens to sour." (19)).
For me, the cumulative association of Logicalogics with poetry I haven't read since I was eighteen was quite emphatic and precise. It's interesting to me, then, that I didn't have the additional handicap of associating the book with the weaknesses I expect from inexperienced writers. More than avoiding the trap, Logicalogics was refreshing, in that it reminded me of what interested me in poetry in the first place.
END OF POST.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Reluctant Gravities, by Rosemarie Waldrop.
CONCEPT
It's an interesting coincidence this week that I wrote you some comments on postmodernism, in which the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle prominently features, and then we read (what most would consider an indisputably postmodern work) Reluctant Gravities, which involves the same phenomena.
Part of my angle on this thing is that I briefly majored in Physics in College, and I intended to specialize in Theoretical Cosmology. It was the math that defeated me. Today, my litmus test for any writer taking on cosmology is their interpretation of Universal expansion. Writers seem obsessed with the "Big Crunch" scenario and describe it to this day as a sort of certainty. But the Big Crunch was always the least likely prognosis and was disproven outright around the time Reluctant Gravities was published. Current cosmological thought is that the universe expands at an accelerating rate and will eventually suffer a radical form of heat death. The word "radical" is key here. It means that even if a particle cannot move at a speed greater than light, space itself can expand at such this fast. In the extreme, extreme future (long after the stars and galaxies have burnt out, and even black holes have evaporated) space will expand so rapidly that actual photons will be isolated. They will not be able to communicate with each other, meaning that light itself will cease to exist.
At any rate, Rosemarie Waldrop has been more rigorous in her allusion to and incorporation of cosmology than any other fictional or poetic writer I've encountered. This book seemed written not only with an awareness of but subscription to heat death.
I wish I had as fine an understanding of Waldrop herself. In Shelley Jackson's class last semester we read A Form / Of Taking / It All, and at the end I had very little to contribute in class because I had understood the piece very poorly. I think I fared somewhat better this time. Not only was I able to connect with the Astrophysical discussion, but I've had a good semester of avant-garde poetry to gear up, and I also knew what to expect. Also, the shape of the collection was a useful tool.
I've noticed that many of the pieces we've read this semester have a very clear, symmetrical shape, even if the content itself is ambiguous and difficult to contextualize. This was true to the greatest extent with Brock-Broido, but Carson, Hejinian, Mullen, and Palmer all have played with the shape of their pieces to suggest certain cues that may be missing in the narrative, and often this symmetry of choice goes as deep and as far as the stanza. Waldrop has taken this to a new level. There are six sections, each divided into four Conversations (numbered) "on" a particular topic. Within each section there is a general topical premise: I, spatial orientation; II, objective via vectors; III, insurmountable distance; IV, sense and exchange; V, temporal orientation; and VI, temporal shift. Each Conversation consists of four prose poetic paragraphs (which may or may not be collages; I couldn't decide), the first two of which were on an odd-numbered page, the second two on the following even-numbered page. Between the six Conversations were five Interludes, consisting of a song (first page, odd), a two-page meditation, and another song (fourth page, even). The whole piece kicks off with a three page Prologue ("Two Voices"), which brings the total number by Prologue plus Interludes to six. The total number of sections is therefore twelve, including a total of twenty-four Conversations. The effect of this arrangement is also that each Conversation is intact even if it were a single page ripped from the book, and any Conversation, Interlude, or section could be removed without overlap. This is unquestionably the most extensively organized piece we've read.
Reading the structure against scientific inquiry that is a constant backdrop throughout the book, a case could perhaps be made that such balance and symmetry is meant to suggest the fine-tuning of physical properties that must occur if matter is to interact in any form whatsoever. Some Physics friends of mine have speculated that for every universe capable of sustaining life, for example, there are likely millions or billions of unstable counterparts. That is, it is the precise balance of matter and energy that enables a controlled expansion for a time without immediate collapse. Or, perhaps, Waldrop just thought this was a cool structure to work with.
What does seem explicitly intended however is an examination of language in conjunction with these properties of physics. To put the idea more aggressively, what do these cosmological discoveries mean for the substance and use of language? Such an inquiry is borne out both in the structure (such as the topics of conversation and their arrangement), and line-by-line: "The galaxies avoid collapsing onto each other by virtue of their recessional motion, he says," (44). Later, she writes:
We want to believe a focus on light clarifies, if at the price of harshness. But a century of looking through the ultimate keyhole has leached the revelation from under covers and drawn blinds. Now all we've got is a bald mountain. (79)
If the reference here is what I think it is; that inflation theory, or acceleration of expansion leads to darkness by heat death, then I disagree with her conclusion (that "all we've got is a bald mountain.") Inflation theory requires the establishment of physical properties at the moment of the Big Bang, and this, at least metaphysically, implies the possibility of other universes. More, while I agree with the Publishers Weekly review claims that "where many American poets flee scientific realism for bodily or religious transcendence, Waldrop's work plays intellect off against itself, appealing to chaos theory, non-Euclidian geometry and contemporary cosmology, in order to undermine ordinary ideas about language, truth and logic," I'm still pretty hazy on the rigor and reach of that goal. "Undermining" can take many forms, and this piece was too dense to reckon with intentionality and argument in such detail on a single read.
Ultimately, while I did have limited access to the collection through Cosmology and very clear structure, I've felt with both Waldrop pieces I've read, as I did with Brock-Broido, that the act of reading is much like prayer. It's too easy to fall into the rhythm, and without perfect clarity and concentration in the moment the words just become automatic utterances. I don't think that this is a liability in the writing itself, but it is an additional obstacle for a reader to overcome.
END OF POST.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
D.V., by Diana Vreeland.
CONCEPT
As you’ve probably gathered from my email, I still haven’t finished the book. Although I think I’ve over halfway through if everything I read from the beginning and near the end is counted. At any rate, I’m disappointed that this is the one book I’ve evidently dropped the ball with, because I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read and think that was a class discussion I would’ve been quite involved in.
Among the things I remember coming up frequently in that discussion was the observation that D.V. was "superficial." People ended up making arguments in favor of the book beginning, "she’s very superficial, but," and then there was a somewhat smaller group that was just saying "she’s very superficial." I disagree with both groups.
I like the word superficial... I use it a lot, including in this class. The word’s Latin history is very straightforward, super meaning above and ficial being a surface. The word, then, stripped of its pejorative connotations constrains the modified object to the surface or exterior (in whatever sense the context provides). At the same time the word reflexively implies an alternative to the surface; something that is not the surface. This other substance can either be present or absent, defined or undefined, and connected or disconnected from whatever lies beneath. The word is useful, then, because it easily allows a complexity that the alternative words "form" and "content" do not handle very well in practice. Superficial is useful for making distinctions, but it is not so easily trapped in false dichotomies.
Even though we didn’t discuss this in class, I do think that most of the references people made utilized the word superficial in this broad sense. By describing D.V. as superficial, one asserts that nothing is hidden in the text, that what we notice is what there is to examine about the text. Those arguing against the book on this basis would then make the argument that it is soulless. Those arguing in support of the book would say something to the effect that superficiality creates a complexity in omitted dialogue. For example, many people spoke of the loneliness and tragedy of the piece. In Vreeland’s energy, they would argue, there is a repudiation of decay and banality, but in her superficiality, this repudiation becomes a little desperate. This is the complexity of the piece.
I can get on board with much of the second argument. I sensed what I thought seemed to be a real reluctance to talk extensively about life’s horrors, and the decisiveness of the maitre d’s suicide near the end, or in a less melodramatic sense, the simple fact of leaving a place and a group of people forever did seem to result from a genuine reluctance to engage these subjects. At least to engage them in a published memoir.
What I disagree with, however, is the restrictiveness of the verdict. There is a huge difference between saying that "D.V. is superficial" and stating that "the superficial characteristics of D.V. suggest a denial." I think the first view, which almost everyone who spoke somewhat largely seems to result from a bias going into the book. I think that there’s a bias in favor of darkness – I think that most writers in our program (and perhaps in general) associate happiness as simplicity and lack of interest or rigor. I think that (certainly in prose, and very likely in poetry) there is also a preference for complexity, and this most frequently comes out in the form of thematic and interpersonal conflict; both sides of an issue will have to negotiate a compromised, less accessible position to get what they wish. I certainly think there’s a bias against the "fashion world," simply because we’re steeped in images of Hollywood aloofness, or anorexic models, or ridiculous extravagance, and so on. Finally, there might even be a bias against the style of writing. These images of the horses on the Upper East Side and trips to Wyoming and St. Petersburg are evocative, but they don’t linger. Vreeland frenetically changes subjects, and as soon as she’s evoked a detail, she shoos it off the page.
I’ve gotten a little theoretical here. To pull it back little to my main point, fashion as described in D.V. is elbow deep in all sorts of complex and pertinent issues. From the very beginning Vreeland is describing the changing class structures of the first half of the 20th century. She discusses these issues primarily from the perspective of fashion and high society. But she also incorporates her sense of history, politics, and technology. She talks about growing up, forming a sense of place, forming a sense of loyalty, first to people that maintain contact, even though setting changes. She goes on to extrapolate the importance of loyalty to concepts. When she describes her parting from Buffalo Bill she writes "I can still remember standing with my sister at the back of the train with tears pouring down out faces, waving…" (24). This moment cannot escape complexity held against her impressions of Paris and New York, and even Albany where "everyone was older than us," (33).
I agree that the style and purpose of D.V. suggests a loneliness or uncertainty that Vreeland is unwilling to wrestle with within the text itself. But I wouldn’t stop there. As a book with a prominent and extravagant surface, D.V. is sumptuously superficial. The surface, however, is only the beginning.
END OF POST.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett.
CONCEPT
Part of the noir reading list I put together for my thesis with the help of Robert Polito and Jeffery Allen. As such, it was "required reading."
This is actually the second of the "assigned books" that I picked up, but it has such an undeniable place in the canon that I feel I have to address it first. I'd seen the Humphrey Bogart film a number of years ago, but it's been awhile and I didn't remember much. In fact, what I do remember was a sense of slight disappointment... the film didn't terrify me, or even make me feel ill-at-ease, and I had a sense of where the plot was going even though I couldn't predict individual twists and turns.
That's the problem, I think, with reading in the 2000s what was intended for the 1930s. We know the sultry dame, the wise-cracking detective, the hot-headed police sergeant all too well. It says something, however, that in spite of being saturated in such images, and having already heard the plot once in a movie, the book was still a page turner.
Or maybe I'm just a very forgiving reader.
Beyond all that, here's are some other things I've been given by this book:
- A superficial conundrum: We feel an almost instinctual compulsion to carry out our duties, to act with fidelity to certain roles or relationships, however distasteful we may find the people or responsibilities involved.
However superficial the argument may be, it comes through with panache and style. - A much deeper conundrum: An object or goal desired too much becomes abstracted from itself, and is unattainable literally and metaphorically because the quest evolves into a more tangible subject than the object/goal itself.
In short, another aspect of the "Enkidu moment."
This wasn't as central to the plot as the point above. It was, subtly evoked. - Fog and San Francisco. Frequently seen and always sexy, but close to an original here.
- Alcoholism never looked so glamorous.
- On the other hand, the story didn't dress up its misogyny as well as it did its booziness. I often think that what people classify as "misogynistic" would be better called "clueless obnoxious ignorance." The Maltese Falcon, however, is about as misogynistic as anything I've ever read.
I don't have much more to say, actually... genre fiction gets a bad rap, which I think is unfair, as literary invention and skill can flourish within genre conventions just as well as within our less acknowledged literary conventions. That said, The Maltese Falcon was and is remarkable for the vividness of the hand it shows, rather than a corresponding skill of deployment. The best literature, I believe, demonstrates both skill and vividness. I recognize the importance of this novel and enjoyed it. I would not, however, describe it as "astonishing."
You'll find I'm vague at times here, or at least lacking specific examples. I'm not being a jerk. I don't want to give the endings away.
END OF POST.
The Postman Always Rings Twice, by James Cain.
CONCEPT
Part of the noir reading list I put together for my thesis with the help of Robert Polito and Jeffery Allen. As such, it was "required reading."
I read The Postman Always Rings Twice prior to The Maltese Falcon, mainly because the former was shorter.
I can understand why The Maltese Falcon is the grandaddy of the genre, and especially its hard-boiled angle. Characters like Brigid O'Shaughnassy and Sam Spade are so vivid that reading them is something of a visceral experience, and so simply and directly rendered that their dopplegangers might crop up in any number of stories. Still, I never lose a sense of stylization in the Maltese Falcon, and like most stylized writing, its symbolic vocabulary is so netted in time and place, that the thing read as somewhat dated.
Postman had its dated moments too, and was probably equally stylized, but the elements were neither as intrusive or conspicuous. Part of this clearly derives from the focus of the stories. In The Maltese Falcon the biggest mystery is actually the protagonists' intentions. To accredit their emotions is to basically give away their hands, so at most the characters' feelings are described as symptomatic, and in most cases are affected. The question for the reader, then, is if she can determine who to selectively trust and when. It is a story of semantic and gestural clues.
There is never any question of authenticity of emotion in The Postman Always Rings Twice. Certainly, the characters deceive one another, but the candor of the narrator with his readers is in such a direct opposition to his conduct elsewhere that there seems to be no reason to second-guess him. Seemingly absent from the plot are the mechanical subtleties of cause-and-effect that are so abundant in the Maltese Falcon. More the emotions the characters engage are instinctual and ubiquitous in any reader's life: lust, hunger, jealousy, anxiety... The question for the reader, then, is whether he can predict where these familiar but unpredictable desires will take the character.
The novel is officially noir when the characters voluntarily choose a dark and nasty path.
So I liked this novel, and it was fun, even if the end is predictably wretched for all involved. It was eminently more feasible than Falcon and certainly more psychologically compelling. Which is not to say that it's the better book; both are exceedingly well crafted in very different ways. But if I wanted to recommend one of these two classics to frighten and/or trouble you, Postman is the clear choice.
END OF POST.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, by Agatha Christie.
CONCEPT
Part of the noir reading list I put together for my thesis with the help of Robert Polito and Jeffery Allen. As such, it was "required reading."
This was actually the first mystery I read for the project, and having read it last November, my memory gets a little hazy. While it's certainly not as dark as either the Cain or Hammett, it has a chilling conclusion that is much more frightening, by contrast to the tone throughout. This won't be of much use in Rats, where there is nothing atmospherically subtle, and the book almost fooled me, but I did get a lot out of the way it systematically deployed clues for interpretation.
Of all the books I've read, this is the closest to a traditional whodunnit.
I'm really in a bind as whether or not to say much more, because even for a mystery the element of surprise, the choreographed deployment of information, is essential to an enjoyable read. It is certainly best suited to a reading that is itself, asmospheric... so old Viennese coffee shop with a fire, maybe, or a late night with hot chocolate. I know I'm bordering on the clich♪8 here, but I always want to respond that only affectation is clichè. Or, how can a "thing" be clichè? It wasn't the first time it was used.
Anyway, that's a digression. The characters are strikingly rendered, albeit with an almost Dickensian whimsicality. It contrasts with the other books I've been reading in that most of the characters are ultimately likeable. I don't think that's a virtue in-and-of itself, but it is refreshing in the midst of bleakness. Also, the paradox that solving the mystery requires a careful and methodical read, whereas encourages fast and reckless page-turning, is pronounced here. It is probably the best crafted of the thesis readings I've done so far.
Which is probably part of the reason Agatha Christie was so famous.
END OF POST.
