I think you should read this, from The New York Review of Books. Tony Judt has ALS and is 'effectively quadriplegic'. He writes, 'In the early stages of my disease the temptation to call out for help was almost irresistible: every muscle felt in need of movement, every inch of skin itched, my bladder found mysterious ways to refill itself in the night and thus require relief, and in general I felt a desperate need for the reassurance of light, company, and the simple comforts of human intercourse. By now, however, I have learned to forgo this most nights, finding solace and recourse in my own thoughts.
'The latter, though I say it myself, is no small undertaking. Ask yourself how often you move in the night. I don't mean change location altogether (e.g., to go to the bathroom, though that too): merely how often you shift a hand, a foot; how frequently you scratch assorted body parts before dropping off; how unselfconsciously you alter position very slightly to find the most comfortable one. Imagine for a moment that you had been obliged instead to lie absolutely motionless on your back—by no means the best sleeping position, but the only one I can tolerate—for seven unbroken hours and constrained to come up with ways to render this Calvary tolerable not just for one night but for the rest of your life.'
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
Russia from My Doorstep
'Alaska, the particular reality from which Palin hails, is so little known by most Americans that she was able to freely mythicize her state as the utopian last refuge of the "hard work ethic," "unpretentious living," and proud self-sufficiency. Her anti-tax rhetoric (private citizens spend their money more wisely than government does) and disdain for "federal dollars" were unembarrassed by the fact that Alaska tops the tables of both per capita federal expenditure, on which one in three jobs in the state depends, and congressional earmarks, or "pork." So, too, she mythicized the straggling eyesore of Wasilla (described by a current councilwoman there as "like a big ugly strip mall from one end to the other") as the bucolic small town of sentimental American memory. Listening to Palin talk about it, one was invited to inspect not the string of oceanic parking lots attached to Fred Meyer, Lowe's, Target, Wal-Mart, and Home Depot, or the town's reputation among state troopers as the crystal meth capital of Alaska [ed: !], but, rather, the imaginary barber shop, drugstore soda fountain, antique church, and raised boardwalks, seen in the rosy light of an Indian summer evening.' — Jonathan Raban on Sarah Palin in The New York Review of Books
Amazon's Jeff Bexos on The Kindle
'There are two ways that companies can extend what they're doing. One is they can take an inventory of their skills and competencies, and then they can say, "OK, with this set of skills and competencies, what else can we do?" And that's a very useful technique that all companies should use. But there's a second method, which takes a longer-term orientation. It is to say, rather than ask what are we good at and what else can we do with that skill, you ask, who are our customers? What do they need? And then you say we're going to give that to them regardless of whether we currently have the skills to do so, and we will learn those skills no matter how long it takes. Kindle is a great example of that. It's been on the market for two years, but we worked on it for three years in earnest before that. We talked about it for a year before that. We had to go hire people to build a hardware-engineering team to build the device. We had to acquire new skills. There's a tendency, I think, for executives to think that the right course of action is to stick to the knitting—stick with what you're good at. That may be a generally good rule, but the problem is the world changes out from under you if you're not constantly adding to your skill set.' — Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, in an interview on Slate
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Coetzee's Summertime
Jonathan Dee reviews JM Coetzee's newest memoir/novel, Summertime, at The New York Time: 'Late in the book, a former faculty colleague from the University of Cape Town named Sophie, with whom Coetzee had an affair (“In all the time I was with him I never had the feeling I was with an exceptional person”), offers — or, more accurately, is made by Coetzee himself to offer — this assessment of the writer whom many, this reviewer among them, would consider the greatest living novelist in English: “I would say that his work lacks ambition. The control of the elements is too tight. Nowhere do you get a feeling of a writer deforming his medium in order to say what has never been said before, which is to me the mark of great writing.”
'That is the prism through which to read not only Summertime but most of Coetzee’s work from the last decade, certainly since the Nobel: as a series of provocative genre-deformations (the lecture series of Elizabeth Costello, the triptych-pages of Diary of a Bad Year, the bizarre procedural fragmentation of this book) made in the interest of bringing his opinion of his own achievements in line with that of the rest of the world. “How can you be a great writer,” says Adriana, “if you are just an ordinary little man?” Coetzee may feel it is too late to amend his legacy in the second regard, but even from beyond the fictional grave he is determined to expand upon the first.'
I'm just totally fascinated, from my view in the cheap seats, by the transformation tat Coetzee seems to have made in the last decade. If I ever get the chance, I'm going to read these books all in a go and see what I can make of them.
'That is the prism through which to read not only Summertime but most of Coetzee’s work from the last decade, certainly since the Nobel: as a series of provocative genre-deformations (the lecture series of Elizabeth Costello, the triptych-pages of Diary of a Bad Year, the bizarre procedural fragmentation of this book) made in the interest of bringing his opinion of his own achievements in line with that of the rest of the world. “How can you be a great writer,” says Adriana, “if you are just an ordinary little man?” Coetzee may feel it is too late to amend his legacy in the second regard, but even from beyond the fictional grave he is determined to expand upon the first.'
I'm just totally fascinated, from my view in the cheap seats, by the transformation tat Coetzee seems to have made in the last decade. If I ever get the chance, I'm going to read these books all in a go and see what I can make of them.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Hysterical, but Nice
The goodly Don Share directs us to an entry by the [in]famous blogger Ron Silliman at The Poetry Foundation website, in which the latter discusses changes in poetry culture over the last decade. Besides some typical end-of-days hysteria at the beginning, it is, surprisingly, fairly hopeful. Ron writes, 'What’s apparent is that (a) this joyride isn’t over, and (b) we’re all in this together. When I realize that any chapbook publisher with a Blogspot page and PayPal account can sell directly to readers worldwide, I feel hopeful. I just hope we can find time to read & enjoy this great bounty.'
Sweet and hopeful, but also misleading. Poetry publishing has always been pretty niche. The changes are not so huge as to remove cultural authority altogether and make it so any random DIY-er chapbook publisher will thrive — someone with authority still needs to sign off on most things to convince readers to pick it up (hence, for instance, blurbs). And, as I've written here before, the fact of (almost) universal availability is not a sign of utopian egalitarianism; it's just a now-irrelevant holdover from print. The internet is an amazing tool for making poetry available. Everything is equally available; that in itself is unremarkable.
While the internet may be wonderful for distribution, it is a terrible tool for helping people actually decide what to read; and, given a glut of otherwise indiscernible choices, most people will simply ignore the noise. Authority in culture, that 'gate-keeping' or validating authority, has not been eliminated: it has been dissipated, so much that poetry culture to most people is nothing but noise. Ron Silliman with his avant garde chest beating; Ernie Hilbert revving up tradition; The Poetry Foundation trying to be all poetry things to all Americans; Ken Goldsmith undermining hegemonies that don't exist; each online magazine shilling it's cadre of bar-pals with equal urgency; William Logan tossing darts from the Times and the New Criterion: it is a lot for a reader, alone out there, to wade through.
There was a time when all one needed to do was cite a publication as validation for the opinion of a critic. 'Oh, well, I saw it in the Boston Globe', and that was enough to make an opinion matter. Authority was invested by the entity of the paper, by the money invested in it, and even in disagreeing one took the opinion as a main line. It was the line, the centerpoint. These publications gave readers a list of poets and titles, helped them figure out what to bother with and what to ignore. No more; or at least, minimally now. But a reader's time remains short. So, what then?
The last ten years has seen the dissipation of the old authority in culture. As a result, most readers have clung to the existing standards, the old standbys; worthy newer poets find themselves engaging ever smaller, increasingly individuated audiences that exist only as far as this or that critic or journal has sway. But the muddle is clearing, gradually. Readers are getting savvier about the internet. Critics are beginning to engage more, to quote more, to take advantage of the resources of internet publishing instead of bemoaning the end of print. Authority can be re-constructed, with patience, over time, by helping readers make their own decisions through reasonable argument and justification. There is a new model emerging based on the quality of the writing and the criticism rather than monied interests. (I think of Reginald Shepherd, whose blogging introduced him to a whole audience.) That is what gives me hope for poetry.
[ed: Hello folks from Ron's blog! if you want to read more, see my editorial at The Critical Flame, a Journal of Book Reviews & Criticism]
Sweet and hopeful, but also misleading. Poetry publishing has always been pretty niche. The changes are not so huge as to remove cultural authority altogether and make it so any random DIY-er chapbook publisher will thrive — someone with authority still needs to sign off on most things to convince readers to pick it up (hence, for instance, blurbs). And, as I've written here before, the fact of (almost) universal availability is not a sign of utopian egalitarianism; it's just a now-irrelevant holdover from print. The internet is an amazing tool for making poetry available. Everything is equally available; that in itself is unremarkable.
While the internet may be wonderful for distribution, it is a terrible tool for helping people actually decide what to read; and, given a glut of otherwise indiscernible choices, most people will simply ignore the noise. Authority in culture, that 'gate-keeping' or validating authority, has not been eliminated: it has been dissipated, so much that poetry culture to most people is nothing but noise. Ron Silliman with his avant garde chest beating; Ernie Hilbert revving up tradition; The Poetry Foundation trying to be all poetry things to all Americans; Ken Goldsmith undermining hegemonies that don't exist; each online magazine shilling it's cadre of bar-pals with equal urgency; William Logan tossing darts from the Times and the New Criterion: it is a lot for a reader, alone out there, to wade through.
There was a time when all one needed to do was cite a publication as validation for the opinion of a critic. 'Oh, well, I saw it in the Boston Globe', and that was enough to make an opinion matter. Authority was invested by the entity of the paper, by the money invested in it, and even in disagreeing one took the opinion as a main line. It was the line, the centerpoint. These publications gave readers a list of poets and titles, helped them figure out what to bother with and what to ignore. No more; or at least, minimally now. But a reader's time remains short. So, what then?
The last ten years has seen the dissipation of the old authority in culture. As a result, most readers have clung to the existing standards, the old standbys; worthy newer poets find themselves engaging ever smaller, increasingly individuated audiences that exist only as far as this or that critic or journal has sway. But the muddle is clearing, gradually. Readers are getting savvier about the internet. Critics are beginning to engage more, to quote more, to take advantage of the resources of internet publishing instead of bemoaning the end of print. Authority can be re-constructed, with patience, over time, by helping readers make their own decisions through reasonable argument and justification. There is a new model emerging based on the quality of the writing and the criticism rather than monied interests. (I think of Reginald Shepherd, whose blogging introduced him to a whole audience.) That is what gives me hope for poetry.
[ed: Hello folks from Ron's blog! if you want to read more, see my editorial at The Critical Flame, a Journal of Book Reviews & Criticism]
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
“The Peacock at Alderton” by Geoffrey Hill
Nothing to tell why I cannot write
in re Nobody; nobody to narrate this
latter acknowledgement: the self that counts
words to a line, accountable survivor
pain-wedged, pinioned in the cleft trunk,
less petty than a sprite, poisonous as Ariel
to Prospero's own knowledge. In my room
a vase of peacock feathers. I will attempt
to describe them, as if for evidence
on which a life depends. Except for the eyes
they are threadbare: the threads hanging
from some luminate tough weed in February.
But those eyes – like a Greek letter,
omega, fossiled in an Indian shawl;
like a shaved cross-section of living tissue,
the edge metallic blue, the core of jet,
the white of the eye in fact closer to beige,
the whole encircled with a black-fringed green.
The peacock roosts alone on a Scots pine
at the garden end, in blustery twilight
his fulgent cloak stark as a warlock's cape,
the maharajah-bird that scavenges
close by the stone-troughed, stone terraced, stone-ensurfed
Suffolk shoreline; at times displays his scream.
latter acknowledgement: the self that counts
words to a line, accountable survivor
pain-wedged, pinioned in the cleft trunk,
less petty than a sprite, poisonous as Ariel
to Prospero's own knowledge. In my room
a vase of peacock feathers. I will attempt
to describe them, as if for evidence
on which a life depends. Except for the eyes
they are threadbare: the threads hanging
from some luminate tough weed in February.
But those eyes – like a Greek letter,
omega, fossiled in an Indian shawl;
like a shaved cross-section of living tissue,
the edge metallic blue, the core of jet,
the white of the eye in fact closer to beige,
the whole encircled with a black-fringed green.
The peacock roosts alone on a Scots pine
at the garden end, in blustery twilight
his fulgent cloak stark as a warlock's cape,
the maharajah-bird that scavenges
close by the stone-troughed, stone terraced, stone-ensurfed
Suffolk shoreline; at times displays his scream.
courtesy of The Times (London)
“Manifest” by Reginald Shepherd
Sir star, Herr Lenz, white season body
master snapping masts in half, absent
winds’ workmanship: what window
will I look you through, what brook, stream
creaking past fretwork weeds, clouds
in the context of cold? Lord knot
to be untied, skiff hard alee ill winds:
a hiss of wish and cinders and I
am warm, crossing dazed oceans by hand
to sow the doubtful sea with drought. Mine
of rain and seize and sluice, you change
your mind again, a rage for green waves’
open vowels, undrinkable. No talking
to the weeds, no talking with the snow.
master snapping masts in half, absent
winds’ workmanship: what window
will I look you through, what brook, stream
creaking past fretwork weeds, clouds
in the context of cold? Lord knot
to be untied, skiff hard alee ill winds:
a hiss of wish and cinders and I
am warm, crossing dazed oceans by hand
to sow the doubtful sea with drought. Mine
of rain and seize and sluice, you change
your mind again, a rage for green waves’
open vowels, undrinkable. No talking
to the weeds, no talking with the snow.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Lazy American (Second-tier Business) Students
At The Boston Globe, Babson College Professor Kara Miller complains that the American students at her reputable but second-tier undergraduate business program don't work hard enough at rhetoric and history, while the foreign students go for broke. There are so many things awry in this article that I had a hard time figuring out where to begin. And then I gave up on it.
Prof. Miller writes, 'Chinese undergraduates have consistently impressed me with their work ethic, though I have seen similar habits in students from India, Thailand, Brazil, and Venezuela. Often, they’ve done little English-language writing in their home countries, and they frequently struggle to understand my lectures. But their respect for professors — and for knowledge itself — is palpable. The students listen intently to everything I say, whether in class or during office hours, and try to engage in the conversation. Too many 18-year-old Americans, meanwhile, text one another under their desks (certain they are sly enough to go unnoticed), check e-mail, decline to take notes, and appear tired and disengaged. Of course, it would be wrong to suggest that all American students are the same. I’ve taught many who were hardworking, talented, and deeply impressive. They listened intently, enriched class discussions, and never shied away from rewrites. At their best, American students marry knowledge and innovation, resulting in some astoundingly creative work.'
First of all: she lets her students text during class? Grow a pair, lady. I noticed a definite theme here, and I'm no expert, but if you constantly let kids get away with not doing their work, then I think they aren't going to do their work. This is not rocket science (and even if it were, she teaches history): she's a pushover. Fail some of those lazy students.
Second: foreign (read, subtly: non-first world) students are not universally hard-working just like American students are not universally lazy. This is sociology by way of a Disney ride. Some foreign students party, some slack, some skate. The ones that don't work hard just tend to stay in their home countries, lacking the opportunity to study abroad. On the other hand, top-tier American students also don't generally go to Babson, they go to Ivy League schools (and the ones who do go there don't probably give a damn about rhetoric).
It's difficult to take her too seriously because she teaches at this very affluent, very small, very suburban, mostly white, private business college — not exactly a representative sampling of American students. One could easily pick on the mass of sexagenarian professors whose savings depletion forces them to show up and not try too hard day after day, semester after semester; but that's just as misleading, and just as unfair. Could the US be doing better in math and science? Yes. Is the gap due to American laziness as opposed to, say, the rigid social constraints and pressures of countries like Singapore? Nope.
Third: I'm tired of these articles. Say something useful or get off the stage.
Prof. Miller writes, 'Chinese undergraduates have consistently impressed me with their work ethic, though I have seen similar habits in students from India, Thailand, Brazil, and Venezuela. Often, they’ve done little English-language writing in their home countries, and they frequently struggle to understand my lectures. But their respect for professors — and for knowledge itself — is palpable. The students listen intently to everything I say, whether in class or during office hours, and try to engage in the conversation. Too many 18-year-old Americans, meanwhile, text one another under their desks (certain they are sly enough to go unnoticed), check e-mail, decline to take notes, and appear tired and disengaged. Of course, it would be wrong to suggest that all American students are the same. I’ve taught many who were hardworking, talented, and deeply impressive. They listened intently, enriched class discussions, and never shied away from rewrites. At their best, American students marry knowledge and innovation, resulting in some astoundingly creative work.'
First of all: she lets her students text during class? Grow a pair, lady. I noticed a definite theme here, and I'm no expert, but if you constantly let kids get away with not doing their work, then I think they aren't going to do their work. This is not rocket science (and even if it were, she teaches history): she's a pushover. Fail some of those lazy students.
Second: foreign (read, subtly: non-first world) students are not universally hard-working just like American students are not universally lazy. This is sociology by way of a Disney ride. Some foreign students party, some slack, some skate. The ones that don't work hard just tend to stay in their home countries, lacking the opportunity to study abroad. On the other hand, top-tier American students also don't generally go to Babson, they go to Ivy League schools (and the ones who do go there don't probably give a damn about rhetoric).
It's difficult to take her too seriously because she teaches at this very affluent, very small, very suburban, mostly white, private business college — not exactly a representative sampling of American students. One could easily pick on the mass of sexagenarian professors whose savings depletion forces them to show up and not try too hard day after day, semester after semester; but that's just as misleading, and just as unfair. Could the US be doing better in math and science? Yes. Is the gap due to American laziness as opposed to, say, the rigid social constraints and pressures of countries like Singapore? Nope.
Third: I'm tired of these articles. Say something useful or get off the stage.
Friday, December 18, 2009
eBook Pricing: Simon & Schuster CEO
MediaBistro reports that Simon & Schuster CEO Carolyn Reidy railed against e-book pricing practices in her recent year-end letter to the company. She writes, "We must do everything in our power to uphold the value of our content against the downward pressures exerted by the marketplace and the perception that 'digital' means 'cheap.' We must work to defend the livelihoods of our authors at a time when instantaneous file transfer makes piracy easier than ever, and in a world in which many consider copyright irrelevant. Because we have feet in two worlds, we must establish the right balance of attention and investment between traditional publishing, which still represents the vast majority of our revenues, and the digital publishing marketplace, which is clearly poised to take off and is essential for our future."
Several things spring to mind. The 'us versus them' myth of digital and print media doesn't seem wise to admit. And maybe I'm nit-picking now, but if there are 'downward pressures' being exerted on publishers by the marketplace, it is a signifier of the value of that content; market pressure is the definition of value in a capitalist economy. How does she propose to 'defend' this? You have to set the price that people are willing to pay, and if they aren't willing, then you lose.
Furthermore, I don't really think a $9.99 price for e-books from Amazon is that outrageous.
First posit a new softcover title at a $15.95 list price. Roughly 13% of that price pays for the book's production: let's say $2.20. Probably 20% goes towards overhead, distribution, marketing, etc: $3.00 or so. Measly 7% of that price goes to the author: $1.10. Selling that book for a standard 50% discount generates $7.98 of cash income, and leaves the publisher with $1.68 after production, overhead, and the author royalty are paid out. (Not as much as you thought, huh?)
Now assume a $10.99 e-book list price (with DRM, that annoying iTunes-esq digital rights management, on the file) — not a $9.99 list, Amazon offers everything at a discount. Minimal production cost, say $.45 per copy. Let's take $2.40 of that away for overhead (no warehouse, no trucks) and give the author a 10% royalty (still $1.10). The 50% discount to the retailer leaves the publisher with $1.55 when all is said and done.
Less? Yes, definitely less per copy. Devastating? Not really, just smaller-scale, and much less risk up front than printing a supply of books that don't end up selling. Regardless, I foresee large houses liquidating the crap out of their imprints in the coming decade. Not just 'consolidating' them, as they have been, but actually slashing and closing without care or heart. These huge media companies just have no place: the margins are too slim, it makes no sense for shareholders. Publishing requires care and patience, and enormous failures, and really great list development requires idiosynchratic taste. It almost requires random oddness; and although the job is immensely important, we should still avoid making the success of a publisher too important in our economy.
Several things spring to mind. The 'us versus them' myth of digital and print media doesn't seem wise to admit. And maybe I'm nit-picking now, but if there are 'downward pressures' being exerted on publishers by the marketplace, it is a signifier of the value of that content; market pressure is the definition of value in a capitalist economy. How does she propose to 'defend' this? You have to set the price that people are willing to pay, and if they aren't willing, then you lose.
Furthermore, I don't really think a $9.99 price for e-books from Amazon is that outrageous.
First posit a new softcover title at a $15.95 list price. Roughly 13% of that price pays for the book's production: let's say $2.20. Probably 20% goes towards overhead, distribution, marketing, etc: $3.00 or so. Measly 7% of that price goes to the author: $1.10. Selling that book for a standard 50% discount generates $7.98 of cash income, and leaves the publisher with $1.68 after production, overhead, and the author royalty are paid out. (Not as much as you thought, huh?)
Now assume a $10.99 e-book list price (with DRM, that annoying iTunes-esq digital rights management, on the file) — not a $9.99 list, Amazon offers everything at a discount. Minimal production cost, say $.45 per copy. Let's take $2.40 of that away for overhead (no warehouse, no trucks) and give the author a 10% royalty (still $1.10). The 50% discount to the retailer leaves the publisher with $1.55 when all is said and done.
Less? Yes, definitely less per copy. Devastating? Not really, just smaller-scale, and much less risk up front than printing a supply of books that don't end up selling. Regardless, I foresee large houses liquidating the crap out of their imprints in the coming decade. Not just 'consolidating' them, as they have been, but actually slashing and closing without care or heart. These huge media companies just have no place: the margins are too slim, it makes no sense for shareholders. Publishing requires care and patience, and enormous failures, and really great list development requires idiosynchratic taste. It almost requires random oddness; and although the job is immensely important, we should still avoid making the success of a publisher too important in our economy.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Booksquare: Things That Will Save Publishing
Kassia at Booksquare has a whole slew of things that will not save the publishing industry, but they're all pretty obvious (and she misses something big with the unicorn). What I wholly agree with is the thing that's going to save publishing:
Publishers — Saving publishing is the job of publishers. No one thing will save publishing. Lots of little things will save publishing. I don’t doubt that every publisher great and small is trying to figure out how to run the business of now and the business of the future. Dominique Raccah of Sourcebooks will be talking about this at the Tools of Change Conference to be held in New York in February. I cannot recommend this presentation enough. It may be the most clear-eyed yet optimistic view of the future of publishing I’ve encountered.
The challenges facing the publishing industry are myriad. From corporate parents demanding year-over-year improvements to start-ups to the fact that the biggest publishing scheme ever invented — the web — is democratizing processes that formerly depended upon “gatekeepers”. As the reading public transforms and realigns, so must the traditional publishing industry to keep up.
Nobody knows what the future will bring, but we do know publishing is bigger than ever before. So it really isn’t about saving publishing as much as it is about transforming publishing as we know it.
Publishers — Saving publishing is the job of publishers. No one thing will save publishing. Lots of little things will save publishing. I don’t doubt that every publisher great and small is trying to figure out how to run the business of now and the business of the future. Dominique Raccah of Sourcebooks will be talking about this at the Tools of Change Conference to be held in New York in February. I cannot recommend this presentation enough. It may be the most clear-eyed yet optimistic view of the future of publishing I’ve encountered.
The challenges facing the publishing industry are myriad. From corporate parents demanding year-over-year improvements to start-ups to the fact that the biggest publishing scheme ever invented — the web — is democratizing processes that formerly depended upon “gatekeepers”. As the reading public transforms and realigns, so must the traditional publishing industry to keep up.
Nobody knows what the future will bring, but we do know publishing is bigger than ever before. So it really isn’t about saving publishing as much as it is about transforming publishing as we know it.
Reading the Signs
At the London Review of Books website, Colm Tóibín writes (quite humorously) about signs and signification, allegory in novels and life, intuition, and painting. 'The signs on the doors of toilets in bars and restaurants have been the bane of my life. I often look at them, really take them in, and it is clear that one signifies Men and the other Women, but the more I look the more difficult it becomes to work out which or what. Often I have had to piss up a side street because I could not decide which door to open. I like things that are plain and visible. Maybe it came from an overexposure at too early an age to the Catholic mass. I knew from age seven or eight that the host wasn’t the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Not before. Not during. Not after. I was an altar boy and I studied it all from close quarters. . . .
'Thus as I walked around the Frieze show in London in October, it was easy to see that everything was all shiny and shallow, and that it was really a show for children with chequebooks, or adolescents with attitude. The work was silly. Maybe it could have been argued that it was all significant, part of a new movement towards something or other, away from abstraction towards a brash figuration, but I have never been able to listen to arguments. One of the artists had made a big ceramic thing and he was wearing girls’ clothes and looked like Little Bo Peep. I liked him.'
'Thus as I walked around the Frieze show in London in October, it was easy to see that everything was all shiny and shallow, and that it was really a show for children with chequebooks, or adolescents with attitude. The work was silly. Maybe it could have been argued that it was all significant, part of a new movement towards something or other, away from abstraction towards a brash figuration, but I have never been able to listen to arguments. One of the artists had made a big ceramic thing and he was wearing girls’ clothes and looked like Little Bo Peep. I liked him.'
Monday, December 14, 2009
eBooks: the Duende
The New York Times reports, 'On Friday, Markus Dohle, chief executive of Random House, sent a letter to dozens of literary agents, writing that the company’s older agreements gave it “the exclusive right to publish in electronic book publishing formats.”Backlist titles, which continue to be reprinted long after their initial release, are crucial to publishing houses because of their promise of lucrative revenue year after year. But authors and agents are particularly concerned that traditional publishers are not offering sufficient royalties on e-book editions, which they point out are cheaper for publishers to produce. Some are considering taking their digital rights elsewhere, which could deal a financial blow to the hobbled publishing industry . . . with only a small fraction of the thousands of books in print available in e-book form, there are many titles to be fought over. “This is a wide open frontier right now,” said Maja Thomas, senior vice president for digital and audio publishing at the Hachette Book Group.'
The empire strikes first. In the industry we call this kind of move the duende, the ganas, the straight-up balls. Random House has basically thrown down their glove and challenged some literary agency or author estate out there to take action. They are willing themselves the electronic rights to these books, and by being the first to claim them it's now authors and agents who are left with the responsibility to prove them wrong — a corporate play similar to the Not It game of childhood (lots of corporate strategies are taken from the schoolyard). Maybe I'm overstating it. Pretty bold though.
The empire strikes first. In the industry we call this kind of move the duende, the ganas, the straight-up balls. Random House has basically thrown down their glove and challenged some literary agency or author estate out there to take action. They are willing themselves the electronic rights to these books, and by being the first to claim them it's now authors and agents who are left with the responsibility to prove them wrong — a corporate play similar to the Not It game of childhood (lots of corporate strategies are taken from the schoolyard). Maybe I'm overstating it. Pretty bold though.
"Counting the Forests," by Mark Levine
We had little to work with. That was his plan.
He was out until daybreak or nightfall or until
the re-appearance of his servant who had fled
to the mountains during the ice storm.
He was out; he was out and his voice
was gone too. We heard the streetcars scraping
down the hill outside his room; we heard the drills
pressing the walls of the blue quarry.
Day broke in the silent room. Pale shadows, brilliant dust.
Night fell in the silent room. Silence and the silent sky.
He was counting the forests. That was his plan.
He carried a sack of dried fish
blessed by his servant and cured
in sea-salt. His servant was near; he could hear
the terrified rasp of his servant's breath.
His servant was making the vigil in a mountain
somewhere in the ice-country; and the ice-country was vast
and blue and full of death-forms. So was the forest.
Here in the red forest which was a forest of birds.
Birds and dark water and giant red leaves
with voices in them; and the voices were outraged.
They swept towards him like tensed wings
with their shadows tensed above his likeness like wings.
And he ran from them and he could hear
himself through the nets of the trees; but the red
forest was vast and the trees were covered
with ice. And at the edge of the red forest
he could see into the stone forest and could see
the dead voices rinsing over the stone floor.
He had been there already and had taken count.
And he had counted the animal forest and the
burning forest and the weeping forest and the forest
of the Americas and the God-forest.
What could he say to his accusers?
In some ways they were always right.
He had little to work with. He set out in darkness
and in darkness we waited at the corner of the forest
for his re-appearance. So many forests!
Somewhere was a silent forest. Ice above, ice below.
Somewhere was a coldness with a rope in it
like the knotted rope at the bottom of his throat.
He was out until daybreak or nightfall or until
the re-appearance of his servant who had fled
to the mountains during the ice storm.
He was out; he was out and his voice
was gone too. We heard the streetcars scraping
down the hill outside his room; we heard the drills
pressing the walls of the blue quarry.
Day broke in the silent room. Pale shadows, brilliant dust.
Night fell in the silent room. Silence and the silent sky.
He was counting the forests. That was his plan.
He carried a sack of dried fish
blessed by his servant and cured
in sea-salt. His servant was near; he could hear
the terrified rasp of his servant's breath.
His servant was making the vigil in a mountain
somewhere in the ice-country; and the ice-country was vast
and blue and full of death-forms. So was the forest.
Here in the red forest which was a forest of birds.
Birds and dark water and giant red leaves
with voices in them; and the voices were outraged.
They swept towards him like tensed wings
with their shadows tensed above his likeness like wings.
And he ran from them and he could hear
himself through the nets of the trees; but the red
forest was vast and the trees were covered
with ice. And at the edge of the red forest
he could see into the stone forest and could see
the dead voices rinsing over the stone floor.
He had been there already and had taken count.
And he had counted the animal forest and the
burning forest and the weeping forest and the forest
of the Americas and the God-forest.
What could he say to his accusers?
In some ways they were always right.
He had little to work with. He set out in darkness
and in darkness we waited at the corner of the forest
for his re-appearance. So many forests!
Somewhere was a silent forest. Ice above, ice below.
Somewhere was a coldness with a rope in it
like the knotted rope at the bottom of his throat.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
NYT: Vendler on Ashbery
At The New York Times Book Review this week, Helen Vendler reviews a new collection from John Ashbery, Planispheres. It's always worth mentioning when an eminent critic reviews an eminent poet, even a relatively light one — in particular, though, I wanted to point out this passage: 'Some of the games “prove out” exhilaratingly for the reader, some are perhaps too private, some too abstruse, some too silly (there are a couple of Steinish collages that don’t earn their keep, one of them made from the titles of movies).'
This is notable to me because I took an enormous amount of flack in October, 2008, for writing, after hearing Ashbery read, 'Several of the poems he'd read were "collages" – of movie titles, of movie premises from a 1920s book, of something else I can't recall now. A few of the poems required biographical details, which he gave us before recitation, to find a useful point of entry. More than some of it seemed to be approaching nonsense. At one point during the poem of movie premises, the greater part of the audience laughed hard at the sound of a funny name, and it occurred to me how basically juvenile many of his poems were. Or rather, that a juvenile response is perhaps the only worthwhile reaction to much of Ashbery's work. If you want something with depth, it just isn't there. As one friend exclaimed in Asberry's defense, "It isn't supposed to mean anything!" I couldn't help but think of the old commercials for Apple Jacks – Grownups don't understand: it isn't supposed to taste like apples.'
Yahtzee —
This is notable to me because I took an enormous amount of flack in October, 2008, for writing, after hearing Ashbery read, 'Several of the poems he'd read were "collages" – of movie titles, of movie premises from a 1920s book, of something else I can't recall now. A few of the poems required biographical details, which he gave us before recitation, to find a useful point of entry. More than some of it seemed to be approaching nonsense. At one point during the poem of movie premises, the greater part of the audience laughed hard at the sound of a funny name, and it occurred to me how basically juvenile many of his poems were. Or rather, that a juvenile response is perhaps the only worthwhile reaction to much of Ashbery's work. If you want something with depth, it just isn't there. As one friend exclaimed in Asberry's defense, "It isn't supposed to mean anything!" I couldn't help but think of the old commercials for Apple Jacks – Grownups don't understand: it isn't supposed to taste like apples.'
Yahtzee —
Friday, December 11, 2009
An Egaliterian Mess
At the New York Review of Books blog, Sue Halpern writes, 'Political philosophers have long debated the virtues of egalitarianism, of the classless society, of putting the means (and rewards) of production into the hands of the producers. Unintentionally, this is precisely what this current incarnation of the web does. Call it a bloodless revolution or, at least, an interesting, and paradoxically real-world, experiment: political theory is getting played out on the Internet in real time. We’ve all been co-opted, not in a bad way, simply by logging on. So now it’s possible to see how much we like classlessness and equality, and how it’s working for us.'
There is much going on in this paragraph — and the rest of this essay — and so I hesitate to intercede at all without the benefit of a more complete response. I will anyway, of course. When she discusses the egalitarian nature of the internet — specifically that 'everyone’s voice registers at the same volume' — I think that Halpern assumes availability is equivalent to impact. She creates an analogy between availability and impact; she assumes that because anyone can publish writing which someone else could read, all online writers are equally impactful.
The analogy between availability and impact is an accurate one in the world of print. When a writer's magazine article is available in every city, as opposed to being available in just one city, then that writer's voice carries more weight, reaches a larger audience, has a greater impact. On the internet, though, every writer has access to the same audience. Availability is flattened (and, to some degree, taken out of the equation). There are still major and minor hubs, places with more or less caché, but one can access any website from any computer. There are no distribution limits. This website, for example, reaches readers in Boston, MA; Exeter, UK; Beirut, Lebanon; and Seoul, South Korea — all of them immediately and, already having internet access, for free. It would be impossible for a print publication to reach this eclectic audience in the same way, and would be economically impossible at these relatively small numbers.
However I'm not sure that availability gives my writing equal weight with, say, Stanley Fish, whose opinion is authorized and supported by a large for-profit entity whenever he's published in the New York Times. There remains an element of validation through capital even on the internet. Most of the anti-blog reaction is grounded in an inability to reconcile value judgements with a lack of capital investment. Availability is a quality that we assume is universal on the internet. Rather than giving each person's work more weight, universal availability reveals one way in which capital investment drives validity, and the ways that availability and validity are connected in print media.
It is worth noting, as well, that maybe every single blogger I read has at least a bachelor's degree, and these blogs could be seen as a way of recycling that capital investment into a productive enterprise. Their ability to write well is a product of that educational capital investment. It's another important aspect of the source of impact, of weight, that is left out of the discussion by Halpern (likely because it is not an immediately obvious connection).
In another regard, unrelated to the discussion above, it's possible that the internet has reinforced class distinctions by isolating you from interaction with people of varied socio-economic levels. You can have practically everything delivered to your home from food to books and home goods, and your social group will grow through affinities of interests — I comment on your blog, we exchange some emails, we friend each other on facebook — instead of quasi-random encounters in public spaces. This is particularly true for those in more narrowly intellectual fields such as literature, I think. The way people interact on the internet can proscribe self-selection to one's social group, which could widen class distinctions.
I say all this not because the myth of the revolutionary internet is untrue — the myth is very much true; the internet is swiftly changing our ideas of space and communication, and the accessibility of stored knowledge. It just won't show us what classlessness or equality look like.
There is much going on in this paragraph — and the rest of this essay — and so I hesitate to intercede at all without the benefit of a more complete response. I will anyway, of course. When she discusses the egalitarian nature of the internet — specifically that 'everyone’s voice registers at the same volume' — I think that Halpern assumes availability is equivalent to impact. She creates an analogy between availability and impact; she assumes that because anyone can publish writing which someone else could read, all online writers are equally impactful.
The analogy between availability and impact is an accurate one in the world of print. When a writer's magazine article is available in every city, as opposed to being available in just one city, then that writer's voice carries more weight, reaches a larger audience, has a greater impact. On the internet, though, every writer has access to the same audience. Availability is flattened (and, to some degree, taken out of the equation). There are still major and minor hubs, places with more or less caché, but one can access any website from any computer. There are no distribution limits. This website, for example, reaches readers in Boston, MA; Exeter, UK; Beirut, Lebanon; and Seoul, South Korea — all of them immediately and, already having internet access, for free. It would be impossible for a print publication to reach this eclectic audience in the same way, and would be economically impossible at these relatively small numbers.
However I'm not sure that availability gives my writing equal weight with, say, Stanley Fish, whose opinion is authorized and supported by a large for-profit entity whenever he's published in the New York Times. There remains an element of validation through capital even on the internet. Most of the anti-blog reaction is grounded in an inability to reconcile value judgements with a lack of capital investment. Availability is a quality that we assume is universal on the internet. Rather than giving each person's work more weight, universal availability reveals one way in which capital investment drives validity, and the ways that availability and validity are connected in print media.
It is worth noting, as well, that maybe every single blogger I read has at least a bachelor's degree, and these blogs could be seen as a way of recycling that capital investment into a productive enterprise. Their ability to write well is a product of that educational capital investment. It's another important aspect of the source of impact, of weight, that is left out of the discussion by Halpern (likely because it is not an immediately obvious connection).
In another regard, unrelated to the discussion above, it's possible that the internet has reinforced class distinctions by isolating you from interaction with people of varied socio-economic levels. You can have practically everything delivered to your home from food to books and home goods, and your social group will grow through affinities of interests — I comment on your blog, we exchange some emails, we friend each other on facebook — instead of quasi-random encounters in public spaces. This is particularly true for those in more narrowly intellectual fields such as literature, I think. The way people interact on the internet can proscribe self-selection to one's social group, which could widen class distinctions.
I say all this not because the myth of the revolutionary internet is untrue — the myth is very much true; the internet is swiftly changing our ideas of space and communication, and the accessibility of stored knowledge. It just won't show us what classlessness or equality look like.
”Blizzard," by William Carlos Williams
Snow:
years of anger following
hours that float idly down —
the blizzard
drifts its weight
deeper and deeper for three days
or sixty years, eh? Then
the sun! a clutter of
yellow and blue flakes —
Hairy looking trees stand out
in long alleys
over a wild solitude.
The man turns and there —
his solitary track stretched out
upon the world.
years of anger following
hours that float idly down —
the blizzard
drifts its weight
deeper and deeper for three days
or sixty years, eh? Then
the sun! a clutter of
yellow and blue flakes —
Hairy looking trees stand out
in long alleys
over a wild solitude.
The man turns and there —
his solitary track stretched out
upon the world.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
An Interview with Pevear and Volokhonsky
At The Millions, friend and journalist Anna Clark interviews the two preeminent modern translators of Russian literature, and notably of Tolstoy, Richard Pevear and Anna Volokhonsky.
Pevear and Volokhonsky write, 'Europe is small, a sort of family of countries, despite all past wars and present rivalries. And so translation comes naturally, like overhearing a conversation in the next room. But the analogy doesn’t quite work, because Europeans also translate a great deal of American writing and writing from all over the world. And Russia, which is a rather large country, has always given great importance to literary translation and has produced many superb translators. Is it American insularity, then? A lack of curiosity about what happens elsewhere? But what about the statistics for Great Britain? Surprisingly, they are about the same as for the U. S. Which suggests a linguistic insularity specific to English itself: if you speak the language of the hegemony, why notice the babble going on around you? It might also be a question of the market and marketing. Americans read an enormous amount of junk, which is dutifully supplied to them by publishers – unless it is actually the publishers who create the taste for junk. In either case, publishers are not likely to pay for the rights to translate junk and turn over a good percentage of the book’s earnings to the original publisher. They tend to pick up the small number of books that win the major European prizes, hoping that the momentary notoriety will create a market among more discerning readers with a minimum of advertising. But, on the positive side, we do have publishers who have consistently gone against the market statistics and made a point of publishing translations: Dalkey Archive Press, for instance, and first of all New Directions. Among major publishers, Knopf, Vintage, and Everyman’s Library, who publish most of our translations, are the exception that proves the rule.'
This is remarkably similar to what I wrote here recently in "Literature in Translation: the Bumpkin."
Pevear and Volokhonsky write, 'Europe is small, a sort of family of countries, despite all past wars and present rivalries. And so translation comes naturally, like overhearing a conversation in the next room. But the analogy doesn’t quite work, because Europeans also translate a great deal of American writing and writing from all over the world. And Russia, which is a rather large country, has always given great importance to literary translation and has produced many superb translators. Is it American insularity, then? A lack of curiosity about what happens elsewhere? But what about the statistics for Great Britain? Surprisingly, they are about the same as for the U. S. Which suggests a linguistic insularity specific to English itself: if you speak the language of the hegemony, why notice the babble going on around you? It might also be a question of the market and marketing. Americans read an enormous amount of junk, which is dutifully supplied to them by publishers – unless it is actually the publishers who create the taste for junk. In either case, publishers are not likely to pay for the rights to translate junk and turn over a good percentage of the book’s earnings to the original publisher. They tend to pick up the small number of books that win the major European prizes, hoping that the momentary notoriety will create a market among more discerning readers with a minimum of advertising. But, on the positive side, we do have publishers who have consistently gone against the market statistics and made a point of publishing translations: Dalkey Archive Press, for instance, and first of all New Directions. Among major publishers, Knopf, Vintage, and Everyman’s Library, who publish most of our translations, are the exception that proves the rule.'
This is remarkably similar to what I wrote here recently in "Literature in Translation: the Bumpkin."
"All That" by David Foster Wallace
a new fragment at The New Yorker: 'Once when I was a little boy I received as a gift a toy cement mixer. It was made of wood except for its wheels — axles — which, as I remember, were thin metal rods. I’m ninety per cent sure it was a Christmas gift. I liked it the same way a boy that age likes toy dump trucks, ambulances, tractor-trailers, and whatnot. There are little boys who like trains and little boys who like vehicles — I liked the latter.
It was (“it” meaning the cement mixer) the same overlarge miniature as many other toy vehicles — about the size of a breadbox. It weighed three or four pounds. It was a simple toy — no batteries. It had a colored rope, with a yellow handle, and you held the handle and walked pulling the cement mixer behind you — rather like a wagon, although it was nowhere near the size of a wagon. For Christmas, I’m positive it was. It was when I was the age where you can, as they say, “hear voices” without worrying that something is wrong with you. I “heard voices” all the time as a small child. I was either five or six, I believe. (I’m not very good with numbers.)'
Keep reading. . .
It was (“it” meaning the cement mixer) the same overlarge miniature as many other toy vehicles — about the size of a breadbox. It weighed three or four pounds. It was a simple toy — no batteries. It had a colored rope, with a yellow handle, and you held the handle and walked pulling the cement mixer behind you — rather like a wagon, although it was nowhere near the size of a wagon. For Christmas, I’m positive it was. It was when I was the age where you can, as they say, “hear voices” without worrying that something is wrong with you. I “heard voices” all the time as a small child. I was either five or six, I believe. (I’m not very good with numbers.)'
Keep reading. . .
Nota Bene: Al Gore
The sooner we switch away from carbon-based fuel and start relying on renewable energy sources available in the United States, the sooner we will grow our economy by creating the millions of new jobs that will come from retrofitting homes and businesses, building smart grids, renewable energy systems and planting trees and all the rest. We need to create a lot of jobs that can't be outsourced.
— Former Vice President & Nobel Prize–winner Al Gore, from Slate
— Former Vice President & Nobel Prize–winner Al Gore, from Slate
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Literature in Translation: the Bumpkin
At Conversational Reading, Scott posts yet another response — this time by Professor Russell Scott Valentino — to the issue of literature in translation, Nobel-chair Enghdal / Times-essayist Schillinger bruhaha. Valentino's short response is entitled 'Literary Parochialism and Proud of It'. He isn't really proud though. It's ironical.
It is difficult to argue with these types of ethical-theoretical arguments that support the publication of literature in translation; difficult because they imply the correctness of a certain moralistic anti-hegemonic and anti-nationalistic view and so make certain implications of any who contradict it. I admit this because I expect a bit of condemnation for getting involved.
The most fair thing to say about this whole debacle with the Nobel chair and the Times essayist is that Enghdal and Schillinger were each foolish for the things they said. One imagines they would both revise if they could. I fully support the availability of translated literature. I believe that reading excellent works from any and every language is beneficial to a person and by extension a culture. There is not enough great literature in English to say that we have enough already. Of the rest, I can take it or leave it: we really don't need a German Harry Potter, a Thai Eat, Pray, Love, or a Croatian Twilight.
Part and parcel of any culture is its literary tradition, which at times reflects and at others affects values. Americans, I would argue with some degree of assurance, are (in the majority) self-interested. They have great interest in their own work and not much in that of others, and that extends or is reflected in the literary tradition here. Not every American, and not every work, and not every writer — but many: the plurality, if not the majority. Those that want more of the world, Eliot and Pound for instance, tend to leave.
As such, Americans have been mocked by various Europeans for being provincial bumpkins since around 1778, and I expect that not to change soon.
Modern Anglophile hegemony has produced a situation in which the majority of translated literature is from English and into other tongues and not vice-versa, and that is will probably remain the case until another culture displaces the Anglophile. Before the Anglo-, the world enjoyed the Francophile. Americans were, even then, bumpkins (oh poor, brilliant John Adams). For a long time before that, Europe withered under the Latin-Ecumenical hegemony. Now, if it were a Sinophile hegemony tomorrow, I have no doubt that translations of Chinese would skyrocket in Europe and elsewhere (but not here) and Americans would be accused of being bumpkins. Enghdal stands in good company.
Is all this — the general American lack of interest in translation — a good thing? That is hard to say. That makes a value judgment on a cultural characteristic that I'm not necessarily willing to make. There are ups and downs; there are strikes and gutters, as the man says. I have gotten a lot out of translated literature, but have read an enormous amount of American and English-language literature. This is one piece of a larger complex national character, and it is a character that I am not as willing as others to indict.
It is difficult to argue with these types of ethical-theoretical arguments that support the publication of literature in translation; difficult because they imply the correctness of a certain moralistic anti-hegemonic and anti-nationalistic view and so make certain implications of any who contradict it. I admit this because I expect a bit of condemnation for getting involved.
The most fair thing to say about this whole debacle with the Nobel chair and the Times essayist is that Enghdal and Schillinger were each foolish for the things they said. One imagines they would both revise if they could. I fully support the availability of translated literature. I believe that reading excellent works from any and every language is beneficial to a person and by extension a culture. There is not enough great literature in English to say that we have enough already. Of the rest, I can take it or leave it: we really don't need a German Harry Potter, a Thai Eat, Pray, Love, or a Croatian Twilight.
Part and parcel of any culture is its literary tradition, which at times reflects and at others affects values. Americans, I would argue with some degree of assurance, are (in the majority) self-interested. They have great interest in their own work and not much in that of others, and that extends or is reflected in the literary tradition here. Not every American, and not every work, and not every writer — but many: the plurality, if not the majority. Those that want more of the world, Eliot and Pound for instance, tend to leave.
As such, Americans have been mocked by various Europeans for being provincial bumpkins since around 1778, and I expect that not to change soon.
Modern Anglophile hegemony has produced a situation in which the majority of translated literature is from English and into other tongues and not vice-versa, and that is will probably remain the case until another culture displaces the Anglophile. Before the Anglo-, the world enjoyed the Francophile. Americans were, even then, bumpkins (oh poor, brilliant John Adams). For a long time before that, Europe withered under the Latin-Ecumenical hegemony. Now, if it were a Sinophile hegemony tomorrow, I have no doubt that translations of Chinese would skyrocket in Europe and elsewhere (but not here) and Americans would be accused of being bumpkins. Enghdal stands in good company.
Is all this — the general American lack of interest in translation — a good thing? That is hard to say. That makes a value judgment on a cultural characteristic that I'm not necessarily willing to make. There are ups and downs; there are strikes and gutters, as the man says. I have gotten a lot out of translated literature, but have read an enormous amount of American and English-language literature. This is one piece of a larger complex national character, and it is a character that I am not as willing as others to indict.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Top Ten Books of 1709
The New Yorker book bench lists the Top Ten books of 1709. Plenty of barn-burners, though fewer vampires; still, a great year for publishers. Coming at number 10? 'I’m holding this place for Benjamin Franklin, who was born in Boston in 1706, began his apprenticeship at his brother’s print shop in 1718, and became the scourge of the Mathers three years later, when he broke upon the literary stage in the guise of a fictional character whose name was a parody of two of Cotton Mather’s more dreadful sermons, “Silentiarius” and “Essays to Do Good.” In 1721, the sixteen-year-old Franklin, who would help topple the Puritan theocracy and change the course of American letters forever, by making our books better, introduced himself to the world: "I am courteous and affable, good humour’d (unless I am first provok’d,) and handsome, and sometimes witty, but always, Sir, Your Friend and Humble Servant, SILENCE DOGOOD." ' Atta boy.
Nota Bene: Fredric Jameson
Deconstruction is thus the very paradigm of a theoretical process of undoing terminologies which, by virtue of the elaboration of the terminology that very process requires, becomes a philosophy and an ideology in its own turn and congeals into the very type of system it sought to undermine. The persistence of the proper name in theory, indeed — as when we identify various texts as Derridean, Althusserian, or Habermassian — only serves to betray the hopelessness of the nonetheless unavoidable aim of theoretical writing to escape the reifications of philosophy as well as the commodifications of the intellectual marketplace today.
— Fredric Jameson, Valences of the Dialectic
— Fredric Jameson, Valences of the Dialectic
Saturday, December 5, 2009
A Christmas Carol
In The bleak mid-winter
Frosty winds made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter,
Long ago.
Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When he comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty
Jesus Christ.
by Christina Rossetti, born this day 1830
Frosty winds made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter,
Long ago.
Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When he comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty
Jesus Christ.
by Christina Rossetti, born this day 1830
Friday, December 4, 2009
Christopher Ricks on Keats
‘In Keats's art (his letters quite as much as his poems), even the word “description” falls short of his astonishing achievement, in that his imagination never limits itself to describing; rather, thanks to a whole range of corporeal imaginings, it realizes. For it imagines not only seeing (when all that we are physically seeing is words on a page) but the creative power of empathy and of sympathy by means of all the senses.’
— Christopher Ricks, ‘Undermining Keats’, The New York Review of Books
— Christopher Ricks, ‘Undermining Keats’, The New York Review of Books
Thursday, December 3, 2009
William Logan on Bukowski
At The New Criterion, William Logan shocks me outright by reviewing Charles Bukowski, writing, ‘Before the advent of oral history, there were few memoirs from what Marx called the Lumpenproletariat; and those were some- times given the gilded touch by editors, when they were not forged outright. Writing well requires some measure of education, but not so much that a man of the mean streets loses his sense of self. Many a writer born to a trust fund has been drawn to the lower depths (as Gorky or his translator had it), as if life there were more genuine, though the poor are bound by the same webs of affiliation, of local debt and local vengeance, found in the Social Register. There have been intelligent tourists enough, like the Orwell of Down and Out in Paris and London, but a visitor, however sympathetic, tends to sound as if he’s slumming.
‘What Bukowski brought to literature was an unaffected delight in every sleazy pleasure life offered. Dropping out of college, he was just educated enough, and just well-read enough, and had fallen just far enough, to take advantage of his milieu. What he lacked in literary grace he made up in pulp sensibility — few have written as badly as Bukowski and still had something to say. . . .
‘What distinguishes his work, meager though it is, are the gritty and immoral particulars. He’s more entertaining than Frederick Seidel because, though he too embraces the disgusting, the sickening, and the vile the way some embrace religion, Bukowski has a sense of humor. There are poets in love with beauty, and poets burdened with telling the truth. If you squint, there’s a little Catullus in Bukowski. Perhaps attitude and tone are not enough in poems that rely so much on force of personality, but you can imagine Whitman reading them with a rough nod of recognition.’
This is damn near a positive review, which is as much as readers of Bukowski can really ask for (besides the usual iconographic adoration of the author). I've always had a soft spot for Buk's writing. He is so emphatically vulgar that it's almost anti-poetry. Ugliness and animality are the virtues in display, and humor. Dark, dark humor, at the expense of his own ego and litterally any target in eyeshot. But, the poetry also expresses a visceral hatred toward middle-class values that is enlivening (if you sympathize). I wonder, with his knowledge and love of symphonies, whether Bukowski was striving for a sort of a-tonal poetry, eschewing the elements of traditional verse in favor of a different sort of experience. That might be crediting too much systemization and forethought. Anyway, a little surprise from Logan.
‘What Bukowski brought to literature was an unaffected delight in every sleazy pleasure life offered. Dropping out of college, he was just educated enough, and just well-read enough, and had fallen just far enough, to take advantage of his milieu. What he lacked in literary grace he made up in pulp sensibility — few have written as badly as Bukowski and still had something to say. . . .
‘What distinguishes his work, meager though it is, are the gritty and immoral particulars. He’s more entertaining than Frederick Seidel because, though he too embraces the disgusting, the sickening, and the vile the way some embrace religion, Bukowski has a sense of humor. There are poets in love with beauty, and poets burdened with telling the truth. If you squint, there’s a little Catullus in Bukowski. Perhaps attitude and tone are not enough in poems that rely so much on force of personality, but you can imagine Whitman reading them with a rough nod of recognition.’
This is damn near a positive review, which is as much as readers of Bukowski can really ask for (besides the usual iconographic adoration of the author). I've always had a soft spot for Buk's writing. He is so emphatically vulgar that it's almost anti-poetry. Ugliness and animality are the virtues in display, and humor. Dark, dark humor, at the expense of his own ego and litterally any target in eyeshot. But, the poetry also expresses a visceral hatred toward middle-class values that is enlivening (if you sympathize). I wonder, with his knowledge and love of symphonies, whether Bukowski was striving for a sort of a-tonal poetry, eschewing the elements of traditional verse in favor of a different sort of experience. That might be crediting too much systemization and forethought. Anyway, a little surprise from Logan.
Close Reading: Theory & Practice
Over at the blog Working Notes, Mike considers I.A. Richards’ meditation on the phrase ‘close reading,’ writing, ‘the sense that if one read closely, one read slowly, with skill, with effort, bringing out the difficult and latent (that is, fully present but hidden) meanings with care.’ Mike believes very strongly — as I do, as well — that close reading is an essential tool for the strong mind; not just for literary scholars and critics, but for anyone has use for critical thinking. One sees not only what is literal, but also the implied, and what is alternately excluded.
And at Conversational Reading — in order to enjoy the internet one must find amusement in serendipity without taking it to be anything more than play — Scott looks at what is probably the most successful, extreme, postmodern case of close reading: Barthes’ iconic S/Z. Scott writes, ‘Essentially, in S/Z Barthes is picking apart “Sarrasine” into constituent pieces (although he’s the first to acknowledge that the pieces he discovers are but one way of breaking up this piece of writing). A bit like an archaeologist, he’s assigning each piece certain traits and organizing them along various schemas of his own creation. Thus, in S/Z he is attempting to create a response to “Sarrasine” that disrespects the narrative logic of the story (for example, he completely spoils the ending within the first pages, but in an analysis such as this “spoiler” really has no meaning), while simultaneously creating a different kind of critical logic.’
And at Conversational Reading — in order to enjoy the internet one must find amusement in serendipity without taking it to be anything more than play — Scott looks at what is probably the most successful, extreme, postmodern case of close reading: Barthes’ iconic S/Z. Scott writes, ‘Essentially, in S/Z Barthes is picking apart “Sarrasine” into constituent pieces (although he’s the first to acknowledge that the pieces he discovers are but one way of breaking up this piece of writing). A bit like an archaeologist, he’s assigning each piece certain traits and organizing them along various schemas of his own creation. Thus, in S/Z he is attempting to create a response to “Sarrasine” that disrespects the narrative logic of the story (for example, he completely spoils the ending within the first pages, but in an analysis such as this “spoiler” really has no meaning), while simultaneously creating a different kind of critical logic.’
Nota Bene: Jorge Luis Borges
After all, when one confesses to an act, one ceases to be an actor in it and becomes its witness, becomes a man that observes and narrates it and no longer the man that performed it.
— Borges, “Guayaquil”
— Borges, “Guayaquil”
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
The Millions Year in Reading 2009
The Millions has begun their annual series of recommendations, The Year in Reading. C. Max McGee writes, 'And so amid all the lists (even our own), to round out the year, we offer a new installment of our annual “Year in Reading” series — an anti-list, as it were. Acknowledging that few readers, if any, read exclusively newly published books, we’ve asked our regular contributors and distinguished guests to name, from all the books they read this year, the one(s) that meant the most to them, regardless of publication date. Grouped together, these considerations, squibs, and essays will be a chronicle of reading and good books from every era. We hope you find in them seeds that will help your year in reading in 2010 be a fruitful one.'
Philip Lopate recommends The Essays of Leonard Michaels, which April Pierce also reviewed in September for The Critical Flame. Lopate writes, 'The pieces about his mother and father, various teacher mentors and the Yiddish language are some of the greatest essays I know; they will break your heart and excite your thinking at the same time. Michaels had a trenchant, elegantly forceful style that cut to the bone; what impresses me the most, as a fellow essayist, is that he always tried to get to the bottom of what he knew and understand. He had a brilliant mind and, unlike the tough guy streetwise swagger adopted in some of his early stories, here he stands unashamedly before us as a cultivated intellectual, a man who lived through and in language.'
Philip Lopate recommends The Essays of Leonard Michaels, which April Pierce also reviewed in September for The Critical Flame. Lopate writes, 'The pieces about his mother and father, various teacher mentors and the Yiddish language are some of the greatest essays I know; they will break your heart and excite your thinking at the same time. Michaels had a trenchant, elegantly forceful style that cut to the bone; what impresses me the most, as a fellow essayist, is that he always tried to get to the bottom of what he knew and understand. He had a brilliant mind and, unlike the tough guy streetwise swagger adopted in some of his early stories, here he stands unashamedly before us as a cultivated intellectual, a man who lived through and in language.'
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Show Me the Money
At the Boston Globe, Joan Anderman reports on the new FTC regulation that requires bloggers who endorse products to include a disclaimer which admits as much. 'Beginning today, bloggers, Twitterers, and others who write online reviews or endorse products using new media must disclose it when they receive free merchandise or payment for writing about an item. The guidelines update the FTC’s 1980 guide addressing the use of testimonials in advertising, remapping marketing rules for the digital realm, where it’s hard to know if the exclamatory musings of fashion hounds and best-disposable-diaper posts by suburban moms are inspired by a great product or a free product.
“Endorsements in print ads or on television are clear, because it is obviously the company’s advertisement,’’ says Mary Engle, the FTC’s associate director of consumer protection. “It became very clear to us when we began our regular periodic review of guides in 2007 that because of all the social media going on we’d need to update them.’’
At the center of the issue is a question that has plagued consumers of everything from video games to weight loss products since the dawn of the Internet: How does an average reader distinguish between credible news and paid content when anyone with cable service can set up a blog?'
I absolutely agree. One music blogger points out in the article that the free copies of CDs or tickets (or, in my case, books) that we receive aren't gifts, exactly — they're just 'what it takes to get the job done.' While this new regulation might cover types of bloggers in a wide net who don't properly belong, it's better than people getting bamboozled by company marketers. I'll happily comply, since for me it makes no difference. In case you didn't know: book reviewers get their review copies for free.
“Endorsements in print ads or on television are clear, because it is obviously the company’s advertisement,’’ says Mary Engle, the FTC’s associate director of consumer protection. “It became very clear to us when we began our regular periodic review of guides in 2007 that because of all the social media going on we’d need to update them.’’
At the center of the issue is a question that has plagued consumers of everything from video games to weight loss products since the dawn of the Internet: How does an average reader distinguish between credible news and paid content when anyone with cable service can set up a blog?'
I absolutely agree. One music blogger points out in the article that the free copies of CDs or tickets (or, in my case, books) that we receive aren't gifts, exactly — they're just 'what it takes to get the job done.' While this new regulation might cover types of bloggers in a wide net who don't properly belong, it's better than people getting bamboozled by company marketers. I'll happily comply, since for me it makes no difference. In case you didn't know: book reviewers get their review copies for free.
Fiction Reviews & the Function of the NYTBR
At Conversational Reading, Scott Esposito writes about the New York Times top-100 books list, 'To put it all another way: the lack of much fiction here that anyone who devotes even modest attention to American literature would call "surprising" or, indeed, "notable" further makes me question what the function of NYTBR is thee days. Just what is the point of having the Times review fiction, beyond the tautology of having the paper of record be on the record for authors that any paper of record must be on the record about? Other than the occasional inspired pairing that lets a genuinely interesting writer cover a new title well-suited to him or her, it seems that the main point of the Times' continual coverage is to dutifully spill a little ink over the authors that it would simply be too much of a sham to not cover.'
I would guess that I find, on average, two strong fiction or poetry reviews per month at the NYTBR, which are most often penned by the same handful of non-staff writers. Poor form for a paper trying to hold onto its status as "the paper," but not really that terrible (the book industry journalism is first-rate; the non-review op/ed pieces are usually good). They do better than most newspapers, and I am probably being overly-critical of a weekly, churning out all that content; but, so many of those who should be the paper's core audience are being critical these days. Sure, there have always been review page nay-sayers; and maybe there was a time when the paper was higher-quality, when the Times' stranglehold on the best writers was tighter. Maybe not. For the Times these days, though, and for all today's newspapers, I would argue that the problem is less a decline in quality than it is a surge of competition, and the subsequent refining of many readers' standards.
In the past, readers were more generous in their assessment of their newspaper: after all, there was nothing to read except one's newspaper; maybe if you were really lucky, your city had a pair of rags. How quaint! But there are so many competing review sources today, and most of them free online, that I hardly feel compelled to read the commoner pieces, trumped-up book reports with a wooden nickel's worth of criticism tagged on in the last paragraph.
Every week, I find reviews that interest me in places like The Quarterly Conversation, Slate, Bookforum, The Barnes & Noble Review, The Chronicle of Higher Ed, The New Yorker, The New Republic, The Boston Globe, The LA Times, etc. Through blog posts, link lists, and compendiums like Arts & Letters Daily, it's easy to bypass main pages, to ignore the designed flow of a website, and to forget that newspapers published dozens of articles in order to produce this notable one. No single source can honestly compete against the best essays cherry-picked from across the nation, to which many readers are now accustomed, and it is probably unfair to expect exactly that from the Times.
I would guess that I find, on average, two strong fiction or poetry reviews per month at the NYTBR, which are most often penned by the same handful of non-staff writers. Poor form for a paper trying to hold onto its status as "the paper," but not really that terrible (the book industry journalism is first-rate; the non-review op/ed pieces are usually good). They do better than most newspapers, and I am probably being overly-critical of a weekly, churning out all that content; but, so many of those who should be the paper's core audience are being critical these days. Sure, there have always been review page nay-sayers; and maybe there was a time when the paper was higher-quality, when the Times' stranglehold on the best writers was tighter. Maybe not. For the Times these days, though, and for all today's newspapers, I would argue that the problem is less a decline in quality than it is a surge of competition, and the subsequent refining of many readers' standards.
In the past, readers were more generous in their assessment of their newspaper: after all, there was nothing to read except one's newspaper; maybe if you were really lucky, your city had a pair of rags. How quaint! But there are so many competing review sources today, and most of them free online, that I hardly feel compelled to read the commoner pieces, trumped-up book reports with a wooden nickel's worth of criticism tagged on in the last paragraph.
Every week, I find reviews that interest me in places like The Quarterly Conversation, Slate, Bookforum, The Barnes & Noble Review, The Chronicle of Higher Ed, The New Yorker, The New Republic, The Boston Globe, The LA Times, etc. Through blog posts, link lists, and compendiums like Arts & Letters Daily, it's easy to bypass main pages, to ignore the designed flow of a website, and to forget that newspapers published dozens of articles in order to produce this notable one. No single source can honestly compete against the best essays cherry-picked from across the nation, to which many readers are now accustomed, and it is probably unfair to expect exactly that from the Times.
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