Can there be any doubt of this, given the many attempts to imitate and co-opt us? (And destroy us!)
One is a ridiculous David Gates article about the "Outlaws of Literature" which mentions, of all people, establishment-approved flunkies Jonathan Safran Foer and Dave Eggers. Could Gates conceivably ever notice a few real literary outlaws? He looks and looks, from his pristine Newsweek office-- glances out the skyscraper window once or twice-- but can't see genuine outlaw writers anyplace.
Another example are lit-bloggers' blatant rip-offs of ULA motifs, such as the Justice League of America (JLA)-- an inspiration for the ULA from the beginning. Funny that these folks disdain us mightily but don't hesitate to steal our themes. My, my-- we must be doing something right after all.
From the outset the ULA portrayed itself as a team of literary superheroes, even when there were only six of us (as Lee Klein and others can testify). The demi-puppets-- who've never had an original idea in their lives-- can copy us all they want, but in the placidly predictable MFA conformity of their writings and their bland go-along suckass personalities they're weak imitations-- more the Pat Boones of the lit-scene than like the troubled neurotic psychotic explosive outrageous don't-play-the-game superhero writers who are in the ULA.
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7 comments:
I think the "JLA" nonsense is a lame attempt at parody. "Meta-parody," perhaps. It does feel good when even your staunchest detractors can't attempt a proper takedown, only recast your ideas and aesthetics as inside jokes.
I'm more interested in some of the ULA-ish notions I've noticed in mainstream lit-crit of late, particularly the brutal Foer backlash. (Check B.R. Myers' roast in this month's Atlantic, and Harry Siegel's in the New York Press.) Even if these writers aren't familiar with the ULA, or would outwardly reject some of its premises, I'm seeing a general drift in the direction Karl has pointed for years.
I'm currently reading On Bullshit by Harry J. Frankfurt, a slim philosophical treatise I heartily recommend to anyone preparing for debates on art and its relation to truth.
??? I don't know why you're so hyper about Bellow, Bill, when I acknowledged in my post that he was a good writer. To be a GREAT writer however takes better overall control of one's material than he had-- not just a few well-written sentences.
Why don't you give me your address, Bill, and I'll send you along my Hot Poetry zeen, so you can read all of it to make a fairer judgement. Though as I've said, the only poetry I write is to be performed, with rhythmns that fit my voice and way of talking-- listening to it is the best way to judge it.
You seem to miss the concept of what I do. I'm a zeenster, a ranter, a polemicist, and a publicist; sometimes a critic, then peripherally a fiction writer and a poet when I have time for it. But golly, I guess I should be honored that you choose to compare me with Saul Bellow, who's been lauded for decades, given plush teaching assignments (far, far different from what I'm currently doing!) and ample book advances, his every tome accompanied by widespread attention in the press. Not to mention his Nobel. Give me a smidgen of that kind of praise and support and then we can discuss whether I live up to the expectations you have. (Give me more time to write and possibly I will!)
(I still think Bellow peaked more than forty years ago and was just going through the motions since. I also believe that some of the ULA's and the underground's best novelists well hold their own with him. Ever read Fred Woodworth's book? James Nowlan's? What's your context? Do you fully have one-- do you really know what is out there in the underground? Or is the establishment lit-world all there is for you? Flowery well-written sentences without energy, edge, or truth?)
p.s. Actually NF Junky's own novel is a better look at New York than anything Bellow has written in many decades-- definitely more current.
Here we have with Bill the perfect example of a brainwashed demi-puppet, desperately trying to justify the received wisdom programmed into his head in college. His every opinion is second-hand. His tools are borrowed. Cliche? To attack writing as cliched is itself a cliche'. What do I know about cliche'? I write what I know and feel, and try to build a rhythmn and patter while doing so.
Rat-raced prison'd world is for me a genuine emotion. Uh, that's how I'm living, dude. Get a clue.
Re Bellow. The guy was an academic darling even when I was taking some college courses long ago. I remember writing an essay which compared Bellow with Jack London-- pointing out that both were best when they focused on the natural world (the ending of Henderson the best part of a novel of bullshit) and left the philosophizing to others who did it better. The prof went ballistic! "They in no way are comparable," he told me, "no way on the same level." Way back then I knew there was something seriously wrong with the lit world. Why, I had been reading Jack London's great short stories on my job. The universal writer, best short story writer who ever lived-- and this tweedy geek was putting him down! I didn't know a lot about "literature"-- was just an ordinary reader-- but I knew something was seriously, seriously wrong.
One quick post to sum up my thoughts for the day.
Noah:
The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry was intended to showcase poets that are "non-conformists."
I don't think it was very successul. While there were several great UNDERGROUND poets who had their work showcased in that book, one name that sticks out in my mind is Jim Chandler, the editor of the zine Thundersandwhich,(Chandler really had some great poems in there! Oh, and the section on the Unbearables towards the end, was good) the book in general was a half-assed attempt at making poetry "cool."
TUPAC (good lord) and Richard Pryor? What the hell? But I suppose it would be a good feeling (as an underground poet) to have your piece featured on a page next to Che Guevara...
While I don't really find the writing style of Eggers all that awful, (it's certainly not the best I've read)-- there is nothing OUTLAW about Eggers. I'm sure I'll find that book at a yardsale for 50 cents in a year, as I recently found "A Heart Breaking Work of Staggering Genius" for a quarter. A CANADIAN QUARTER!
Going back to the statements made earlier on Bellow:
Bill G, you said "I wonder which will be read in five years? (Or, which is read today?) Any of Bellow's 15 books, or "Hot Poetry."
This isn't a question of quality. It's a question of marketing. Which will I find displayed pretty on a bookend in Barnes & Nobles?
Finch: You mentioned the litblog co-op's, or should I say (as it's been called) THE OPRAH ONLINE! Ugh.
I checked out their site. There's Richard Nash...I'll hold my comments on Nash. But it's sad, really sad. WHat the hell is Soft Skull doing?
Flashback: "Sander Hicks has made his life mission to surpass the mediocrity and fear that brands the corporate-owned media. Hicks' goal is to provide the American people with better information, reporting and research, so that we can truly perceive the injustice in this world."
Hicks, oh Hicks--why have you let your creation go to the wolves?
Nash says, on "The Oprah Online"
"The Lit Blogs are now doing what e-mail and the Web couldn't pull off: connect writers to readers more smoothly." Does Richard Nash live in a cave?
Bellow wrote a few good books but also several awful ones. I couldn't even complete Mr. Sammler's Planet, for instance--Bellow was unable to maintain any kind of narrative pace-- the novel just clunked depressingly along.
Remember that the ULA doesn't necessarily want to displace the Bellows of the lit-world-- but to offer an alternative and level the playing field.
Surely one of the reasons for lit's weakness the past thirty years or so is its major "stars"-- its figureheads like Bellow notably lacking in excitement in their personalities and prose.
Bellow's excitement was gone by the early Fifties-- then he became just another academic-establishment stooge, as much a fixture as a chair, with as much life to him.
Fitzgerald, whatever his flaws, always wrote words that were alive with his unique sensibility. For a brief period in the Twenties he was a literary rock star, along with his buddy Hemingway. (Who Bellow so desperately used in Henderson the Rain King.) We haven't, really, seen Fitz's and Hem's likes since.
Bellow is pretty good but even he admitted that the finest short story in modern American literature is "My Name is Orlando Hotpockets" by Orlando Hotpockets.
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