Sunday, December 01, 2013

Whither the ULA?

Will the Underground Literary Alliance ever return?

That thought popped briefly into my head—only briefly—after running into a former ULAer a couple weeks ago. Could the once-notorious literary organization come back? Should it?

Even the ULA’s opponents now must recognize that our arguments were right. The literary scene is as stagnant as ever. No controversy or excitement to be found anywhere. No contention. No new ideas. That the very uninteresting and unoriginal follow-the-status-quo Alice Munro won the Nobel confirms almost every point we made.

When I was directing the ULA, every move we made was exciting.

Likely, to bring the ULA back would require an entirely new team, with me overseeing it. I’d do little more than that—but I would do it. No one besides myself has the force of personality necessary to make the right amount of noise—nor a storehouse of tactics and polemics. One thing I still carry is my voice.

These are stray musings. The odds against such a move, such a restored movement, remain impossible.

One thing for certain: If the organization does come back, under new guise or old, this’ll be the last place where it will be announced!

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