More Mantel

HILARY MANTEL’S MUCH HYPED TALE

Predictable voices of offense and protest, as if on cue (the publicists scripted this very well) have been raised about Hilary Mantel’s story, “The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher.” See my review of the story:

http://kingwenclas.blogspot.com/2014/09/dueling-assassins.html

as well as this in-depth NEW POP LIT examination of the controversy:

http://newpoplitinteractive.wordpress.com/2014/09/21/the-hilary-mantel-fiasco/

The question arises: Are Mantel’s critics practicing censorship? Is this a free speech issue?

IF the amount of free speech one has is judged by the size of the microphone, then Hilary Mantel has an enormous amount of free speech, given that her book is published by not one, but two of the largest book conglomerates on the planet. Her “assassination” story was published by two of the most important newspapers on earth. If free speech is judged by with what power a writer is supported, and how widely her words are circulated, then Hilary Mantel has many times the amount of free speech as the average writer. Is it 1,000 times more? 10,000 times? That’s the way the matter should be honestly judged.

After all, both the HarperCollins and MacMillan book empires by nature “censor” writers, every day. Seeing that Hilary Mantel’s provocative story is shallow and not very interesting, in and of itself, one can conclude that the decisions made by the book giants as to which writers are published and promoted are based as much on politics as on quality.

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What’s most visible in this affair is the sad state of literature today. This great writer, Hilary Mantel, selected for massive publicity; the acme of the legacy publishing industry; lacks an artistic conscience. Not only is her story a cheap hit piece—metaphorically and in actuality—it makes no effort to examine the causes and effects of violence in society. The meaningful questions which a work of literature would be expected to address are nowhere to be found. Unlike the literary giants of past days, the Dickenses and Dostoevskys, Dumases, Hugos, and Tolstoys, Hilary Mantel lacks a moral voice. In judging the story, aside from all other considerations, that lack is everything.

Impossible

THE GENTEEL ART

It’s impossible to take the established literary world seriously. By “established,” I mean the critical/review/p.r. apparatus based in New York, bolstered by the academy, which decides what writings and writers are an approved subject for proper discussion by the proper crowd, and so, regarded as “literature.” It’s a tiny bubble world far removed from the hectic noise of America-at-large.

The Bubble Literary World has been marked by a fear of contention and conflict. No clash of ideas among this crowd. The goal has been to become as innocuous as possible.

In a recent New York Times Book Review article, (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/books/review/do-we-really-need-negative-book-reviews.html?_r=0), two Bubble writers take tentative steps toward questioning the prevailing norms. Their words, when put into context—literature’s non-standing among the greater populace—are comical.

Francine Prose, an unexciting author and uncreative thinker, affirms the right to disapprove in her reviews of “bad” writing. She doesn’t define “bad” writing, but it has something to do with how sentences are crafted. She gives the example of “His eyes were as black as night.” Not done! If Tolstoy or Shakespeare or Dickens ever used such a phrase, you’d have to dismiss their entire body of work. Ms. Prose is locked into a single standard of value for literary work: “the well-written sentence.” This is chief value for the MFA set. Characterization; plot; pace; ideas; dialogue; form—everything else which goes into the creation of a compelling work of fiction is of secondary value, if considered at all.

What does Francine Prose make of a Debra Webb from Alabama, who has written 100 novels, the last several of them best sellers? On the first page of one of Webb’s novels, Webb talks of a character’s “piercing blue eyes.” I winced myself when reading it, because it seems like cheating—making it too easy for the reader to see the character. The larger question, though, is: Does it work?

Debra Webb is doing something right in her novels. They have an avid readership. Far more than Francine Prose (or myself), Debra Webb is keeping the art of fiction alive in this country. People purchase her books and her ebooks. The task of a critic is to figure out what Debra Webb is doing well. What compels her audience to read her books? To understand this is to take a real step toward saving literature in America; moving toward the elusive hybrid novel which can be popular and significant BOTH.

I’m not saying Francine Prose or Zoe Heller shouldn’t attack such work. I’m saying they should be open to an equal amount of attacks on themselves. It’s the only way the art can improve.

The literary scene needs contention and controversy. By such contention in this loud age, literature will be noticed. Myself, I’m from a background where we would argue just to argue. I enjoy debating. Try to do this with stuffy literary folk and you’ve broken their rules. No conflict. No contention. No noise. Everyone please get along. (Turn out the lights when you go home.)

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(For a satirical look at Francine Prose and a few other writers, buy my ebook novel, THE MCSWEENEYS GANG, affordably available at Kindle or Nook.)

Lit’s Class System Continued

The hugely influential New York Times Book Review has a new editor, Pamela Paul. Will Ms. Paul sympathize with, and promote, the democratization of the literary art?

The answer is no, based on an article she wrote a few years ago sympathizing with the plight of America’s privileged:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/education/edlife/being-a-legacy-has-its-burden.html?pagewanted=all&smid=fb-share&_r=0

The lower classes are not even an afterthought in Pamela Paul’s world.

Pamela Paul herself is an Ivy Leaguer, a Brown University grad, and has led quite the charmed literary life, according to her own bio:

http://www.pamelapaul.com/bio/

Does anything ever change in the elite New York literary world?

The system is incapable of reforming itself. The only solution is to knock it down and start over.

Censorship and Self-Censorship

I WONDER what the effect will be of the Jeanette Winterston screed about Henry Miller in the most recent New York Times Book Review. Will it have a chilling effect on already too-careful male writers? How many aspiring young men are right now going over their manuscripts, ensuring that they don't come on too strong?

American literature is already too politically correct, too feminized. Old fashioned authors like Norman Mailer if starting out today would never get in the door. It's one reason of many for the inferior condition of our literature.

Who are our top male writers right now? Jonathan Franzen and Stephen King, in the literary and popular realms respectively. Franzen's confessional Freedom is Oprah fare, a feminized novel through and through, as I'll explain in an upcoming essay at another blog. Stephen King's nonsensical and childish fantasy represents infantilism, a retreat from the adult world into the mindset of a twelve year-old. The old fashioned Tolstoyan novelist patriarch can't be approached.

What distinguishes the male novel is a need to dominate and control the world, and those who inhabit it. An expression of male ego. This is shown blatantly with Mailer characters like Rojack. More subtly, it's demonstrated by the lead characters of James Gould Cozzens's Guard of Honor, in which the generals have put together a complex authoritarian machine for training those pilots then sent out to dominate the world. The creation of American empire. A depiction of the here and now. It's the essence of maleness-- the very assertiveness and aggression that Winterston complains about. The need to dominate. To be, well, male. Nature's programming. To know the world and how it works. Literary critics and academics can't handle that, so Cozzens is excluded from their canon. He's replaced by irrelevance.

When I read Winterston's essay, I thought of F. Scott Fitzgerald's remark, when he said something to the effect of, "They complained about my subject, my material, but my God, that material was all I had!"

Jeanette Winterston objects to Henry Miller being Henry Miller. Miller was blackballed once. There's no doubt if he was a new writer, today, he'd be censored again. CAN ANYONE DOUBT THAT?

Part of the problem with the ULA's (Underground Literary Alliance) Bill Blackolive and Jack Saunders wasn't just their unfamiliar-looking writing, but that they came across to today's well-regulated literary world as too male.

In 1994 I wrote two long essays for North American Review. Why is it that they've posted on-line only the weaker, more inocuous essay-- about baseball!-- and not the other, stronger, vital one, about Detroit, which does contain un-p.c. moments because it tells the truth? (I realize now how fortunate I was it was ever published.)

The biggest lie going is that there is free expression in American literature. It'd be better if editors and publishers were upfront with their rules and biases from the get-go, so we know where the boundaries are. Otherwise it's guesswork.

Pioneers or Parasites?

NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW IS BEHIND THE TIMES

The 11/27/11 issue of the New York Times Book Review contains a review by Jeffrey Rosen of a new book by Robert Levine, How Digital Parasites Are Destroying the Culture Business, and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back.

By "culture business," does Robert Levine mean the monopolies which have dominated the publishing business for so long?

Accompanying the article are blown-up photos of actual parasites, one of them labelled "e-books." Wow.

My response is that the New York Times with its stale and elitist view of literature had better be scared!

Levine's argument, presented by Jeffrey Rosen in his review, is that entertainment distributors (like Amazon) "become 'parasites' on the media companies that invest substantially" in artists, musicians, and writers. This "sucks the economic lifeblood out of those who create and finance the best achievements of our culture."

It's debatable how good those "best achievements" really are. Sucking the lifeblood out of giant media conglomerates seems a great thing to me. It's called levelling the playing field.

Writers will arrive who'll be able to produce ebooks with writing more original and striking than anything from the Bigs, at a fraction of the price. They've already arrived. I'm one of them. I have no overhead, other than a cheap netbook and occasional coffeeshop purchases. I challenge Rosen, Levine, or anyone at New York Times Book Review to read my 99-cent Mood Detroit and tell me it's not expertly edited and proofed-- by myself-- with strong themes, subjects, and voice. Tougher writing, lower price, better value. (My best ebooks are yet to come!)

How will the artery-hardened Manhattan skyscraper bureaucracies compete?

Can they afford 99 cents?

Possibly they're afraid to read what's coming just around the curve.

It's also curious that the Book Review publishes Rosen's review, with its concerns about copyright and "parasites," three pages away from a review which praises Jonathan Lethem, a writer who a few years ago wrote an essay for Harpers magazine defining the word "plagiarism" out of existence. Curious indeed.

We're seeing the inevitable democratization of literature-- moves that naturally threaten the cronyistic little world of the establishment variety, which has dominated the art for too long.

Will the sleepwalking New York Times ever wake up?