Am I blogging...or am I pitching my existence?
|
|
| High Concept Am I blogging...or am I pitching my existence? |
|
|
Monday, November 10, 2003 The Pitch: And if you thought the last entry was self-indulgent.... Currently reading Updikes Couples, I remembered writing something snarky about Updike on the Wallace-L mailing list sometime back. I searched the archive, found the entry, and found it so amusing I thought I'd include it here.Mmmm, self-indulgence..... *** To: wallace-l@[omitted] From: "groder groder" Subject: wallace-l: Blackness, Hot Chickness and Gayness, Part 2 (and even longer) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 09:42:19 -0800 (PST) Okay, So here I am at work, posting surreptitiously (so much so I don't even have time to check and see if I spelled 'surreptitiously' correctly) and so will have to be all-too-horribly quick (although you may have a different take). So, yeah, Ellison. I brought him up in part because we were talking about great American writers and how they stick, unsurprisingly, to their white, hetero neighborhoods. And although there is certainly a good case to be made for it being a result of classic American "head-up-own-ass" syndrome, there may also be a part of it where white guy writers being just as naive in many ways about American culture as the rest of us, expected a great tidal surge of terrific African-American writing post-Invisible Man. Which didn't arrive for various complicated reasons for which everyone will have their own favorite finger to point. And also I brought up Ellison because we were talking about great American writers and, as I said, Ellison is a great American writer, just by virtue of one book. More important to me, anyway, was my point that Pynchon at least for a period was very, very concerned and hip to how essential blackness is to American culture and tried, in a cautious but powerful way, to study it. Which brings me to Colson Whitehead, who's "Intuitionist" I finished at the beginning of the month. I originally was little more than nonplussed-half-plussed, I guess you'd call it--because us Pynchonheads can sniff one another out from a mile away and it seemed to me that Whitehead had cribbed a lot of Pynchon's moves and rhythms without a real solid foundation (Pynchon's perfect diction, in other words). Brilliant details without a suitably strong eye for the overall picture; nice blending of the technical and mystical but without (at least initially) the connecting tether of human emotion. Three-quarters of the way through the Intuitionist, I had given it up as a victim of "Promising First Novelitis" where the novelist is onto something good but doesn't get the editorial direction to sharpen it into something great. And then Whitehad, unbelievably, pulls it off in the end. At least for the most part, and in my mind. He spins it all into focus and makes it work. It seems less of the masterstroke of someone who knew what he was doing all along and more of a talented pulling of the fat from the fire at the crucial moment, but it worked. I want to read his next book and hope he can take the Pynchonisms and refine them into something more personally effective. As for hot chickness: I had also heard that DFW's tatt is of Mary Karr's name and after reading The Liar's club recently, I understand why. As amazing as I think Dave is, I can't imagine him being at least a little outclassed by Ms. Karr who's riveting authorial voice and stories lead me to believe that she probably gives off the alluring scent of seen it all, done it all, and, most importantly, can write cogently about it all--the sort of scent that I would imagine would make a guy like DFW, thirsting for genuine human experience, roll his eyes back in his head and thrash zygotically upon the floor at first smell thereof. Little wonder it's easy for me to imagine to DFW resorting to the blue-collar gambit of carnies and service station men everywhere and getting Ms. Karr's name, initials or pet name for her pudenda (or whatever) pen and inked on the squat bicep of his racket swinging arm (as opposed to the lanky, squishy bicep of his non-racket swinging one). Yes, as one can see--all too horribly easy for me to imagine. As for gayness: I know that there are indeed men who have written about sex from the female point of view, and that one of those men being indeed Updike, as it was his very description of same, somewhat early on, in Roger's Version that made me toss the book from my arms as if it had tried to bite me on the throat. This was my first (and to date, last) experience with Updike who, from what I can tell, is like the smart guy you always see at the bar who draws you in with some rapturously gorgeous descriptions of something he appreciates (like quantum physics, in this particular case) and then, when you are sitted next to him and just looking forward to what he'll tell you next, begins chain-vomiting endlessly onto your pants and shirt. Updike's description of what's-her-name's lover, some young student guy who is described with just the right attention to detail to his acne and his skinny wrists and the yokelish expression he gets upon ejaculation, managed to be so precise, and seemed to me so precisely filled with hatred, jealousy, and loathing, that I had little choice but to engage in the previously described book tossing. I couldn't figure out how a book I had found so charming had managed to become so hateable--but then I had yet to sit next to a drunk who's great eloquence and affection is counter-balanced by an equally great hatred and bitterness. Finally, as for Chabon. He's married--twice, I believe. He's got several kids. He's an astonishing writer, albeit a bit too married to his outlines, if Kavalier & Clay is any indication. He writes beautifully about men--as brothers, as lovers, as fathers and sons, and amalgamations of each--and considering he is rewarded for this with such prize-winning consideration of his work as David Fleissig's "Chabon has got to be at least a little gay," it's a little wonder the rest of the American writer lot stick to their novels about titty-humping undergrads. -jeff |
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
