Covering Literary Language...

Despite the large amounts of time that I seem to stumble across, squandering this wealth on the empty pleasures of my RSS reader, there is no way that I ever have time to read all the things that report their interesting tidbits to me, begging me to try their subtle delicacies.

Maybe this is why hedonism is considered a vice; no matter how much you commit yourself to pleasures, there is no way you could consume all pleasures available.

Anyway, back to the RSS feed: I almost didn't read this one; the articles normally available online for non-subscribers of the NYRB are little reviews, or letter replies to other articles I didn't read. Normally I just scan it for the titles reviewed, hoping to remember them later when I see them reviewed again, or possibly delve deeper if it sounds particularly interesting. Unlike, for example, the TLS, which I read each article, meaning that I have a backlog (currently, eleven articles) that causes me no end of anxiety.

Zadie Smith's review of Netherland and Remainder, for some reason, I decided to read. I knew neither of the works nor authors, and Zadie Smith is not really a impetus to me, either. But all the same, so very glad that I did.

The essay is long, but very detailed, going beyond the substance of the two reviewed works to more of a signpost in a certain thread of literary criticism: lyrical realism.

I'm not going to delve into lyrical realism. For one thing, I'm not sure if entirely understand to what it refers. (I often have this problem with the various genre's of lit. crit.; I understand much more of the mechanics discussed than the supposed rubrics under which said mechanics are distributed.) Much more than that, I enjoyed those mechanics that she was describing.

Before I say anything about the article content-wise, I just wish to recommend it. It was a very nice article. Strangely enough, I don't have any big contention with it, either way. Simply put, it was a nice read, for any who are interested in literary criticism. A little thought-provoking, but not too much.

Of course, there is a reason that I am writing a blog post about it, so I must have something to say. Here it is.

This may be the truest words I have read regarding the terrorist attacks on 9/11:

"There was the chance to let the towers be what they were: towers. But they were covered in literary language when they fell, and they continue to be here."

If there is one statement that gets put into the history books, attempting to provide some sort of closure or reflection about the attacks and what happened afterwards in this country, this should be it. As I re-say in my own words now: it could have just been an awful, violent thing. But because it had begun by meaning more than just that, it continued to mean more than just that.

I doubt Zadie Smith was intending such historical gravity when she wrote those words. She was discussing the symbolism and meaning, both intended and unintended, through which such an event is represented in literature, specifically to her target, the book Netherland.

"It's a credit to Netherland that it is so anxious. Most practitioners of lyrical Realism blithely continue on their merry road, with not a metaphysical care in the world, and few of them write as finely as Joseph O'Neill. I have written in this tradition myself, and cautiously hope for its survival, but if it's to survive, lyrical Realists will have to push a little harder on their subject. Netherland recognizes the tenuous nature of a self, that "fine white thread running, through years and years," and Hans flirts with the possibility that language may not precisely describe the world ("I was assaulted by the notion, arriving in the form of a terrifying stroke of consciousness, that substance—everything of so called concreteness—was indistinct from its unnameable opposite"), but in the end Netherland wants always to comfort us, to assure us of our beautiful plenitude."

By metaphysical she means, I would venture, 'with consciousness towards its being/self.' It would be easy for any person to write about 9/11, and say any number of things. But writing about things with the knowledge that what we are writing changes those things is a much harder task, and as such, often falls far short, and is just as often derrided as 'post-modernism' or some other pretentious fad. Netherland, according to Smith, succeeds at both, 'just writing', and 'metaphysically writing'.

"Netherland doesn't really want to know about misapprehension. It wants to offer us the authentic story of a self. But is this really what having a self feels like? Do selves always seek their good, in the end? Are they never perverse? Do they always want meaning? Do they not sometimes want its opposite? And is this how memory works? Do our childhoods often return to us in the form of coherent, lyrical reveries? Is this how time feels? Do the things of the world really come to us like this, embroidered in the verbal fancy of times past? Is this really Realism?"

Now, this in itself is no more than a nice, idealistic bit of writing, like most criticism. In other words, it may be general easy to write about what writing means, but it is far more difficult to write what writing means in the course of writing it. A reversal, perhaps, of the problem of lyrical realism that Smith is considering, back upon literary criticism itself. Writing, like the content of Netherland, seeks the authenticity of the self. But if one sieze upon the self too whole-heartly (with too much reverential authenticity) then you may wake up to find that the self one clings to is not the self at all (be in an aporia, an other, or whatever else).

I might cryptically add: self-doubt is only one way of discussing the difficulties of writing while writing. But to explain: writing about needing, yet doubting, reality is one way to write about reality while at the same time acknowledging that writing is not, literally, reality. But: it takes more than questioning reality to be able to deal with (non-)reality. Hence, the problem with folks who depart too far from convention in order to question it. In order to write about not-writing, one must still write!

Right? I would hate to sum up what I mean about writing with reference to a tragedy, but here we are, and so it goes. In Smith's two sentences about 9/11, she sums up most completely what I feel is the truth about our modern lives (including our history, and our writing).

Things could be simply awful, and not mean anything. But they already did mean something, and that is why they must continue to do so, for good or bad.

Furthermore, that is why things will continue to be awful. It is impossible for us to abstract certain deaths from the meanings attached to them. Then, it is impossible for us to attach meaning to certain deaths that are already in the abstract. We kill millions because of the deaths of few; we kill to prevent death; we hate and despise death yet seek it with that desiring, tongue-hanging incest-lust that has made our most stable civilizations the arena of social upheaval and mass-destruction. It could just be some dead people, but instead, it was already a symbol; death was already a tragedy.

"The stage is set [in Netherland], then, for a "meditation" on identities both personal and national, immigrant relations, terror, anxiety, the attack of futility on the human consciousness and the defense against same: meaning. In other words, it's the post–September 11 novel we hoped for. (Were there calls, in 1915, for the Lusitania novel? In 1985, was the Bhopal novel keenly anticipated?) It's as if, by an act of collective prayer, we have willed it into existence."

"As if" willed into existence. But it was not willed into existence, even though everyone may be kneeling in prayer. Real life, or whatever it is that realism is trying to access, is the same way. Our lives are so stuffed with meaning that we couldn't help but try to reduce our orgiastic oceans of symbols into thin, seminal-fluid streams of prayer towards the singularity in the sky. And, with so much meaning in the way, we were clearly going to be wrong. We were wrong before we ever invented writing. We were post-modern before we were modern. And we were dead before we ever lived. What rises to the surface is only what is happening now. Each tower was covered with symbols before it fell; when I saw the video, I thought how odd that there was so much paper in the air, drifting everywhere. But these were massive office buildings, designed to hold, sort, and make all kinds of papers. It was already inside, just waiting to be let out.

I suppose that's it; no real clever twist conclusion from me. Anyway, thanks Zadie Smith, for those two lovely sentences. I've been waiting for somebody to put it so well for seven years.

Oh, and the literary crit. isn't so bad either! Let's just be careful of the ways in which we try to access reality, right? But I suppose that's a post for another time... next time I promise not to fool you into reading an entire post about 9/11 and literary criticism and metaphysics by suckering you in with a little light banter about RSS feeds.

Dear James Woods... Love, the Internet

So, I was listening to a New York Review of Books podcast today at work. I know, I know: it sounds stupid. In fact, it is stupid. But I knew that I would be binding books for at least four hours today, so I brought in headphones so that I wouldn't go crazy, nor strain my neck from trying to read ebooks off my tiny iPhone sitting near to being in my lap like I normally do.

So, I was listening to a New York Review of Books podcast, and I promised myself that I would only listen to it for entertainment, and not jump right onto the internet and write a blog post about it. But of course, this got my gears grinding, and because it was Daniel Mendelsohn, Pico Iyer, and James Wood discussing the future of reading in a "world of images", (podcast of 10/06/2008) I was brought back to my other posts about the subject, here, and here, among other various places.

And here we are. The opinions of the three speakers was not really that groundbreaking, though it was entertaining. They waxed on about criticism, how nobody reads anymore, and etc. I don't know what it is about James Woods; I don't much agree with him, but again and again I am drawn back to him in my theoretical thoughts. Perhaps it is just the audacity that one would require to write a book called, How Fiction Works. Maybe I admire that in a way. Regardless, it was a comment that Woods made about the writing process that got my wheels whirring this time.

Woods was sharing an anecdote about how the inter-web and technology changes writing. To paraphrase, he said that using a computer makes him write shorter paragraphs. He expressed the anxiety he feels once words have left the top of the screen, and noted that it drove him to compose quicker, more compressed paragraphs.

I could probably say something psychoanalytically oriented about the anxiety of unseen words on a page (could I?!?! what would it be???) or make some snide comment about old guys who simultaneously can't find the zoom setting in Microsoft Word and/or won't admit they need reading glasses. But these are all cheap shots.

What I really thought, however, was that this anecdote really sums it up. The literary establishment is afraid of the internet.

Of course, everyone says the internet is a great invention. They have to, otherwise they would admit that they don't understand it. Being a Luddite is no longer quaint, like my 8th grade history teacher that referred to computers as "demon boxes". Even classicists must have email accounts. To express dislike for computers and the internet openly would be like refusing to wear clothes.

But, the people who make up the "literary establishment" don't like it, and their anxiety towards it is expressed in numerous ways. It makes sense; you have spend a good portion of your life dealing with books, and probably acheived a certain amount of success in that line. So when some thirteen year-old shows you how quickly they can be stalked online, the first fear is understandable.

And it goes on from there. The folks in the podcast discussed blog posts in which the poster had not even read the book in question, and the "240" following commenters had not either. True, that sort of idiocy does exist on the internet. However, the academy isn't immune, either. Look at the use of "post-modern" in any undergraduate class; and even some books are written and published without proper citation.

But the highlighting of the idiocy on the internet as characteristic of its literary form is about as well-placed as spitting on books for allowing the most annoying charlatans print their tell-all novels. In other words, bad writers are hardly the fault of paper and ink.

All it takes is looking at one or two of the well-formed, talented communities on the internet to see how empty this criticism really is. The best example I have found is Slashdot, a forum for self-described "nerds". One who stumbles upon the board is unlikely to have his post read unless he is well-qualified. The system of post-ranking rivals roly-playing games in its complexity (though intentioned so). The end result is, only the most, most quality posts are read, and the crap is easily filtered out. Not unlike the academy, no?

Understanding the technology is the key to mastering the form. I've said it before, but the fact of near-universal literacy (the mastering of printed symbols) does not make literature universal. There are plenty of people who can read the dictionary, but aren't sure what to do with it. And so, the tech-nerds have some of the best publishing systems on the internet, because for pete's sake, they designed web publishing.

Another fun example is xkcd, a web comic. Written by and for nerds. It is decidedly lo-tech, with an (almost) daily post composed mostly of stick figures and gentle internet witticisms and nerd inside jokes. But check this out:


It pokes fun of the very criticism that the literaries were levying, and in one of the worst examples. YouTube comments are mostly stupid, often hateful and racist, and almost always not contributing to anything that could be called constructive. But something amazing happened.

YouTube actually created an "audio preview" function when you post a comment! This is nothing less that the incredible march of progress in action, and through stick-figure humor no less!

My point is not that stick-figures are the future, though I would not rule that possible future out. My point is that this is something that only people who understand both the technology and how it is used would grasp the genius of, and be able to make use of it. Form, function, and a bit of artistry as well. This is as much of an responsible, quality creative process as there is. Not that YouTube now equals Proust, but I would say Internet Web Comics = Writing and Critique.

Blogging is my strong suit on the internet. Other than that, I would only consider myself a "power user", and that only marginally. (I still have yet to have a comment featured on Slashdot; I'm waiting to submit until I know more about networking.) I can see how the technology of blogging has positively affected my writing abilities.

Before blogs, I would never have attempted to write an aphorism. Now, my non-fiction writing is composed mainly thereof. It may not be AP style, but I've also learned a thing or two about writing succinctly and to the point, and also about trying to maintain an audience. (Audience? Are you out there?)

In addition, there is something lovely about well-formed journal entries that can immediately be exposed to an audience. I don't receive many comments on my posts, but enough to tell me they are read once in a while. And this is more than enough, because it makes the audience real. I wouldn't say that I write "to the masses", or to any other target audience in particular, but it makes me write in a certain way when I know that others will be able to read it instantly, and although I can edit, I can never withdraw what I have posted. Each blog post is a thought, a musing; perhaps they are not that interesting, but they are too me. Each time I post I have reflected on a particular thing, organized my ideas, and composed them into a brief span of text that I am totally willing for anyone to step up and read. It's not that its some sort of amazing digital democracy, or even a second life. It's more of a voice; it is a printing press that I make and maintain myself. It gives my writing and my thoughts a body that they might not have had. Besides what this does for my skills as a writer, it's very enjoyable to myself and my psyche.

So, Mr. Woods, don't sell the internet short. If you can't make the technology do what you want, to represent your thoughts in exactly the way that you wish yourself and others to see them, ask a nerd! Most likely s/he would be more than happy to teach you about these new tools for us writers. New tools are nothing to fear, as long as you're trained.