Frank McCourt, dead at 78…

As you might already have heard Irish-American author Frank McCourt is dead at 78 from melanoma.  Here is a link to the NYTimes.com article about Mr. McCourt: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/books/20mccourt.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&emc=th

“I decided I knew nothing.”

When I was in high school I got in trouble during Physical Science class. I was a freshman and didn’t really care for school at all. My teacher, Mrs. Stonbraker, ordered me to write 500 words on why I shouldn’t misbehave. Naturally I wrote something to the effect of: If I misbehave I will not only do bad in school but I could let my family down and blah blah blah, for 500 words. When you are 14, 500 words is an eternity. The quality of the assignment, needless to say, was execrable.  Which is what I found out about Donald Barthelme’s The Indian Uprising. Louis Menand in The New Yorker praises it as ”…one of the great literary responses to the Vietnam War…” and that “The babble of discursive registers mimics the incoherence of war against guerillas, a war in which the two sides are always in danger of becoming morally indistinguishable.” Now if you have connected the dots you are of either two minds: 1. I am crazy to go against Don B. he opened the doors and let all the bullshit in.  2. Hell yeah, he is a craptastic writer with nothing to say. After reading The Indian Uprising, I have thought that Don B. was, simply, a piece of shit hack who aped at being an author. Clearly he had aspirations, ambition and plenty of theory (read bullshit) to dupe any one and everyone into believing that here was something somewhat new for them to think about.

To quote Barthelme in an excerpt from the Louis Menand article we can see how people got steamrolled; Had I decided to go into the conceptual-art business…I could turn out railroad cars full of that stuff every day.”  Menand says that Barthelme “…used hackneyed prose in his pieces all the time, and he was a connoisseur of the linguistically tired and poor.’ Right ’cause that is what I want to read, something that is tired and poor.

Now on to the actual literary criticism.  Aside from being ‘tired and poor’ Barthelme doesn’t like to convey any sort of reality in his piece. Of course there is a war going on, an invasion if you will, but what is the main thrust of this crap? If it is to make dumb jokes and be ironic well then Mr. Barthelme has certainly succeeded.  But if it is to add to the shelf of literature well then he has certainly failed. Epic Fail Barthelme. Ha ha ha.

I wish this man was still alive so I could speak with him and tell him that in 100 years he will be remembered along with the backstreet boys as some of the worst dreck this society has ever produced. 

 

If you enjoyed this please check back as I buy my first Thomas Pynchon book in the coming weeks.

French poetry Today edited by Edward Lucie-Smith and Simon Watson Taylor

This spectacular little book encompasses French Poetry from 1950-70. The superb introduction features critic/scholar Edward Lucie-Smith expounding the History of French Poetry from Nerval and Baudelaire to 1970.  The book presents the poetry in its’ original French and with English translation.  The introduction constantly contrasts American/English Poetry and the evolution of French Poetry. While admitting that at some points in their history they have been “tangential” the clear sway of the introduction is that “English Poets had consistently chosen ‘nature’ as opposed to ‘vision’.” You see the French poet today “…is the direct heir of a tradition of visionary revolt that stretches back in an unbroken line to Rimbaud, Lautreamont, Baudelaire and Nerval. Such a tradition cannot be created ad hoc.”  So the French are steeped in Modernism and the English/Americans are always going all pastoral on us. Therefore the time that this book represents is definitely one of uncertainty, as is the moment we are living in now and basically the last 58 years.  What broad definition can we give this time, historically speaking? The parameters for inclusion seem to be what poem is translatable  and, well, the book was published too close to the time the poems were written so there isn’t really a movement identified in the introduction.

By the way Edward Lucie-Smith is fast becoming my favorite critic/scholar/anthologist.

French Poetry Today

Schocken Books

New York, New York

copyright 1971

Toni Morrison’s new novel, or how John Updike wrote a half-assed book report for The New Yorker

Take it from me there is nothing worse than reading bad writing which is focused upon more bad writing. Now I don’t know what your stance is on Toni Morrison, (little know fact: she is Jim’s second cousin) or on Updike and frankly I don’t care either. Now, now sensitive reader don’t close your browser just yet I still have a quasi-rant/tirade to go on.  Where shall we begin?  I guess it started in college when I was assigned to read Beloved twice and Paradise once, never finishing either novel I developed a lively, silent rage against Mrs. Morrison.  With her fragmented, shattered style I reached new heights of perspicacity, clearly here was the most profound example of a living writer who, having only written a handful of novels, is elevated to the status of Matriarch, Saint, no, what I really mean is that she is the Alpha and Omega of Literature and she reigns supreme in the world today, according to some people.  Sorry I digress, what I am trying to say is that I firmly believe Mrs. Morrison will fade very quickly after her death and that her writing isn’t, you know, worth the paper it is printed upon. Mrs. Morrison is the ultimate example of a writer who is famous during their lifetime and then vanishes reaching their terminus. Same with Stephen King, but that is old news.

So I am in Borders today and I flip through The New Yorker to find John Updike’s glowing, bloated review of ‘A Mercy’, the newest novel from the esteemed Toni Morrison.  Is he afraid of saying a bad word about the author? I’m not afraid.  Mrs. Morrison’s diction/syntax is for the birds.  Who does she think she is Tolstoy? Even he didn’t write with such mock arrogance as this woman does.  To put it plainly I can’t stand Morrison’s style, and style is still the thing you know, not to mention her utter lack of being able to put together a coherent, linear narrative. Please attempt to read The Bluest Eye with a straight face. Updike handles his reading of Morrison like a third-grader. She has an epic sense of time blah, blah, blah. Where is the criticism? Oh wait I have already answered that question. It is because of the deification of Mrs. Morrison that she is shielded from any criticism. I try not to pay any mind to the phenom but sometimes one just can’t control what one is writing. So please don’t take offense at this little blurb, I’m sure you have something better to do than leave me a nasty message.

Here is the link to the article, read for yourself the half-assed way in which Updike handles ‘The Critics’ section of The New Yorker.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2008/11/03/081103crbo_books_updike?currentPage=all

In the years to come we shall see how Time handles the effluence of Toni Morrison.

Dombey and Son cont.

I have ventured further into the land of Boz, I mean Dickens. The last post regarding this novel left one with the cliffhanger ‘How will Dickens develop young Dombey’?  After more reading-I did hold the book kind of close-I have come upon the precise passage that foreshadows young Dombey’s development, though rather ambiguous it goes like this:

“They were the strangest pair at such a time that ever firelight shone upon.  Mr. Dombey so erect and solemn, gazing at the blaze; his little image, with an old, old face, peering into the red perspective with the fixed and rapt attention of a sage.  Mr. Dombey entertaining complicated worldly schemes and plans; the little image entertaining Heaven knows what wild fancies, half-formed thoughts, and wandering speculations. Mr. Dombey stiff with starch and arrogance; the little image by inheritance, and in unconscious imitation. The two so very much alike, and yet so monstrously contrasted.”

Here we have Dickens preparing the reader for the divergence and the similarity to come. For young Dombey is a pitiable frail child as the astute reader is soon to learn in the coming chapters.  So I leave you with another question. Will young Walter marry Miss Florence Dombey? and another, will young Dombey find the woman of his fancy?

I sincerely cannot wait to finish this wonderful book.

Next time I will summon the Introduction by the learned scholars of Penguin and we shall delve further into the many themes of this novel.