! -- Add Beckett, Nabokov, Pinter, T.S. Eliot, Mark Leyner... and the man who causes both lucidity and hallucinations with his words, William Burroughs. All literary mind alchemists for every inclination.
I’ll agree and disagree. The greats have survived not just because they’re great but because 99.9% of their contemporaries have vanished. There were just as many pedestrian writers in the 1920s as in the 2020s. History will tell us which of today’s writers are tomorrow’s icons.
As someone with an MFA and a novel from a big five publisher, have to stand behind this post. I've mostly stopped reading literary novels. The stories I could tell from the publishing trenches...
This! All of it! More inspirational than any self- help shit. Thank you. And on top of those great books you've mentioned, the novels that blew open my brain pan are Moby Dick, Germinal, Catch 22...
Is it the AI or the devil? Perhaps the evil reptilians? Who knows but there is something supernatural about the way we are being dumbed down. And the algorithm is speeding up their program, exponentially. Look at the state of popular music... it wasn't that long ago that the Beatles, Dylan and Hendrix were the biggest acts on Earth and Coltrane and Miles were out there blowing down eternity. Sadly, this is apparently what humanity deserves now. Movies, news, politics, healthcare, food, spirituality... it's all under assault. You've got to hand it to the overlords... it's a brilliant plan.
As I understand it, which is another way of saying I don’t understand it, modernism was founded on the idea of universal truths. In art, it was the idea of reducing, cutting and casting aside all that was extraneous in order to find a universal aesthetic, a core that all people could identify as sublime. That philosophy was flawed; different peoples, different beliefs, different cultures, a thousand differences, a million differences. However, the works continue to stand on their own. They stand large and proud. The fight has not gone out of them. They are moving through time undiminished. Philosophy has moved on but the question remains; if a belief is demonstrably false but hits a deep wellspring of beauty and insight and knowledge, and flourishes in it’s own truth, what does it matter if the philosophy was flawed?
Words can't deliver how much I enjoyed reading your article, I felt every single word as if it were coming out of my own mind. I had the same stance on modern literature since a long time but you just solidified my belief.
At the end of NK Jemison‘s most recent book, The World We Make, one of her characters alludes to wildness as a necessary component for life, as a counterbalance of sorts to predictability, familiarity, and order. Sounds like part of what you’re looking for is transgressive fiction, a la Lolita. I haven’t read any Crews — though I sold some of his books as a sales rep HarperCollins years ago. I just picked up Eric Fromm’s book, On Disobedience, and Krishnamurti‘s book, Freedom From the Known, to scratch the itch that NK Jemisin planted.
You took the words right out of my head. Mind you, there are still a few of us out there who follow the old ways and I'm lucky enough to have a publisher who not only agrees that they need to be preserved but actually puts his money where his mouth is*. Tough, though, for him as an independent to keep that particular flame alive when the majors are all so hellbent on snuffing it out, permanently.
! -- Add Beckett, Nabokov, Pinter, T.S. Eliot, Mark Leyner... and the man who causes both lucidity and hallucinations with his words, William Burroughs. All literary mind alchemists for every inclination.
Hunter S Thompson does this for me
I’ll agree and disagree. The greats have survived not just because they’re great but because 99.9% of their contemporaries have vanished. There were just as many pedestrian writers in the 1920s as in the 2020s. History will tell us which of today’s writers are tomorrow’s icons.
As someone with an MFA and a novel from a big five publisher, have to stand behind this post. I've mostly stopped reading literary novels. The stories I could tell from the publishing trenches...
A good start would be to close all the MFA writing programs and to give all the writing colonies to The Fresh Air Fund.
This! All of it! More inspirational than any self- help shit. Thank you. And on top of those great books you've mentioned, the novels that blew open my brain pan are Moby Dick, Germinal, Catch 22...
This hit a nerve with me. Thanks for the engaging read!
Thanks for this. It hit home!
Is it the AI or the devil? Perhaps the evil reptilians? Who knows but there is something supernatural about the way we are being dumbed down. And the algorithm is speeding up their program, exponentially. Look at the state of popular music... it wasn't that long ago that the Beatles, Dylan and Hendrix were the biggest acts on Earth and Coltrane and Miles were out there blowing down eternity. Sadly, this is apparently what humanity deserves now. Movies, news, politics, healthcare, food, spirituality... it's all under assault. You've got to hand it to the overlords... it's a brilliant plan.
As I understand it, which is another way of saying I don’t understand it, modernism was founded on the idea of universal truths. In art, it was the idea of reducing, cutting and casting aside all that was extraneous in order to find a universal aesthetic, a core that all people could identify as sublime. That philosophy was flawed; different peoples, different beliefs, different cultures, a thousand differences, a million differences. However, the works continue to stand on their own. They stand large and proud. The fight has not gone out of them. They are moving through time undiminished. Philosophy has moved on but the question remains; if a belief is demonstrably false but hits a deep wellspring of beauty and insight and knowledge, and flourishes in it’s own truth, what does it matter if the philosophy was flawed?
Words can't deliver how much I enjoyed reading your article, I felt every single word as if it were coming out of my own mind. I had the same stance on modern literature since a long time but you just solidified my belief.
No mention of Brautigan? Tsk tsk.
Every book is a dreary Communist subplot and you all know it.
At the end of NK Jemison‘s most recent book, The World We Make, one of her characters alludes to wildness as a necessary component for life, as a counterbalance of sorts to predictability, familiarity, and order. Sounds like part of what you’re looking for is transgressive fiction, a la Lolita. I haven’t read any Crews — though I sold some of his books as a sales rep HarperCollins years ago. I just picked up Eric Fromm’s book, On Disobedience, and Krishnamurti‘s book, Freedom From the Known, to scratch the itch that NK Jemisin planted.
You took the words right out of my head. Mind you, there are still a few of us out there who follow the old ways and I'm lucky enough to have a publisher who not only agrees that they need to be preserved but actually puts his money where his mouth is*. Tough, though, for him as an independent to keep that particular flame alive when the majors are all so hellbent on snuffing it out, permanently.
*I expound upon his dedication in greater detail here: https://crimereads.com/on-finding-allies-in-fictional-authors/
Amen! I feel your pain. Too old to have my own. 🙂