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But also, that you specify "late 20th-century America" proves my point, which is that bitching about it as a big problem in 2018 is ridiculous.
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Jun 6, 2018 18:43
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Sham bam bamina! posted:Toni Morrison. Annie Proulx. Barbara Kingsolver. Ernest J. Gaines. Vikram Seth. Come on, dude, I'm not even trying. I think you are mistaking "existant" with "celebrated." Put the number of classes that teach Gaines or Proulx to the number of classes that teach Delillo or Updike. No one is saying there are only sad white dudes writing, its that sad white dudes take a disproportionate amount of cultural and critical acclaim. I mean, you are basically arguing my own point, which is that American fiction is actually very dynamic and diverse but it has a bad habit of being about sad white liberals from New York because those kinds of stories are what hogs the cultural and critical discussion,
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Jun 6, 2018 18:43
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Sham bam bamina! posted:Toni Morrison. Annie Proulx. Barbara Kingsolver. Ernest J. Gaines. Vikram Seth. Ha Jin. Come on, I'm not even trying here. Shut up man, the guy knows Marquez! Oh god, we're in for a beating for sure
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Jun 6, 2018 18:44
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Put the number of classes that teach Gaines or Proulx to the number of classes that teach Delillo or Updike.
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Jun 6, 2018 18:44
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Sham bam bamina! posted:I will bet you five thousand bucks that more classes teach Morrison than Updike in 2018. Morrison is also unfairly burdened with being the primary voice of feminine blackness because a white and patriarchal culture only allows for tokenism. Think about how many popular writers write about white maleness versus how many popular writers write about female blackness. SImply because there is the presence of notable exceptions doesn't mean the displacement is not obvious. Like we have Morrison, Angelou, Adichie, and Gay speaking for a spectrum of experience that is just as diverse as the spectrum we give for Ford, Roth, Delillo, Barnes, Russo, Updike, Mailer, Franzen, Eggars, Froer, and so on.
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Jun 6, 2018 18:49
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Its the same unfair burden being placed on Coates right now, he is being expected to be THE voice of blackness rather than A voice on it and its half the reason he deleted all his social media
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Jun 6, 2018 18:51
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Fair points.Squashing Machine posted:Shut up man, the guy knows Marquez! Oh god, we're in for a beating for sure 
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Jun 6, 2018 19:25
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Sham bam bamina! posted:Garcia Marquez 
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Jun 6, 2018 19:27
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Sham bam bamina! posted:Fair points. Yeah honestly I think we agree way more than we disagree on the topic. If anything I do think we would be better served celebrating people of different races/genders/sexualities in American Lit more than bemoaning who does get attention, but honestly I figured this thread was tired of me harping on good contemporary writers all the time Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Jun 6, 2018 |
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Jun 6, 2018 19:29
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Squashing Machine posted:Come on, we all have our sacred cows man, I love Marquez but he's not Yahweh. I love David Foster Wallace and I didn't throw a hissy fit when people came in on him. It's not that it's impossible it's just really rare I mean, i'm probably the forums' biggest Jane Austen pusher and even there, what makes Austen interesting is the relative lack of privilege of her female characters. Ditto with Dicken's best work, etc. People always identify more with the underdog because privilege by definition is something most other folks don't have. It's possible for works purely by and for the privileged to be both interesting and valuable -- the primary example I can think of being perhaps Proust's In Search of Lost Time -- it's just a tougher hill to climb by far, because why do I care about your rich people problems?
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Jun 6, 2018 19:39
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:It's not that it's impossible it's just really rare Jack Gladney is pretty bog standard 80's middle class, so is that the cut-off before a character stops being interesting? The Buendías variably ebb and flow from poor to wealthy to poor, should I go "well, gently caress these guys, get the wall idiots!" when they're on the upper end of their status? Is The Brothers Karamazov just the trifling feud of a bunch of privileged Russians? I don't see how carrying a towering case of class resentment into your reading adds anything to the experience other than segmenting out people and writers you implicitly don't like.
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Jun 6, 2018 19:59
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Squashing Machine posted:Jack Gladney is pretty bog standard 80's middle class, so is that the cut-off before a character stops being interesting? The Buendías variably ebb and flow from poor to wealthy to poor, should I go "well, gently caress these guys, get the wall idiots!" when they're on the upper end of their status? Is The Brothers Karamazov just the trifling feud of a bunch of privileged Russians? I don't see how carrying a towering case of class resentment into your reading adds anything to the experience other than segmenting out people and writers you implicitly don't like. There is so much to deconstruct here I dont even
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Jun 6, 2018 20:02
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Mel Mudkiper posted:There is so much to deconstruct here I dont even Hey, by all means, we have all day here.
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Jun 6, 2018 20:03
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Ok, let's start with this. Do you believe the cultural legacy of North American and Latin American literature is the same
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Jun 6, 2018 20:16
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Ok, let's start with this. I believe that if there's an argument that "privilege" disqualifies characters and writers from literary relevance, then you have to specify what framework of privilege you're working from, and, surprise surprise, there are beloved novels from every culture that have to do with people who would be considered privileged inside their own culture. So, if your reaction to a book about privileged Americans is "god, I hope they all die in a fire" and your reaction to a book about Colombians who would be privileged in Colombia is "wow, so powerful, this is truly great," then you're kind of showing your hand. I mean, do you get uncontrollably angry when you watch Home Alone?
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Jun 6, 2018 20:22
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Cloks posted:I read about half of Inland. He's very good at description but it seems like I picked a bad one to start with. I've liked all his books I've read except Inland
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Jun 6, 2018 20:24
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Squashing Machine posted:I believe that if there's an argument that "privilege" disqualifies characters and writers from literary relevance, then you have to specify what framework of privilege you're working from, and, surprise surprise, there are beloved novels from every culture that have to do with people who would be considered privileged inside their own culture. So, if your reaction to a book about privileged Americans is "god, I hope they all die in a fire" and your reaction to a book about Colombians who would be privileged in Colombia is "wow, so powerful, this is truly great," then you're kind of showing your hand. Ok it's cool that you think you can totally predict my arguments but answer the question
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Jun 6, 2018 20:25
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I don't really have anything against your argument per se since I loving love books about rich white guys doing nothing, but 100 Years and BK (less so, but still) are both books that actively debate wealth and class, while what people have been talking about here are books about well off saddos where the well-offness is a neutral milieu with no sort of discussion about it. So they're not great examples
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Jun 6, 2018 20:26
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Sham bam bamina! posted:Toni Morrison. Annie Proulx. Barbara Kingsolver. Ernest J. Gaines. Vikram Seth. Ha Jin. Come on, I'm not even trying here. [I'm blank-quoting this because it's the truth^] but I want to add, is anyone here not already above granting trendy things merit for simply being trendy? who cares, or has ever cared, what was in vogue? and then to still criticize books for being in vogue at one time is just asinine. Just call the book boring if you don't like it. White Noise is good, and DeLillo is exceptional. To look at his work as mopey middle-class seasonal depression mistakes the main-character's journey for what the book is about. WASDF fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Jun 6, 2018 |
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Jun 6, 2018 20:29
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Ras Het posted:I don't really have anything against your argument per se since I loving love books about rich white guys doing nothing, but 100 Years and BK (less so, but still) are both books that actively debate wealth and class, while what people have been talking about here are books about well off saddos where the well-offness is a neutral milieu with no sort of discussion about it. So they're not great examples I was gonna build to this but yeah this was gonna be part of my point. The discussion and portrayal of wealth in Latin American literature plays an entirely different cultural role than it does in the US.
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Jun 6, 2018 20:33
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Ok it's cool that you think you can totally predict my arguments but answer the question I don't get your point. Of course they're different. That doesn't excuse a really reductive argument about "privilege", which seems way more about justifying tastes you already have. Ras Het posted:I don't really have anything against your argument per se since I loving love books about rich white guys doing nothing, but 100 Years and BK (less so, but still) are both books that actively debate wealth and class, while what people have been talking about here are books about well off saddos where the well-offness is a neutral milieu with no sort of discussion about it. So they're not great examples Right, the books are more complicated than that and they do play in those spaces. But Mitya asking "why is the babe poor" doesn't really change the fact that he's essentially the equivalent of the american trust fund kid who squanders his life in frivolity until the inheritance dries up. And it's fascinating!
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Jun 6, 2018 20:34
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Squashing Machine posted:I don't get your point. Of course they're different. That doesn't excuse a really reductive argument about "privilege", which seems way more about justifying tastes you already have. Like if you want to have an argument with the person you've constructed in your head, go for it. If you would actually like to have an argument with me, I am afraid I am gonna have to ask you to actually know my position and not just wholly imagine it
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Jun 6, 2018 20:35
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Squashing Machine posted:I believe that if there's an argument that "privilege" disqualifies characters and writers from literary relevance, To be clear, that's not an argument I was making. I specifically mentioned In Search of Lost Time as an example, and you don't get more privileged-people-problems than that. quote:
Yes but not for that reason
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Jun 6, 2018 20:37
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I was gonna build to this but yeah this was gonna be part of my point. The discussion and portrayal of wealth in Latin American literature plays an entirely different cultural role than it does in the US. I think the uprisings and revolutions that are a central part of Latin American history show that people don't like having rich people around when they're poor regardless of the culture. If you think it's different just because it takes place in a place that's Not Here then, 
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Jun 6, 2018 20:38
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Squashing Machine posted:I think the uprisings and revolutions that are a central part of Latin American history show that people don't like having rich people around when they're poor regardless of the culture. If you think it's different just because it takes place in a place that's Not Here then, This seems like a weird thing to say
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Jun 6, 2018 20:42
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Like if you want to have an argument with the person you've constructed in your head, go for it. If you would actually like to have an argument with me, I am afraid I am gonna have to ask you to actually know my position and not just wholly imagine it
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Jun 6, 2018 20:45
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Ras Het posted:I don't really have anything against your argument per se since I loving love books about rich white guys doing nothing, but 100 Years and BK (less so, but still) are both books that actively debate wealth and class, while what people have been talking about here are books about well off saddos where the well-offness is a neutral milieu with no sort of discussion about it. So they're not great examples Yeah, this is a good way of phrasing it. White Noise isn't bad as such, it's just that it's aged poorly because post-2008 readers are going to react to the work in a way completely differently from readers in 1985. In 1985, financial security could be taken for granted. Today, the character comes across like someone taking his success for granted, and that taints the entire work. I should probably go back at some point and read other late-twentieth-century white male saddos again, just to see if, say, World According to Garp or other books I haven't read since the actual 90's have also aged similarly badly. The problem is not that they're somehow bad it's just that they haven't aged well.
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Jun 6, 2018 20:45
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yeah, this is a good way of phrasing it. I hear ya. The Hitler Studies thing always seemed like absurd parody, so I never really looked at it as realistic enough to seem like he was just complaining about his cushy job. But you are right.
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Jun 6, 2018 20:50
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Squashing Machine posted:I think the uprisings and revolutions that are a central part of Latin American history show that people don't like having rich people around when they're poor regardless of the culture. If you think it's different just because it takes place in a place that's Not Here then, I feel like you are attempting a new argument style in which you make so many wrong assumptions about your opponent that they have to spend all their time correcting you rather than actually positing their own ideas
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Jun 6, 2018 20:53
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WASDF posted:I hear ya. The Hitler Studies thing always seemed like absurd parody, so I never really looked at it as realistic enough to seem like he was just complaining about his cushy job. But you are right. Back in 1985, it was basically light parody: a little bit absurd, but only a little. It was orders of magnitude easier to get a job in academia back then. At one point I was leafing through a book on "how to get a tenure track job" that had been published in the 1970's, and the advice boiled down to "apply to at least three or four places, every year academia has to hire thousands of people, odds are you'll find a job somewhere." Today I think something like, what, one percent of graduates find tenure-track positions? It's just an entirely different world then and now.
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Jun 6, 2018 20:56
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I mean, my parents are professors and I grew up on college campuses so I didn't even know the Hitler studies thing was meant to be satire because it was totally something I found plausible
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Jun 6, 2018 20:58
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:White Noise isn't bad as such, it's just that it's aged poorly because post-2008 readers are going to react to the work in a way completely differently from readers in 1985. In 1985, financial security could be taken for granted. Today, the character comes across like someone taking his success for granted, and that taints the entire work. Hieronymous Alloy posted:Back in 1985, it was basically light parody: a little bit absurd, but only a little. It was orders of magnitude easier to get a job in academia back then. At one point I was leafing through a book on "how to get a tenure track job" that had been published in the 1970's, and the advice boiled down to "apply to at least three or four places, every year academia has to hire thousands of people, odds are you'll find a job somewhere."
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Jun 6, 2018 21:02
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Sham bam bamina! posted:So what you're saying is that he's completely justified in taking his success for granted. The book is not set in the twenty-first century. Novels exist in the era they are read, not the era they are written in
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Jun 6, 2018 21:03
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Sham bam bamina! posted:So what you're saying is that he's completely justified in taking his success for granted. The book is not set in the twenty-first century. It's completely to be expected that he would take his success for granted, sure. But it also makes it less interesting to me as a reader. . It's a work of its time and place.
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Jun 6, 2018 21:06
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Sham bam bamina! posted:So what you're saying is that he's completely justified in taking his success for granted. The book is not set in the twenty-first century. His argument does seem concerned with the first impression of a contemporary reader being the most significant impression they'll have. I don't think that is the case, as evident by HA's re-reading and re-appraisal of White Noise. It's possible for someone to read the book and see it as mopey middle-class tripe, and then return to it and find something in it of considerable value to them even with that first impression still in their memory. As if it weren't tiring enough to ask this again, but shouldn't readers consider things in context of history in addition to their contemporary perspective on the subject? I have faith in readers to be considerate. White Noise may look differently from a contemporary perspective than it did upon its release, but that's not unexpected...
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Jun 6, 2018 21:08
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Novels exist in the era they are read, not the era they are written in
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Jun 6, 2018 21:09
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:It's completely to be expected that he would take his success for granted, sure.
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Jun 6, 2018 21:16
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Back in 1985, it was basically light parody: a little bit absurd, but only a little. It was orders of magnitude easier to get a job in academia back then. At one point I was leafing through a book on "how to get a tenure track job" that had been published in the 1970's, and the advice boiled down to "apply to at least three or four places, every year academia has to hire thousands of people, odds are you'll find a job somewhere." But some of the satire has become stronger, in my opinion. For instance, Gladney's (self-created) obsession with Hitler and Nazism. He created the Hitler program, it's not like he was hired for the job. He went out of his way to make a place at the school he worked for to make a career of studying him. Partially it's his way of idolizing power and influence, and he completely ignores that it was only used for evil selfish purposes (in fact, he's more interested in Hitler's relationship with his mom than the Holocaust). He reads Mein Kampf during dinner instead of interacting with his family. His entire career is based on obsessing over an evil person who accomplished many things, but Gladney is stuck in a cycle of teaching the same things every day, every year, to similar faces who don't give a poo poo. Another area of satire, the various professors who create stupid programs, also rings more true, since things like eSports get college courses now. Another section that aged well is Heinrich's interview with the serial killer, a shooter lamenting that he didn't become famous for his crime, and if he had the chance, would do it all over again, but as an assassination instead of killing random people.
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Jun 6, 2018 21:16
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Underworld would be a better target for boring books about ambiguously upset white dudes where nothing happens. But that's still a good book. Anyone read Libra? Going to read that this summer, I think.
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Jun 6, 2018 21:21
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WASDF posted:As if it weren't tiring enough to ask this again, but shouldn't readers consider things in context of history in addition to their contemporary perspective on the subject? I have faith in readers to be considerate. White Noise may look differently from a contemporary perspective than it did upon its release, but that's not unexpected... Shouldn't readers be capable of both perspectives?
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Jun 6, 2018 21:21
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