But I imagine someone in every country could say much the same thing,
Judy, with their own sad understanding of how great the general
cultural failure has been.
Certainly I could, but I also would still want to at least pay
attention to the artists, & others, who have done something
worthwhile. Has it not been ever thus? That the general has neither
known nor cared that much, & the few have gone their way & tried to
create something lasting anyway?
Doug
Quoting "Judy Prince" <[log in to unmask]>:
> You, Alison and Ken, to varying lengths and in earnest ways, do the
> expected: give us a sprinkle of saviours for USAmerican writing; offer us
> friendly folk of various ethnicities; remind us of a few literary faves that
> Everyone is supposed to love. With one or two exceptions, I do not love
> them, do not deeply value their ways of telling their truths. If we have,
> then, decided that the Sainted Few *must* be the best because Everyone Says
> So, so be it, but I refuse to hop that trolley.
> We have in the USAmerica, for the most part, second-rate writers,
> second-rate intellectuals, second-rate philosophers. We have shorthand and
> shortcuts and shortbrains and a formula for writing that stops after the
> words: "shock 'em; make it Different".
>
> I've already told the aims of USAmerican writers. Give them more depth than
> that, and you'll only be picking Exceptional lint off the clothesbin of
> Successes. The playwrights some of you have mentioned as Our Heroes are
> frightfully inadequate to traditions that we only partly understand and in
> our ignorance recreate as if we're The First to See The Light. Holding
> Arthur Miller [one good but not great play: All My Sons] and T Williams
> [yawn] up to the golden light is sad and embarrassing. Each of us
> understands the road to success in USAmerican literature, and it is one of
> exclusion. I speak about the USA, not about other cultures, understanding
> that some may feel very differently about other cultures. I spent countless
> years reading novels, plays and poetry that sometimes spoke to me, the worst
> which were the USAmerican ones. Billy Budd? Not bad for a thin Christian
> analogy. His *Tartarus of Maids* slightly better because it carries the
> poetic in its slashing-feel for women's lot.
>
> If all my frustration with our literature amounts to the old saw that we're
> a young culture, then my frustration's done. Let me live 400 or 4000 years
> to see it flourish.
>
> But I think the issue holds more causes.
>
> We reflect a nation of folks who worldwidely escaped their oppressors or who
> were defeated and/or enslaved by its immigrants, who tried to assimilate in
> order to survive; a nation of conformists for good and bad reasons, a people
> who did not need, did not want, and did not fully acknowledge or perhaps did
> not fully know their debts to their former oppressing societies' traditions;
> a loose-bound young nation that did not reach out to other nations because
> of its unique store of natural resources; and, finally, a people whose
> geographic separation and self-supporting vastness caused inwardness,
> secularity, silliness, and overweening satisfaction at its superabundance
> without reflection at what it did not have that others did have despite
> their known ills.
>
> For years I taught USAmericans and new immigrants. The more cultured,
> better educated, more creative and incisive thinkers were the immigrants.
> If you insist that I provide percentages, I'll give you an anecdotal 90%,
> and that is generous to the American citizens.
>
> Adolescence in a culture may be necessary....for a time....but it is damning
> for any further time. Perhaps because of our allowing George W Bush's
> destruction of our country, we can take these after-moments to see and own
> up to our limitations and prepare ourselves for the world role we've always
> said we sought and thought we played. We can grow up.
>
> If I thought that we were not up to the job of full creative adulthood, I'd
> resign my citizenship. In fact, I feel a strong surge of responsibility in
> us, an incipient commitment to know ourselves through careful, thorough,
> often painful, usually brilliant, ever creative, constant partnership with
> other nations.
>
> We cannot continue, if we have hearts open to literature, to hold up a few
> brilliant-wise artists to represent us; we have a seriously flawed, limited
> educational system - at all levels - that props up outmoded and unfair
> market sytems, applauds CEOs, ignores the DEPTH of others' histories and
> cultures, both outside our country and inside it. I believe that our
> exposure to others' systems, flawed in their own ways but superior in
> others, will be our singlemost hope. Competition, our byword, needs
> softening. Independence, our other byword, must give way to
> interdependence.
>
> Best and always hopeful,
>
> Judy
>
>
>
> 2009/8/11 Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]>
>
>> My despair about America is at least as great as yours, but there's
>> something really ugly here, Judy. I for one live in a neighborhood, and a
>> building, where people of better than half a dozen ethnicities live together
>> in harmony, and New York is perhaps the most tolerant place on the planet.
>> But I know New York isn't America, it's merely eight percent of America, and
>> the northeast, where the same conditions exist in good measure, is a mere
>> quarter of America.
>>
>> As for your catalogue-of-one, you've forgotten not just Melville, as Alison
>> points out, but to name a very few, Twain, Whitman, Dickinson, Williams,
>> Oppen, Niedecker, Faulkner, Olson, O'Hara, Hartley, Dove, the New York
>> School Painters, Hartley, Dove, Cole Porter, Gershwin, Ives, Elliot Carter,
>> Henry James, and yes, his brother William--we could do worse.
>>
>> Where does this outburst come from?
>>
>> Oh, and I think you mightily underestimate Tolstoy.
>>
>> Mark
>>
>>
>> At 01:03 PM 8/10/2009, you wrote:
>>
>>> And again, Ana, I can only echo "YES!" to what you've written!
>>> I believe, at least for my native country USAmerica, that becoming
>>> 'famous'
>>> or 'sanctioned' or 'well known', or of course 'a bestseller', defines our
>>> writer aims.
>>>
>>> In USAmerica, as well, we've a tradition supporting superficiality; we've
>>> little history; we're a hodge-podge of ethnicities; we're loose in a big
>>> pond of little identity-crises'ed fishes, making our own insignia, logoes,
>>> impressa, shields, crests.
>>>
>>> We seldom react to our perceived past going back more than a generation.
>>> An
>>> abiding, divisive, brutal, long-accrued story belongs to others, not to
>>> us.
>>> Our hate is contemporary; our philosophy is William James; our music is
>>> not
>>> ours unless it's African-American, southern white, or native American, so
>>> we
>>> denigrate these.
>>>
>>> We haven't a THINKING tradition; we haven't a WORD-LOVE tradition. We
>>> have
>>> a marketing, money-making tradition.
>>>
>>> How, then, can we have excellent novels, short stories, plays, or poems?
>>> We
>>> cannot, except for the exceptional: TS Eliot.
>>>
>>> I love Chekhov's short stories. I love Lermontov, Gogol----but not
>>> Tolstoy
>>> whose thought ran less subtly and less deeply than the others.
>>>
>>> I enjoy your messages thoroughly!
>>>
>>> Best,
>>>
>>> Judy
>>>
>>> 2003/1/1 Ana Olinto <[log in to unmask]>
>>>
>>> > alison, i think i should admit, with judy, that i usually don't read
>>> many
>>> > novels - in my case, contemporary ones, i do read some earlier ones -
>>> and
>>> > that, in consequence, i'm not the best person to talk about them - in my
>>> > case,
>>> > not about contemporary ones.
>>> > but i think it would be also interesting to ask us why.
>>> > i'm no, as my posts may suggest, sectarian. my favourite novelist may
>>> well
>>> > be
>>> > dostoievsky - the opposite of valéry; i prefer a good
>>>
>>> > contemporary neo-classical musical composition than most - in fact all -
>>> > contemporary musical "geniuses" i know.
>>> > my favourite contemporary poet here in brazil is alberto cunha melo,
>>> > despised by the avant-garde and self-confessed "neo-classic" who
>>> > tastes like the past and for most of the time writes in octossylabes.
>>> > i must admit that the reason i don't add contemporary novelists to my
>>> > list of good contemporary artists is plainly because i don't read
>>> > contemporary novels, and the reason for that is plainly that, contrary
>>> > to listen to a cd and reading one poem, it takes a lot of time to do
>>> that.
>>> > the contemporary novelists you cite may well be more contemporary
>>> > - and better - than alberto da cunha melo's poetry - they most likely
>>> are.
>>> > yet, i do worship dr. faustus.
>>> > the question is, i tend to see as dispersive too much attention to too
>>> many
>>> > -
>>> > or too recent - novels. we should be whole, integral beings, and i think
>>> a
>>> > philosophical grounding is as important - and in some aspects more -
>>> than
>>> > art.
>>> > i think hermann broch is the last novelist i see as fundamental. when
>>> you
>>> > say
>>> > someone has just written a novel which studies "silence and selfhood", i
>>> > tend to
>>> > think it would be more enlightening to write a philosophical treatise on
>>> > such themes
>>> > - in the manner of husserl, whitehead or bergson, three twentieth
>>> century
>>> > philosophers of whom i'm fond, from completely different schools - or a
>>> > philosophical "meditative" poem on them, such as eliot's four quartets
>>> is a
>>> > meditative poem on the theme "time" - and i certainly wouldn't recommend
>>> > her to
>>> > write it in husserl's or whitehead's of bergson's or eliot's style, but,
>>> > quite
>>> > enthusiastically, in michele desborders' .
>>> > what i'm questioning is not the talent or insights of all contemporary
>>> > novelists,
>>> > but the contemporaryness of the novel form. however unusual and
>>> surprising
>>> > a
>>> > novel may be, it does takes what frederick called a sustained
>>> "relentless
>>> > cumulative
>>> > power" to write one, and i'm questioning the presence of this power in
>>> > today's
>>> > world.
>>> > it is not the narrative form that i see as out of fashion - though i do
>>> see
>>> > the
>>> > dancing, no-aim feeling as indispensable in a contemporary art book, but
>>> > you
>>> > can have a narrative - something which is closer to prose than to
>>> poetry,
>>> > and that
>>> > tells some story - with that characteristic - , but just a too coherent
>>> and
>>> > too big
>>> > narrative book.
>>> > x-ana
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alison Croggon" <
>>> [log in to unmask]>
>>> > To: <[log in to unmask]>
>>> > Sent: Sunday, August 09, 2009 6:26 PM
>>> >
>>> > Subject: Re: "incapacity"/New Formalism
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > Hi Ana - I don't know about claims about what seems contemporary or
>>> > modern, or that prose narrative isn't capable of contemporary
>>> > purchase. I think story matters just as much now as it ever has. I've
>>> > read some astounding novels in the past few months, from the lyric
>>> > exploration of silence and selfhood in Michele Desbordes (who is
>>> > extraordinary in my book, and whose books only came out in the past 10
>>> > years, although to my sadness she died not so long ago) to the
>>> > astounding mid-20th century polyvoice epic of Victor Serge to the
>>> > wickedly funny and black fables of Arto Paaslini. Robert Pinget, WG
>>> > Sebald, Thomas Mann (Dr Faustus), Christa Wolf. These are just names
>>> > plucked out of a hat, but none of them work in the way you (or Nerval,
>>> > who write some mean prose himself) describe.
>>> >
>>> > I do agree however that poetry is a lot like dance. At least, whenever
>>> > I write about dance, I always end up talking about poetry. I tried to
>>> > explore this in a piece on a work by choreographer Lucy Guerin, who
>>> > lately has been working quite a bit with language -
>>> > http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com/2008/10/miaf-corridor.html - which
>>> > I'll take the liberty of quoting below, only because it's pertinent to
>>> > this discussion:
>>> >
>>> > Like novels or short stories, theatre finds its poetic through
>>> > narrative. The narrative might be displaced or distorted or multiple,
>>> > or it might be absolutely linear; but however it appears, narrative is
>>> > a tendency that the form must wrestle with, either to reject or to
>>> > accept, to reveal or to distort. Poetry, on the other hand, need not
>>> > deal with narrative at all: a poem might be an epic story like
>>> > Paradise Lost, or it might be a vivid glimpse of a moment, as in Ezra
>>> > Pound's In a Station of the Metro. It's up to the poet, a decision
>>> > that can be freely asserted because of the nature of poetry itself.
>>> >
>>> > What is primary in both poetry and dance is its materiality. Just as
>>> > poetry foregrounds the sensuous and rhythmic qualities of language, so
>>> > dance celebrates the sensuous and rhythmic qualities of gesture.
>>> > Neither needs to be more than the dynamic and immediate movement of
>>> > exchange between reader and page, singer and listener, audience and
>>> > performer, and for each this contract is more easily grasped than in
>>> > theatre or in novels, where the tending towards narrative and
>>> > explication must be resisted with active violence.
>>> >
>>> > xA
>>> >
>>> > On Wed, Jan 1, 2003 at 7:02 PM, Ana Olinto<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>> >
>>> >> i think the last posts by dominic, frederick and alison touch the heart
>>> of
>>> >> my question. i think valéry was right when
>>>
>>> >> he saw something new and irreversible in nerval, poe and then
>>> baudelaire.
>>> >> he defined prose as closer to walking, in which all our movements are a
>>> >> consequence of aiming at some spot,
>>> >> and poetry as closer to dance, in which all our movements are an end in
>>> >> itself.
>>> >> sappho's "more than a hero" is narrative, linear, but doensn't feel
>>> like
>>> >> having, in its movements, an aim in mind -
>>> >> or at least not in an emphatic way .
>>> >> now, the difference between sappho and modern poetry is only one of
>>> >> degree.
>>> >> modern poets just intensified the
>>> >> feeling of not aiming at anything.
>>> >> this dancing, no-aim feeling can be seen as typical not so much of
>>> poetry
>>> >> as
>>> >> opposed to prose as of modern,
>>> >> radically non-linear, as opposed to orthodox sensitivity.
>>> >> that's why i do tend to see the novel form and even more the epic form
>>> as
>>> >> not sufficiently contemporary - just as
>>> >> the sonnet form, and, in music, the sonata form - the musical feeling
>>> of
>>> >> aim
>>> >> - or what francis bacon called what can
>>> >> be seen, in painting, as a picture which "tells a story".
>>> >> it is not necessarily much attention to sounds or even to the whole
>>> >> texture
>>> >> of words - not necessarily hermeticism
>>> >> or even much complexity which makes a text feel contemporary (it's not
>>> a
>>> >> question of a poetry versus prose
>>> >> dichotomy). to my mind, it's the no-aim feeling.
>>> >> chekhov said he usually composed a tale, and then threw away the
>>> beginning
>>> >> and the end: that has to do with what
>>> >> i'm calling no-aim. what makes chekhov so modern and almost
>>> contemporary
>>> >> is
>>> >> the no-aim feeling he gives us,
>>> >> even writting in prose, and a very linear one - it is in its totality -
>>> >> and
>>> >> not just the totality of the tale, but also each of the
>>> >> totalities which constitute each of its paragraphs - that it ceases to
>>> be
>>> >> linear.
>>> >> a good chekhov tale is not very different, structurally, from the best
>>> >> longer narrative poems by elizabeth bishop - a
>>> >> chekhov fan herself - but of course there is a lot of difference in
>>> style
>>> >> -
>>> >> and of course she intensified a lot the thing,
>>> >> and cared a lot more about resourses more typical to poetry - thanks to
>>> >> nerval, poe, baudelaire and their followers.
>>> >> it's not so much a question of superficially "modern" resources, such
>>> as
>>> >> playing with time structures or making
>>> >> your narrative more fragmentary and saturated with "poetic", as opposed
>>> to
>>> >> prosy, components: you can have all
>>> >> flashbacks, word-games and local non-linearity and still direct us to a
>>> >> closed aim.
>>> >> i agree that "it is hard today for an intellectual to be clear what his
>>> >> tribe values, goals, heroes and enemies are, or
>>> >> about what one's 'tribe' is" and that the sustained "relentless
>>> cumulative
>>> >> power" of traditional epics - and novels -
>>> >> were possible thanks to that power, now dead.
>>> >> this doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't have any philosophical
>>> grounding
>>> >> today. on the contrary, i see as most negative
>>> >> precisely the fact that any groundings are lacking in today's world,
>>> and
>>> >> defining frontiers in art procedures - and here i
>>> >> suspect frederik will agree with me - is a sign of some grounding.
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alison Croggon" <
>>> [log in to unmask]>
>>> >> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>>> >> Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 7:16 PM
>>> >> Subject: Re: "incapacity"/New Formalism
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> I was thinking of gypsy tales, Eulenspiegel, Gilgamesh, folk tales...
>>> >> (I'll pass over the "oral traditions are not literature" question,
>>> >> which is very wobbly - there's lots to learn about story telling from
>>> >> oral tales).
>>> >>
>>> >> I'd say the primary shape of epic is circularity. And Sappho's "How
>>> >> like a god he seems to me" is a narrative as much as Homer is.
>>> >>
>>> >> I can't see that that the structural demands of story in prose and
>>> >> poetry are very different. You have to tell a story in a way that
>>> >> commands attention. I ended up thinking that was a primarily question
>>> >> of rhythmic control, in the sense of large movements and at the level
>>> >> of the sentence/line.
>>> >>
>>> >> I've never got linearity as applied to story, unless it means one
>>> >> thing after another moving forward in literal time, as Hal suggests;
>>> >> in which case lyric is definitely linear too. Every story goes
>>> >> backwards and forwards, because it reflects how memory works - I can't
>>> >> think of a single epic poem without divagations and distortions of
>>> >> imagined time - the lnvocation of the muses in the present that begins
>>> >> the Iliad or the stories of the gods, the bizarre leaps back and forth
>>> >> in Beowulf, Aeneas's visits to the dead, Milton's sudden moving
>>> >> description of his blindness in Paradise Lost, etc etc.
>>> >>
>>> >> xA
>>> >>
>>> >>>
>>> >>> "simplest kinds of story telling (oral tales, say) are often far too
>>> >>> fragmentary" - depends, I suppose, what you're thinking of. Marko the
>>> >>> Prince and other oral epics of Serbia - very straightforward and
>>> Homeric.
>>> >>> Likewise Gilgamesh, probably based on oral tales. And then the crucial
>>> >>> term
>>> >>> is "based on." I was talking about literature, not oral traditions.
>>> >>>
>>> >>> Vergil: Augustus and Rome. Tasso: aristocratic Catholic Europe.
>>> Camoes:
>>> >>> imperial Portugal and expansionist Europe. Milton: the radical
>>> >>> Reformation.
>>> >>> Nazim Hikmet: the international proletariat. Tribes.
>>> >>>
>>> >>> The inherent requirements of narrative poetry are very different from
>>> >>> those
>>> >>> of the novel. "[Moving] forward and backward in space and time in ways
>>> >>> that
>>> >>> are not straightforward at all" gets in the way. Linearity (I'll drop
>>> the
>>> >>> quotes), coherence, relentless cumulative power, are needed. Their
>>> >>> absence
>>> >>> - a refusal to differentiate between narrative and lyric - makes
>>> >>> Walcott's
>>> >>> Omeros unreadable. Their presence makes Glyn Maxwell's Time's Fool
>>> >>> lastingly enjoyable and useful, despite the relative triviality of its
>>> >>> theme.
>>> >>>
>>> >>>
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> --
>>> >> Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au
>>> >> Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
>>> >> Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > --
>>> > Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au
>>> > Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
>>> > Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
>>> >
>>>
>>
>
>
Douglas Barbour
11655 - 72 Avenue NW
Edmonton Alberta T6G 0B9
That’s not a cross look it’s a sign of life
Frank O’Hara
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