Has he gone? Can we start answering his questions now?

On Wed, 24 Jun 1998, Michael Gardiner wrote:
> when I briefly coedited Angel Exhaust, one of Andrew Duncan's typically
> ascerbic reviews was of the collection Verbi Visi Voco ...
> none of it tried to make a counter-case for VVV as
> a book with a point ...

- if that's true I find it very sad: VVV (as its title should suggest) was
never intended to be a book with *A* point - it addressed so many
different modes of writing that it had, in effect, many pointlets. But if
one wanted to be reductive, surely we could say the main points were (a)
look at the staggering range, diversity and achievement of this _partial_
record of Cobbing Publishing Industries Inc - can you do anything like it,
Mr Faber? Of course you can't, and (b) look at the staggering r, d, and a
of the writings presented herein, it makes you think, dunnit? And if it
doesn't, what's it like not having brains?

> But the book was
> truly dreadful - fiddling with typeset and layout about 30 years too late,
> it only put you in mind of beardy guys in tanktops listening to
> scratched Led Zeppelin records surrounded by half-empty cider bottles.

- how style-obsessed the very young are these days, how terrified of
touching anything which may be found to be uncool. I'm sure I don't have
to spell out why VVV was produced as it was, and why the application of
external or unifying design criteria would have been a travesty, like a
steak bar at a vegan convention. If respect for writers' patiently evolved
practices is going to get reduced to "fiddling with typeset and layout"
there's not much one can say except, did you *read* it?

> Some quality control was desperately needed. People were putting a lot of
> energy into writing and producing books but there was no quality control,
> no critical community, only a loose collection of people.

- I'm sure this is spoof, the voice of the cod-fascist: "zer vass kein
ORGANIZATION: it took der GREAT LEADER to giff us QVALITY KONTRAUL...".
It's my belief/hope that in all developmental activities one throws out
quickly and gladly the concept of unity-of-purpose, in favour of
diversity, of breadth of research, and I would have thought it evident
to even the most casual outsider that VVV was, in many ways, a record of
some strands of research: not all successful, and not all still current,
to be sure - but research, which people who profess interest in change
ignore at their peril. As for the other point: "a loose collection
of people" is exactly what the community WAS, and in many ways still is.
Anyone looking for the secret signs, the funny handshakes which prove
we're all in The Movement is in for a shock. VVV reflected the work of
individuals, and if you ain't interested in individuals, well, you're in
for a hard and inexpressibly dull life.

Could someone supply the bibliographic referencing / ordering information
for VVV? I don't hold it to be the finest thing in the world, but it's of
lasting value in ways which a wealth of "critical community" would never
be and I bet there's people out there who'd like it...

RC



%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%