― pr00de, where's my car? (pr00de), Thursday, 15 September 2005 01:18 (eighteen years ago) link
― pr00de, where's my car? (pr00de), Thursday, 15 September 2005 01:31 (eighteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 15 September 2005 01:33 (eighteen years ago) link
Anyway, I hadn't heard of this guy before this thread, and I went from being interested to being not so interested in him. I suppose I wouldn't kick him out of bed, at least not at first.
― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 15 September 2005 01:36 (eighteen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Thursday, 15 September 2005 13:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Thursday, 15 September 2005 13:45 (eighteen years ago) link
http://www.believermag.com/issues/200310/article_moffett.php
― o. nate (onate), Thursday, 15 September 2005 13:52 (eighteen years ago) link
http://maudnewton.com/blog/?p=5610
― cutty (mcutt), Thursday, 15 September 2005 21:55 (eighteen years ago) link
Being about systems and ideas is one field where books have the advantage over film. But when it comes to whimsy, the book/film connection seems to be something else: the literary novel is officially Not Important Anymore. There's something so half-ridiculous about the fact of even writing one that it's easy to see where the whimsy comes in: what the hell, it's your novel, people hardly even read books anymore, might as well have fun with it. The problem here isn't whimsy, or "books about ideas" versus "books about people," but the fact that neither of those categories usually packs the ambition to say something grand and far-reaching and real.
Still, though, I'm sensitive to seeing someone congratulate a writer for being "less 'inventive'," despite the scare quotes. Why? Because I don't trust the way things are written off as whimsy or wacky when they very often mean something completely unwhimsical, both to writer and reader. Since this is a Saunders thread, "Sea Oak" again -- it has the tone that many would call whimsical, but I can't sort out a single element in it that doesn't seem focused and meaningful and directly relevant to something serious (and serious-minded) to say about people. So I sometimes read charges about "hysterical-realist" books as being like charges about "pretentious" bands -- sometimes they're spot-on, but all too often they're a way of dismissing some perception of "style" without even bothering to notice that it's actually genuine substance.
― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 16 September 2005 15:41 (eighteen years ago) link
Naturally, I'm in favour of inventiveness that's natural and creative; but zaniness for the sake of it - like the talking turd in Frantzen, or the talking lawnmower in a story by Frances gapper that I read recently, or the relentless counter-realities in Eggars's flash fiction - strikes me as too easy. The hardest thing is to extrapolate from the real into something original, not to be original by sidestepping the real. I'm not against all surreal flights of fancy - I liked Arthur Bradford's "Dogwalker", for example - but I admit I prefer the writers who avoid it, for example Tobias Wolfe. I don't want to get polarised about this (I do like Saunders, and occasionally love him), but I'm uneasy about the relentless infiltration of fantasy tropes into literary fiction. (I'm just one of those people: as soon as a ghost, a miraculous occurrence, a post-modern conjuring trick, a metatextual irony, appears in a story, my heart sinks.)
― All Bunged Up (Jake Proudlock), Friday, 16 September 2005 17:45 (eighteen years ago) link
(a) Isn't that stuff partly the result of the film era and the Coover dictum -- i.e., you should write stuff that can only be written? (I think this is an idiotic dictum, for the record, but I do understand why modern-day writing would select for people interested in only-in-fiction tricks.) But then more importantly:
(b) Can you defend this "relentless infiltration" line? Like I said, it's certainly a trend, and it's one associated with the highest-profile young writers today. But it's also a "trend" in the opposite sense -- it's a limited cadre. I mean, can we get past just saying "relentless" and "everywhere" and actually justify this idea that "everyone" is doing it? Because so far as I can see the bulk of fiction, high-lit and low-lit, remains as traditional as ever.
― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 16 September 2005 18:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 16 September 2005 18:24 (eighteen years ago) link
― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 16 September 2005 19:12 (eighteen years ago) link
I think it might be even harder to sidestep the real and make it work for an audience who are only familiar with the real.
(And since "making it work" is a writer's job and not "keeping it real"...)
― Casuistry (Chris P), Friday, 16 September 2005 19:52 (eighteen years ago) link
― estela (estela), Friday, 16 September 2005 23:16 (eighteen years ago) link
― n/a (Nick A.), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 12:59 (eighteen years ago) link
― n/a (Nick A.), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 13:03 (eighteen years ago) link
― k/l (Ken L), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 14:08 (eighteen years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 17:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― n/a (Nick A.), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 18:09 (eighteen years ago) link
and hardly anyone would say that cream soda thing like that.
― John (jdahlem), Friday, 23 September 2005 17:31 (eighteen years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 23 September 2005 18:34 (eighteen years ago) link
― John (jdahlem), Friday, 23 September 2005 18:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― k/l (Ken L), Monday, 26 September 2005 12:13 (eighteen years ago) link
― k/l (Ken L), Monday, 26 September 2005 12:15 (eighteen years ago) link
Arf. Saunders plays with those sorts of constructions all the time, yes. So can people like Wallace and Baker, when they want to. So does whoever writes The Gilmore Girls. Maybe I've been spending time in the wrong places, but so far as I know people often talk that way. It's normal, is what it is.
― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 26 September 2005 15:13 (eighteen years ago) link
someone give us another weird attempt at vernacular we can argue over.
― John (jdahlem), Monday, 26 September 2005 19:17 (eighteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 26 September 2005 20:10 (eighteen years ago) link
― John (jdahlem), Monday, 26 September 2005 20:27 (eighteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 26 September 2005 20:56 (eighteen years ago) link
18. I think people could be encouraged to read through: Wearing "author" t-shirts, much like band t-shirts
And maybe George Saunders heard me, because check it out: go to reignofphil.com! You can buy Reign of Phil t-shirts! I have just purchased one.
― nabiscothingy, Sunday, 2 October 2005 17:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― n/a (Nick A.), Monday, 3 October 2005 13:15 (eighteen years ago) link
I got the wig t-shirt, though, and got to be overjoyed when I came across the relevant part of the text. I guess for my high-lit t-shirt I will just have to get started on a Steven Millhauser Neighborhoodie. (Possibly it will say: "Rose Dorn / Rose Dorn / I am / forlorn.")
― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 3 October 2005 15:20 (eighteen years ago) link
― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 3 October 2005 15:26 (eighteen years ago) link
"Cruel freight" made me laugh.
― W i l l (common_person), Friday, 7 October 2005 06:03 (eighteen years ago) link
― W i l l (common_person), Friday, 7 October 2005 06:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― Tripmaker (SDWitzm), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 19:51 (eighteen years ago) link
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 20:34 (eighteen years ago) link
x-post. I'm all for the Looney Tuney direction, not because of the anti-TV meme, but because the story seemed like a spirited amalgam of Twain and Barthelme.
― Horizon of gloom, Tuesday, 1 November 2005 20:36 (eighteen years ago) link
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 20:39 (eighteen years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 00:09 (eighteen years ago) link
"CommCom" was also pretty fucking solid.
Definitely the closest thing to Barthelme we've got going these days.
― rogermexico (rogermexico), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 07:25 (eighteen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Sunday, 29 January 2006 03:04 (eighteen years ago) link
outtakes!
― tom west (thomp), Sunday, 29 January 2006 03:05 (eighteen years ago) link
― W i l l (common_person), Monday, 13 March 2006 19:00 (eighteen years ago) link
new collection:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=br_ss_hs/104-8034997-6351146?platform=gurupa&url=index%3Dblended&keywords=saunders&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=Go
― cutty (mcutt), Wednesday, 19 April 2006 15:13 (eighteen years ago) link
― Jaq (Jaq), Wednesday, 19 April 2006 15:21 (eighteen years ago) link
i wonder what path george's career trajectory will take and how he will be remembered?
― cutty (mcutt), Wednesday, 19 April 2006 15:28 (eighteen years ago) link
civilwarland seemed much better than pastoralia, however
― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 19 April 2006 17:41 (eighteen years ago) link
― Jaq (Jaq), Wednesday, 19 April 2006 18:28 (eighteen years ago) link