The question of how one could distinguish between something that was genuinely experimental, and something that wasn't and was merely falsely claimed to be ... seems vexed.
For a writer of brief, difficult, obscure poems to write a fat, salacious blockbuster would be, for them, an 'experimental' gesture. And vice versa. In either case, the writer would have to try out new techniques that were unfamiliar to them.
It could be said that a real experiment only happens when a writer does something of a type that no writer has ever done before, but how often does that happen? How feasible is it?
I fear that the criteria would need to be scaled down a bit from that.
It's likely that there are ways of writing that are coded as 'experimental', and will be accepted as 'experimental' (minimalism, poetry that is fragmented and hard to understand, possibly maximalism also) -- but as such, we may doubt the application of this label. If something is generic then is it experimental?
I think that these questions are rather tricky and the targets are moving.
I daresay this has all been said before, here never mind anywhere else.
― the pinefox, Wednesday, 16 February 2022 15:56 (two years ago) link
let me put it this way, a series of interconnected short stories that constitutes a novel is not "experimental." a chapter written in powerpoint could be construed as an experimental flourish within a deeply typical book
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Wednesday, 16 February 2022 16:55 (two years ago) link
jeeeezus, I didn't think anyone remembered Goon Squad!
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 16 February 2022 16:57 (two years ago) link
i do think the radical is realizable within super traditional forms tho, i like music too much to deny that
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Wednesday, 16 February 2022 17:03 (two years ago) link
It's a marketing category really but that's no less legitimate than any other genre.
― Daniel_Rf, Wednesday, 16 February 2022 17:10 (two years ago) link
I was thinking, a good definition of "experimental fiction" might lean on the word experiment, i.e. be about putting unusual things together without knowing how they're going to react - but that would end up including Pride and Prejudice and Zombies as experimental literature too.
― Chuck_Tatum, Wednesday, 16 February 2022 19:00 (two years ago) link
While staying in a yurt with no cell service read Yoko Ogawa's The Memory Police in an evening. Overall I liked it a great deal, with a bit of reservation - i think the placid and simple style works very well, but it does really push against what you might want out of a story - no information of the outside world, or interactions with others who remember, or substantial progress except in a negative direction. It reminded me a bit of Never Let Me Go, both stories living inside a dystopian setting that is almost totally accepted, but I think The Memory Police works better as a enclosed story, while Ishiguro's attempts to engage with the larger world and wrap things up kind of expose how flimsy the whole thing is.
― JoeStork, Wednesday, 16 February 2022 19:12 (two years ago) link
I've started reading A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962, Alastair Horne. It looks pretty readable and should fill in a very large gap in my knowledge, because I know almost nothing about this war. It ended when I was seven years old and the hegemonic powers seem determined never to mention it again.
I will note that the British author is clearly a Francophile and his sympathies in that direction do color his tone, even if it doesn't prevent him from trying to collect and describe the facts. My awareness of this tendency helps to neutralize it somewhat. This is an NYRB reprint and was probably added to the catalogue in 2006 as a result of the Iraq War.
― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Wednesday, 16 February 2022 21:03 (two years ago) link
I think the word "experimental" in the context of literary criticism may be an example of what Frank Kogan calls a "Superword" in the context of rock-crit, i.e. a word whose primary purpose is to be fought over, like "a flag in a bloody game of Capture the Flag". A word that "will jettison adherents and go skipping on ahead of any possible embodiment". "For the word to be super, not only must people disagree on the ideal, but some people must consciously or unconsciously keep changing what the word or ideal is supposed to designate so the music" - or book, I would add - "is always inadequate to the ideal, even if it would have been adequate to yesterday's version of the ideal."
― o. nate, Wednesday, 16 February 2022 21:50 (two years ago) link
Penelope Lively's Moon Tiger and Geoffrey Willans/Ronald Searle's Molesworth.
― Daniel_Rf, Thursday, 17 February 2022 10:45 (two years ago) link
xpost -- Yes, it feels v. much like a sunday supplement/music crit word. Like, "This sounds unusual, and my writing skills aren't sharp enough to describe what it's doing, so I think I'll call it 'experimental'".
And I guess, just as "middlebrow" is a putdown camouflaged as descriptor, calling something "experimental" is a way of self-congratulating one's reading prowess ("I'd like to read something more experimental next time").
The recentish NYer short story is, unfortunately, an excerpt from the book.
― Chuck_Tatum, Thursday, 17 February 2022 11:44 (two years ago) link
Geoffrey Willans/Ronald Searle's Molesworth.
― fetter, Thursday, 17 February 2022 13:13 (two years ago) link
Thomas Hardy - Far from the Madding CrowdVictor Sebestyen - 1946: The Making of the Modern WorldShirley Hazzard - The Bay off Noon
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 17 February 2022 13:22 (two years ago) link
Emma Dabiri Don't Touch My HairDublin born mixed race author talks about hair and its significance in her life and others. By way of connotations of what being a mixed race girl in teh 90s and earlier meant, do wonder if I ever met her since I was around at the time but would have been a lot older and have had dreads since my own late teens.But anyway am really enjoying her writing so hope there is more of it to come.
Beginning Theory Peter BarryBook on literary theory etc taht looked interesting when I was looking through a charity shop earlier. Read the introduction and seems like something I will benefit from reading.
― Stevolende, Thursday, 17 February 2022 18:06 (two years ago) link
recent reads:
Sabrina Orah Mark - Wild Milk short story collectionJesse K. Baer - Midwestern Infinity DoctrineKarel Čapek - War with the NewtsClarice Lispector - Soulstorm: Stories
currently reading Thomas Bernhard's Correction
― zak m, Thursday, 17 February 2022 18:18 (two years ago) link
Update on Bullet Train: this is a very enjoyable book. At the risk of using an overused term, his writing is cinematic. He's very skilled at maneuvering his characters within the confines of his chosen setting of the Shinkansen. Plus, it's funny AF.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Thursday, 17 February 2022 18:30 (two years ago) link
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if it won a Pulitzer, calling a book "experimental" might just not be accurate.
Plenty of people who aren't in their twenties get MFAs, the pinefox, tho it seems like Egan just did the normal Ivy to Cambridge rich kid route.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Friday, 18 February 2022 03:08 (two years ago) link
Yes, I'm sure a range of people get MFAs. My original point about them was that for those many of us who don't have them, we can't really tell what is an "MFA exercise" and what is something else.
GOON SQUAD may not be experimental. But the question of what that word actually, in practice, means, abides. I am inclined to think that posters O. Nate and Chuck Tatum are going along the right lines, on this question.
― the pinefox, Friday, 18 February 2022 10:47 (two years ago) link
I tend to agree, too, but when I'm describing a book in a forum like this one, I'm not writing a book review for the LRB or anywhere else. Using the word 'experimental' as shorthand, both here and on ILM, is completely reasonable and not 'lazy' as these posters would so have it.
MFA exercises: play with this wacky formal constraint that readers will find charming and interesting, but don't make it so challenging that you can't get a book deal or sell the story to the New Yorker.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Friday, 18 February 2022 13:55 (two years ago) link
Also I was merely trying to be kind before, Goon Squad is fucking garbage.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Friday, 18 February 2022 13:56 (two years ago) link
In poetry, for what it's worth, the debate about descriptors like 'experimental,' 'innovative,' and others continues to rage.
What I often think is ignored in these debates is that the state of mainstream poetry and literature is as such that words like 'experimental' serve an important function in establishing a work or poet as against a dominant hegemonic aesthetic. Other than this function, the words don't mean a whole lot.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Friday, 18 February 2022 14:05 (two years ago) link
And if you want to know what the dominant hegemonic aesthetic might be, look toward the dilatory epiphanic tone that permeates the most popular English language poetry: Gorman, Kaur, Billy Collins, etc.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Friday, 18 February 2022 14:07 (two years ago) link
Ugh. When I hear the name Collins that’s when I reach for my ….Anyway, I like your term “dilatory epiphanic.”
― Solaris Ocean Blue (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 18 February 2022 14:13 (two years ago) link
It's been growing on me since the first time you used it
― Solaris Ocean Blue (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 18 February 2022 14:15 (two years ago) link
I always like this takedown by August Kleinzahler, although I don't know if I have had any takers yet on this borad: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/60488/no-antonin-artaud-with-the-flapjacks-please
― Solaris Ocean Blue (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 18 February 2022 14:17 (two years ago) link
Ha! Apart from the forced imbecilic simplicity of Collins' verse, I thought his mortal sin was going straight for the arena rock climax in the first stanza.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 18 February 2022 14:17 (two years ago) link
You can also find it in the inexplicable fawning of the mainstream presses and book reviews of mediocre dead poets like Robert Lowell, who seems to have a new book around him every year for some godforsaken reason that no one I know can figure out. Heaping praise on dead people who were lauded mostly for their ghastly biography instead of engaging in challenging work of the present is not new, but it still irks.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Friday, 18 February 2022 14:21 (two years ago) link
Billy Collins was in attendance at a good friend's wedding. It didn't end well.
― Solaris Ocean Blue (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 18 February 2022 14:23 (two years ago) link
Norman Mailer's son was there too, to add to the fun.
― Solaris Ocean Blue (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 18 February 2022 14:24 (two years ago) link
mmm I disagree. Lowell did change the course of American poetry briefly even though I prefer the chillier early stuff like Lords Weary Castle and have little to no patience for most anything after 1960; those 1970s collections he shat out are doggerel at best.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 18 February 2022 14:27 (two years ago) link
He wrote one good poem afaic, and it's the most unlike the rest of his other work. Just a crazy racist Boston Brahmin who never should have been given a second thought.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Friday, 18 February 2022 15:04 (two years ago) link
But even if you love him, why does his work still command so much attention when...well, he's been dead for 45 years? I think it has a lot more to do with mainstream fetishization of mental illness than the quality of his poetry.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Friday, 18 February 2022 15:06 (two years ago) link
In a sense, what I'm getting at is there *is* an industry that keeps certain types of writing in circulation and has a vested interest in doing so. To my mind, being called 'experimental' often means that the work cannot be totally subsumed into the flow of capital that guides this industry's decisions. That's the kind of writing that I'm interested in, and similarly with music.
The idea that there is anything profound about ubiquity is a bankrupt one.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Friday, 18 February 2022 15:11 (two years ago) link
You mean like this?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-nxdyTOtE8
― Solaris Ocean Blue (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 18 February 2022 15:12 (two years ago) link
(xoost to your previoius post)
― Solaris Ocean Blue (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 18 February 2022 15:18 (two years ago) link
Any book with a spine is too structurally unadventurous to be called experimental IMO.
― Tim, Friday, 18 February 2022 16:29 (two years ago) link
Lol
― Solaris Ocean Blue (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 18 February 2022 16:35 (two years ago) link
user Tim v much walking the walk
― ok what the fuck is happening in the uk (rain) (wins), Friday, 18 February 2022 16:41 (two years ago) link
At what point should we shit out dead poets? As soon as the doctor calls it? Get back, Homer! You too, Jethro!
― dow, Friday, 18 February 2022 17:09 (two years ago) link
lol
― Solaris Ocean Blue (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 18 February 2022 17:20 (two years ago) link
Nice to see that people are taking reasoned points and shitting on them for the purpose of dunks.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Friday, 18 February 2022 17:46 (two years ago) link
Instead of engaging with them in any meaningful way because you know I'm right.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Friday, 18 February 2022 17:48 (two years ago) link
Really no wonder so many people are leaving this site, tbh.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Friday, 18 February 2022 17:49 (two years ago) link
If you’re talking to me, let me be clear that I wasn’t dunking on you or anyone (except myself, slightly).
― Tim, Friday, 18 February 2022 18:09 (two years ago) link
Yeah, I didn't notice any dunking. Just some friendly disagreement about when Robert Lowell jumped the shark or whether he was ever even on the right side of the shark.
― Solaris Ocean Blue (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 18 February 2022 18:11 (two years ago) link
FWIW I think, per TTITT and Daniel that “experimental” is used as a catch-all (marketing) term for art which resists being incorporated into the mainstream. I think it’s a bad term because it doesn’t say anything about the nature, content or quality of that art. Non-ubiquity, in and of itself, is no more profound than ubiquity. Less so if anything because at least ubiquity has the kind of profundity that comes from shared experience (see Ewing, T; “Come On Eileen”, 2009).
― Tim, Friday, 18 February 2022 18:21 (two years ago) link
Pretty much agree with all of this.
― Solaris Ocean Blue (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 18 February 2022 18:23 (two years ago) link
Totally disagree with the point about ubiquity vs non-ubiquity, but whatever.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Friday, 18 February 2022 18:45 (two years ago) link
There’s that meaningful engagement
― ok what the fuck is happening in the uk (rain) (wins), Friday, 18 February 2022 18:51 (two years ago) link
Go fuck yourself.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Friday, 18 February 2022 18:52 (two years ago) link