tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post520875373594824823..comments2024-01-05T20:26:44.857-08:00Comments on Thinking Again: fool me oncemark wallacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10047292022080114501noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-37035860537211127802007-08-17T12:01:00.000-07:002007-08-17T12:01:00.000-07:00Fair enough. I haven't read enough detective ficti...Fair enough. I haven't read enough detective fiction or conventional literary fiction to offer my guess at what either genre needs. And I can see now how Motherless Brooklyn would not measure up to your standards.<BR/><BR/>Don't mind me, carry on, etc etc.Jordanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10451174274596699645noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-57317614407231166552007-08-14T13:56:00.000-07:002007-08-14T13:56:00.000-07:00I think we may be focusing on different definition...I think we may be focusing on different definitions, Jordan, on what we mean by the "garden path of praise." Wouldn't be the first time in discussions like this, that's for sure.<BR/><BR/>What I meant was, I have this occasional tendency to read several books by a writer whose work I don't like much simply because people keep recommending that work to me. That's certainly a garden path, and I've gone down it many times. Luckily, the several people who have commented here on liking other books of Lethem's (always for me the danger zone, that "other book") haven't done so insistently enough that I'm feeling I should go further.<BR/><BR/>A second notion of the "garden path of praise" also clearly exists out in the world: the increasing spoken or written praise for this or that writer. The metaphor might also be an "arc of praise." It keeps rising for awhile, and then it does this and that, and then it becomes someone else's turn.<BR/><BR/>For this particular garden path to be purely "pernicious," I suppose the implication would be that it's absolutely content-less hype, and I think maybe you're critiquing this idea of the garden path: that the hype is ALL marketing tool and nothing elsse. I certainly agree, and if such a thing did exist, it would be easy to respond to and avoid. The issue I was taking with Motherless B was that people do genuinely speak highly of the book, but I'm not sure why.<BR/><BR/>The "sufficiency" question is a big one, and I can only answer insufficiently that in this case I was doing no more than borrowing conventional definitions. Detective fiction needs brisk pacing, intriguing characters, a tightly-wrought situation, and hopefully some worthwhile cultural insights. Conventional literary fiction offers genuine insight into the lives of its characters. And the new, vaguely postmodern hybrid would be a form of literature that uses the values of detective fiction to reflect on literary fiction, and vice versa--and also, if more radical, to critique the limitations of both approaches.<BR/><BR/>And my feeling was that while MB nods in all three of these directions, it's not hugely successful at any one of them, while being (occasionally) entertaining enough. It ends up seeming much less than the sum of its tendencies.mark wallacehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10047292022080114501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-75481449994057991962007-08-14T10:29:00.000-07:002007-08-14T10:29:00.000-07:00If that's what it sounds like when you'd be very h...If that's what it sounds like when you'd be very happy to hear something, what's it like when you're pissed off? <BR/><BR/>I don't <I>have</I> a specific counterargument -- I read the book three or four years ago, interested that Lethem's name kept coming up when poets were recommending novels to me. <BR/><BR/>So, from feeble recollection: I remember enjoying understanding the nuances of Lethem's location-scouting.. a zen retreat on the Upper East? Call it NYCentrism, but anything set on the avenues of Fifth or Atlantic will get my attention (seemed like there was an awful lot of Manhattan in it for Brooklyn to get half the name). But enough about me. <BR/><BR/>Everything else I liked in the book was not anything I particularly aim for when I write - esoteric reference, unexpected perspective, textual/emotional gimmickry - and I suppose an uncharitable critic or twenty may have said that giving Essrog Tourette's was like having Charlize Theron play a striking mineworker - straight-up prize bait. <BR/><BR/>Maybe you didn't find Essrog that sympathetic a character, maybe you don't see creating sympathetic unpredictable characters as all that extraordinary an accomplishment. It's your blog. And for my part, I'd barely read any (adult) detective genre work at all before MB - my expectations were low, my reflexes slow. Unclear whether I'd enjoy rereading it much, or anywhere near as much as I enjoy rereading say, Hammett, now.<BR/><BR/>As for your second graf, I'm not meaning either of the readings you propose. I'm saying I'm constantly reminded that I there is a trust-curve to climb with all reviewers, literary critics, poet-bloggers. Because I've spent decades in poetryland already I feel like I know how much salt to take with almost anybody's enthusiastic recommendations and refutations. I pay attention to as many provisional maps of the landscape as I can -- I'm shy but I'd like to enjoy the illusion of knowing where the party is happening. <BR/><BR/>With fiction, with literature from other countries, with the writing of the recent and distant pasts, I have the prejudices of my education to negotiate, big deal book review publications to take under advisement (can't keep up w/ the TLS anymore, but I still like the London Review and the NYRB), a few people I expect to handsell me something I'll learn to love (e.g. Rod, but fewer and fewer.. there are like five or six good used bookstores I can still get to in my city), and then the famous shadow curriculum of books praised by the poets whose work I go to again and again.<BR/><BR/>What I am saying is: and I think we're speaking in harmony if not in unison: there is in every cultural distribution chain a real pressure to feel farther along the trust-curve with any given gatekeeper -- with every gatekeeper -- than my experience usually warrants. I don't buy that there's a pernicious "garden path of praise" effect at work. It's easier in the short run to go along with the pressure, accept that this or that stilted poet or vain novelist or obtuse critic has the monopoly of the moment on the real deal. The adjectives are interchangeable, by the way.<BR/><BR/>(Hell, if they'll have me, I'll even contribute a few words to the Chicago Review: The Real Deal poets issue, or at least read the issue with one eyebrow in a brace.)<BR/><BR/>This has gone on way too long - that's what I get for writing over lunch. Look - I rarely find fiction I can stand at all. If a critic points me to something, whatever genre, that some subway ride I discover was worth the out of the way trip to the library or the store, that's a critic I'll listen to again. They get it right three times and I'll follow them everywhere.. or at least until the fifth bad pick in a row.<BR/><BR/>Good faith, meaning... we're not going to get far talking with those terms. You mention that funny jokes and good wordplay aren't enough for you - I guess I'm sticking around to find out some more about your concept of sufficiency - or at least, a sense of that concept to complement the one I've gleaned from reading your prose and fiction.<BR/><BR/>Cheers!Jordanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10451174274596699645noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-13268653163648428692007-08-14T09:41:00.000-07:002007-08-14T09:41:00.000-07:00I'd love to hear why you thought Motherless Brookl...I'd love to hear why you thought Motherless Brooklyn was terrific, Jordan. Do you think it had a seriousness of purpose that I'm missing? Or did you just find it terrifically entertaining? I didn't find that it did either all that effectively (it was an okay read at moments), so I'd love to hear what specifically it did for you.<BR/><BR/>I'm not quite sure I understand the implications of your second comment. Are you saying that you're more willing to trust the good faith of reviewers when you're less aware of the particular ways in which the deck has been stacked by the field in question? Or just that we should trust that the reviewers of a book mean what they say?<BR/><BR/>Of course, I don't think there's an answer to the question as to whether people "mean what they say." Obviously all we've got to go on is what they do say.<BR/><BR/>My question about the praise for Motherless Brooklyn is still somewhat unanswered, then. I haven't so far found any of the reasons for the praise of the book convincing. As a piece of detective fiction, it was verbose, sometimes boring, and the detection elements haphazardly handled. As a work of more serious fiction, many of the characters seem cliched and the messages obvious. It had some funny jokes and some good wordplay, but that wasn't enough for me.<BR/><BR/>I'd be very happy to hear a specific counterargument. Until then, I'm glad to know that you liked it!mark wallacehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10047292022080114501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-81141660909200458212007-08-14T08:22:00.000-07:002007-08-14T08:22:00.000-07:00But to speak to your point about the garden path o...But to speak to your point about the garden path of praise, I find I'm much more attuned to the stacking of the deck in poetryland, where I'm aware in passing at least of most of the different centers of production, their publicity machines, and their separate and weird history lessons. With contemporary fiction, as with poetry from other countries and times, I'm aware that I'm in the position of relying on gatekeepers, some of whom may be gardening the path, so to speak, but some of whom may actually be saving me some time by speaking up on behalf of work they genuinely admire, and for reasons they explain in a way I understand and could possibly share.<BR/><BR/>(Yes, I'm saying "no" to the garden-path frame.)Jordanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10451174274596699645noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-46473074119351121312007-08-14T08:02:00.000-07:002007-08-14T08:02:00.000-07:00I thought Motherless Brooklyn was terrific, actual...I thought Motherless Brooklyn was terrific, actually, and liked As She Climbed Across the Table and most of the story collections. The big serious coming of age story with the comic book characters, though, has stalled me out the last three times I've tried. And I haven't read his latest yet out of misguided loyalty to the Vulgar Boatmen.Jordanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10451174274596699645noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-30475046531204325382007-08-10T17:31:00.000-07:002007-08-10T17:31:00.000-07:00You know, I was let down by Motherless Brooklyn my...You know, I was let down by Motherless Brooklyn myself, hoping to find a more adventerous play with genre here. A nod to Chandler to be sure, but why stare at the nod itself? I do, however, think that another of Lethem's novels, "As She Climbed Across The Table" was quite good--although its rather unreflective sexual politics were a annoying.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-26921089607962142032007-08-10T11:50:00.000-07:002007-08-10T11:50:00.000-07:00More like dislike to know. Blergh.More like dislike to know. Blergh.Elisahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10270808520581466353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-61791325650543382542007-08-10T08:44:00.000-07:002007-08-10T08:44:00.000-07:00Hey Elisa:I thought you'd like to know that Interp...Hey Elisa:<BR/><BR/>I thought you'd like to know that Interpreter of Maladies is now making the list of books for many AP English classes:<BR/><BR/>Adventures of Huckleberry Finn<BR/>The Awakening<BR/>Catcher in the Rye<BR/>The Crucible<BR/>The Great Gatsby<BR/>In Our Time<BR/>Intrepreter of Maladies<BR/>Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas<BR/>Passing<BR/>The Scarlet Letter<BR/>Their Eyes Were Watching Godmark wallacehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10047292022080114501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-89338429753828797522007-08-08T15:14:00.000-07:002007-08-08T15:14:00.000-07:00I know. Pretty much all of the fiction I've read i...I know. Pretty much all of the fiction I've read in recent years has come from friends, one way or another. Not much, at that. <BR/><BR/>I'm sure that even when I thought that I was keeping up, it was an illusion, of course, but it was a viable illusion, back then.douglanghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00045305196252862765noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-44728862589095612072007-08-07T21:13:00.000-07:002007-08-07T21:13:00.000-07:00Thanks everybody for these comments.Joseph, have f...Thanks everybody for these comments.<BR/><BR/>Joseph, have fun in Europe, leaving the foibles of the American book industry behind.<BR/><BR/>Elisa, absolutely right about Lahiri, if you ask me. I've read the Namesake as well as that first book of stories and if anything it's even worse, if only because it's a longer piece of more of the same. I read them both mainly because I got them free (the publisher sent me both) and because her name has just been all over the university environment. Sometimes I have to read something to know what I don't like. But at least the Lahiri Pulitzer makes (unpleasant)sense, since her writing seems so transparently about how all of us, whoever we are, would like to live suburban upper middle class lives. But I'm still uncertain on what Lethem, somewhat more entertaining certainly, is bringing to his hype.<BR/><BR/>Doug: yeah, who can even stand to think about keeping up? One thing I do is to ask my friends about new books they think I would like. And now and then I even do like one.mark wallacehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10047292022080114501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-79222413045160632722007-08-07T19:27:00.000-07:002007-08-07T19:27:00.000-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.mark wallacehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10047292022080114501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-48210453076012797062007-08-07T14:40:00.000-07:002007-08-07T14:40:00.000-07:00I know what you mean in general, although I've nev...I know what you mean in general, although I've never even heard of Motherless Brooklyn. I was a passionate devotee of American fiction from the mid 1950s through the mid 1990s. Two things happened by about 1997. One was that I realized that while I had continued in my efforts to "keep up," I was not doing so. I was still buying new books, but I was no longer reading them. The other was that I realized why that was. The context was gone, entirely. <BR/><BR/>Part of the problem now is the culture of abundance in which we live. I don't even know what aisle to walk down in the big literary supermarket anymore. The aisles are all arranged according to marketing demographics.douglanghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00045305196252862765noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-17962187223691543972007-08-07T12:23:00.000-07:002007-08-07T12:23:00.000-07:00Praise can convince me to read a book, but if it s...Praise can convince me to read a book, but if it strongly doesn't do it for me, I rarely give the author a second chance. I liked Motherless Brooklyn, but two books I found wildly overpraised were Bel Canto and Interpreter of Maladies. Boo! No mo Lahiri 4 me.Elisahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10270808520581466353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-27419491272268578292007-08-07T02:03:00.000-07:002007-08-07T02:03:00.000-07:00I had a similar reaction to this book. Not terribl...I had a similar reaction to this book. Not terrible, but not exactly satisfying either. A shrug.<BR/><BR/>Around the same time, I was told to read Colson Whitehead's The Intuitionist...when I was finished I wanted to throw it across the room.Josephhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12350813388072485198noreply@blogger.com