The desire to read from a diverse pool of authors need not be at odds with the desire to read quality writing. This gets at the balancing act you talk about. Also, reading outside your comfort zone helps keep things fresh.
I don't know if he can be called a celebrity, but Percival Everett is a contemporary author who clearly puts a lot of craft into his work. Sure, the biggest bestsellers seldom come from the best writers, but that's not a new phenomenon. Many books that are considered classics now flopped when they were originally published.
My favorite bit in your post is pointing out how it's good for us to praise those we admire. Lots to think about!
Love Percivall Everett! But, even compared to Toni Morrison Everett he pales in comparison. For instance, read his book American Desert and go read Blood Meridian which also takes place in the Desert and it looks like Lebron James playing against a high school player.
I'm curious to hear your thoughts on Erasure by Everett and how he exposed the literary world's reductive expectations of Black authors. He shed light on the practice of confining writers to narrow racial narratives.
"American Desert," consistently use satire to challenge these assumptions and had different narrative goals then Blood Meridian. The original comparison you made ironically proves Everett's central critique of the literary world of reducing authors to simplistic racial comparisons instead of engaging with their individual artistic effort.
Comparing Everett to Morrison or McCarthy misses his unique artistic vision—a point that "Erasure" itself powerfully makes. This goes for any author.
I am my own worst enemy. I'd rather fuck around on my phone or YouTube than read or write, activities I used to do consistently. I even won an award for my writing in college.
I've always wanted to write a novel, I've even written scenes from something which came to me so viscerally in dreams and while listening to music. I don't agree with everything you've said, but I know it's true for me. I need to stop fucking around. Even if what I write doesn't reach anyone or draw any interest, it's time to get to work. Playing with tech is easy... But the reading and writing brings such fulfillment and color to life.
You got this brotha! Stop fucking around and get a first draft done. Even if it takes years to get out after that, you've set it in motion once you have the skeleton down on paper!
I was very much where you were 3 years ago. I stopped fucking around, and did it. You can do it. I had the unfair advantage of a precipitating event in the form of a death in the family. When someone close to you dies you realise how little that means to others. I’m not talking about leaving behind legacy or a name, I’m talking about contribution. Did you spend your life consuming and accumulating or did you put something out that’s polished and substantial to be consumed and appreciated. What can you say you did, and what can you say you’re proud of? A novel could certainty be that something. Taking something to completion and publishing it definitely creates a deep sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.
Just a thought: maybe the entire premise you’re approaching this with is flawed. For most of human history, literature was an elitist endeavor. It could be returning to that state, and that could, in the long run, be beneficial (purer artistic focus).
Good thoughts! I am skeptical however with the advention of AI and the destruction of the middle class for our future ability to create positive change through art. I do love the idea of purer artistic focus.
The utilitarian view of art is incomplete imho. Any change it does bring about seems secondary (or even tertiary) and more the function of moralism/politics, shouldn’t be the focus imho.
Very true. Literacy has been an elite trait for a long period of history, as has the past-time pleasure of reading literature.
There's probably a time period though, sometime before the invention of TV (and maybe the radio), when literacy rates must have been fairly high and literature could serve as enterntainment for the masses in terms of pulp magazines, dime novels etc. The merit of those pieces of literature can probably be debated, but we also find immensly popular writers like Dickens in that period.
The question then is whether a "popular elite of literacy and literature" could be created that could be big enough and elitist in terms of merit but not in terms of social pretense. I'm a believer in the elitist idea of the elite as an elite of humanitas, education, charity -- serving those less fortunate, educated etc. than them.
But perhaps, it's more of a question of raising the general reading level of the populace. Can a critical mass, a majority of people be educated into a higher level of empathy, rationality, interest, openness through the appreciation of art?
Or, conversely: Can a majority of the less educated be taught at least to an extent where intelligence, intellectualism, literacy etc. are not seen as something inherently suspect, something to be scorned and belittled, because deep down, it makes the outside group feel inferior?
Fredrick (?) Jameson thinks that a revolution is desirable to get rid of bourgeois capitalist culture. The urgency is too great. History is unfolding. It's too late for a literary revolution. Fuck technique. Look at punk music and three chord rock n roll. It was simple but that new language was profoundly artistic. Is there a literary equivalent? But the best thing for art is to turn over a new page. Change the material world. The superstructure will follow.
I think Jameson is quite right. I also think that revolution is very much in a race against both time (in the shape of environmental destruction, climate change etc.) and technology. What I‘m saying is, the people with the pitchforks better make up their minds before the rich have the fully weaponized capabilities to do what the system always does, that is, shield them from the consequences of centuries of exploitation.
On the other hand, that revolution very much involves a spiritual or at least intellectual revolution, does it not? How many Americans and Westerners still view Marxism, Communism, Socialism as big scares, fueled more by ignorance than knowledge and experience? How many workers who should rightly be avowed Marxists are soundly asleep in their misery, not realizing what‘s happening to them, still clinging on to some Dream (American or other) of of when they‘ll be rich and succesful. They‘ll have to be awakened, and mass media is almost entirely on the side of capitalist power, engaged in keeping everyone sedated and asleep.
So, in that sense, I don‘t see the two revolutions as mutually exclusive. They may even be quite complementary.
Don't know how I found this post, but it hits the right notes. I think one of the things you're also touching on - more or less - is the lack of there being a cultural reason among men to write, create, make art, etc. especially one where we're it's a positive community where we lift each other up.
I read somewhere - I forget which author might have been Didion - where friends of her dad would just drop by and share what they wrote on a whatever basis, and they would be loud, rambunctious critics of each other's writings but in a positive and stimulating way. A community where that's happening is epic, I agree with you we need more of that. I think AI and technological advancement has to break us in a way (I hope not, but that's the trajectory), to get back to what's essential. It reminds me of the line from Fight Club that's always in my head:
"I see all this potential and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables, slaves with white collars, advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of the history man, no purpose or place, we have no Great war, no Great depression, our great war is a spiritual war, our great depression is our lives, we've been all raised by television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars, but we won't..."
I don't think it's fair to say that cormac didn't change and that we changed when the passenger was the only book set in a non historic landscape and used less germanic prose. It was definitely a change for our boy cormac.
No Country For Old Men was set in the exact same year as The Passenger. He also had drafts of The Passenger done in 1980 when he was woring on Suttree and Blood Meridian. It didn't change too much over the next four decades. So he was writing it during his peak. Thanks for the support though brotha!
Oh wow I didn't know that they were in the same year. It's a cool thought to think both stories were happening at the same time in different locations. Love the content but I do think someone changed with the passenger, it has a differentness that's hard to put a finger on.
I feel like it’s the responsibility of those with a platform to magnify voices/works worth the spotlight. I’m glad Ian is talking about magnifying voices/literary works. It’s unfortunately the case that it takes someone with a public voice to direct others to high quality work they wouldn’t otherwise find on their own. Sometimes people need to be told what to like (including me). That’s not always bad. I try to seek out new, high quality fiction but am having mixed results.
A contemporary author I fall in and out of fascination with is Chuck Palahniuk. Was all in on the guy up until I bought a hardcover copy of Snuff. That one made me feel used. I went to one of his most recent book tour stops and loved how he talked about his craft and fielded questions in a generous way. The folks in attendance were a random sampling of weirdos, outcasts, and misfits—in the best way. I feel Chuck could’ve flipped normal society upside down, but I think he and his fans tried. It just wasn’t enough to stem the societal tide of conformity and banality.
Great example! I never felt the transformational potential in his works. There were small changes I noted and still carry with me from Haunted, Fight Club, and some of his writing advice, but he never seemed to step into a leadership role. But, maybe that's why writing is doomed. Most authors are introverts!
I completely agree with your point on the modern reader. IMO, the root of the literary problem lies not in a lack of celebrity status for certain authors whose works contain literary merit, but in the character of the individuals who read these works. The majority of literary readers today (especially McCarthy fans) are not concerned with achieving this "gnosis" that you hint at. They read because they associate reading/knowledge with intelligence and show a complete neglect for any of the actual individual and societal benefits that are at the core of literature.
They indulge themselves in Pynchon, Dostoevsky, Nietzche, and Wallace without ever taking the time to read a six line Emily Dickinson poem, because they know that reading a Dickinson poem (or any poem for that matter) demands uncomfortable introspection that directly contradicts the nihilistic, atheistic, and moral-relativistic predisposition to reality that they have already decided is the "right" one to live by (thanks STEM).
The unfortunate reality is that a lot of the greatest authors' works (who we absolutely should be championing) can be read in light of this disposition, thereby diverting the act of reading away from its purpose as a means of challenging the way we think about reality, and instead using it to reinforce a consciousness that is responsible for the killing of the very artistic material that it consumes, "as if increase of appetite grew by what it fed on."
So while the Orwellian nature of the problem of literacy is certainly concerning, I am much more frightened by its Huxleyan implications. Becoming a more intelligent person does not equate with becoming a better person, and, right now, I would much rather befriend someone who does not read at all than one who reads literature on the sole basis that it makes them smarter.
So, yes, I agree with you that we need to champion the works of great authors like McCarthy, but I would also like to suggest that if everyone in the world had read Blood Meridian, but only used it as a means to reinforce their flawed worldviews, then maybe we'd be better off in a world where we all anxiously awaited the next Sarah J. Mass release instead.
Just a very quick comment: In praise of Toni Morrison and Margaret Atwood who you referenced off the top. Certainly not dead (well, not one anyway) male or white (not one anyway). Amazing writers who deserve to be read by everyone along with DFW, McCarthy, Pancho and others. As a Canadian, I will put in my own vote for the wonderful Alice Munro, just recently passed, and whose short stories are sublime. And Leonard Cohen too.
We are oppressed with division of the intention of books to communicate. It takes active fucking resistance to actually read a great book instead of a shitty book, or scrolling your phone, or watching people sexualize while one self pleasures or fall into the swiss cheese playground of modern dopamine traps.
The media machine is a beast that eats men - chomp chomp. The beast says that the man who chops wood and carries water must bear allyship to his own erasure. Yes... this. But wait...shhhh don't...don't.
The court of public appeal is on your phone and it's scary to slip into the spiral of silence or to be neck to spear of the hand of this digital ghost megazord of the online public.
The glowing intention to create great books has been reduced in the hot pan of adderall and tiktok to short form 45 seconds look at mes. I have seen brilliant minds make me cry tears of truth in an instagram reel and it was worth it. The books are still good, but we are flooded with something that dilutes everything to seem uninteresting and unimportant by comparison of the never stopping flood of memes.
Still I put in the work to read because I want to know why these are classics. Switch to a dumbphone sometimes. The book sticks better.
I resist the oppression of my infinite scroll by reading a book that starts and ends.
Some thoughts, Girardian and otherwise, on the matter, some of them quite contrary to each other:
1) Someone said, „We used to have heroes, who were known for their great deeds. Today, we have celebrities who are mostly known for being known.“ A lot of the „content“ (and I hate that word) that gains massive traction today (see Mr. Beast) achieves that attention not due to the inherent qualities of that content, but due to other qualities attached to the product, which may not be the particular piece of content itself, but the qualities ascribed to the overall product sold. This boils down, quite frequently, to the „aura“ ascribed to the producer, the celebrity, the star. He‘s the model of desire.
A lot of that seems mimetic in nature: Someone gains traction, and that traction amongst others creates its own momentum. The crowd creates its own truth, its own desire, mediating it to others and forgetting that that desire did not originate with it in the first place. In this respect, we‘d need to create traction and momentum for the „product“ or „content“ we‘re trying to „sell“. Our models can serve as the mediators and catalysts to jump-start traction.
In a word, reading and writing, intellectual activity itself would need to become „sexy“ or „marketable“ to more than an intellectual niche. The qualities we see as inherently admirable (beauty of prose, depth of thought, advancement of spiritual or intellectual enlightenment, advancement of empathy, creativity etc.) would have to be rendered as such to so many more. Reach a critical mass and you achieve a kind of mimetic snowballing that can run itself for quite a while.
I suspect that‘s something you‘re inherently trying to achieve here. You probably already serve as a model to many of your followers, to an extent.
2. A genuine friendly smile will lift the days of others. Positivity itself can be mimetically infectuous. Your enthusiasm serves as exhibit A.
Vice versa, we need to consciously steer away from negativity, which is what our online culture seems mostly geared towards. This is very hard, because we‘re addicted to seeing people torn down. Often, we particularly enjoy the „fall from grace“ of exactly the celebrities we celebrated in the first place, taking glee from their misfortune, just as we admired and envied their ascent.
This does not mean steering away from constructive criticism though. Yet we should be careful to constantly celebrate the qualities of each piece of art that deserve celebration, whatever other flaws it may also exhibit.
Similarly, let us not ask of our models that they are perfect human beings (we do anyway) who have no moral flaws or issues.
3. An issue in itself is the celebrity-character which tends to obscure the art itself. The very cult of personality that may bring the art to our attention via the vehicle of the artist may be an obstacle in the way of appreciating the art itself for its qualities.
Thus, the current critical climate elevates what goes for artists these days not due to the inherent qualities of their work (which frequently range from negligible or unremarkable to non-existent, to outright harmful), but due to their identity as a person of „Group xyz“. Similarly, we tear down the greats of old for their identities more so than their work: Hemingway, Faulkner, Melville, McCarthy, DFW, and so many others —- they can‘t be appreciated in their works because they were „white“, „male“, Anglo-, Christian, in some way toxic, mistreated their spouses, or once kicked a puppy. We, as readers, make ourselves guilty by association. (Did you hear that Hitler loved Wagner?!)
Great works, coming from the wrong persons (= person with the wrong group identity card), cannot allowed to be deeper, more thoughtful, beautiful, etc. than that of the latest champion of whatever marginalized group is the flavour-du-jour. Even Shakespeare, to some, can only be appreciated under the premise he really was a woman. This is very petty and really says more about the readers so afflicted than the writers so judged.
The „school of resentment“ as Harold Bloom called it, in this way are much like Blood Meridian‘s natives, cowering in awe and fear and resentment of the Anasazi and their ‚eternal‘ homes of rock, the „dead fathers.“
4. Query: Would the way to circumvent this be moving radically away from biography, personality-worship etc., towards a second death of the author? After all, the work itself is what should decide whose names live on throughout the ages.
However, robbing ourselves off the author also robs us off the most powerful mimetic drive, the „celebrity-catalyst“. It is thus a double-edged sword that can cut either way.
Maybe, there‘s a middle way, which we could call the „Banksy-Solution“: Cultivate a persona that exists solely in your art, and make the mystery part of your branding. Choose withdrawal from the spoils and distractions of personal fame. Go the Banksy, McCarthy, Salinger, Pynchon, Tool - route.
Yet, as artists, we‘re often too ego-driven for this pathway that sacrifices our personal validation. Also literature is a much less immediately appealing medium than visual- and performative arts.
This needs more exploration.
5. A companion to (2) and the power of positivity: As McCarthy ones said, part of why we value the old Greek tragedies so much is that there are precious few of them left to us. Conversely, the sheer quantity of pseudo-literary garbage produced today drowns out a lot of what is good.
A partial key to „weeding out the trash“ may be found in paying no attention whatsoever to bad art and the personalities behind them rather than giving them the attention (and thus validation) of our scorn and mockery: The haters of Stephenie Meyer, Colleen Hoover and E.L. James did their fair share to contribute to their abominable success.
Hence, we should treat bad art and bad artists in the same way we should treat serial murderers or the most vile of criminals: Rather than elevating them by a whole circus of media attention, lending them the aura of „someone people talk about“ (and that is hence admired and thus, a model for imitation!), we should let them slide into obscurity, anonymity before it becomes an issue. In short, to prevent the spread of bad art as an individual, ignore rather than malign.
Example: Until recently, I was blissfully unaware of the existence of Rupi Kaur. There have been a few solid days though, after being exposed to her, when I had to check out her „content“ (apt descriptor here), what others were saying etc. While probably not by much, I added to the number of search results, video views etc. that had to do with her. So, in some small way, I probably bolstered interest in her. Bad move on my part.
6. So, what else to do? Re-Canonize and treat with reverence those works of art that deserve it. Raise its qualities to the state of the model. Reward and promote those qualities you‘d like to see more of, that which can make us better (smarter, more humble, more empathetic, loving etc.) human beings.
Make it clear that a canon is a canon for good reason(s) (which may be questioned and expanded). Sociological, ideological and identity-related reasons may suffice for special interest canons, of which the very best may be good enough for „THE CANON“, which should unite a culture as a whole is solely the quality of merit.
How to do so? I‘m not sure, but as a Girardian degenerate, I suspect good models play a part (And I‘m not talking about super models posing with book-props, though that could help in its own way when you give them the right books).
7. We need to celebrate the qualities of great literature as such, that which makes „reading“ and „writing“ special in our time. Many of my students see no inherent value in reading for the sake of reading. It‘s a purely practical thing to them.: I can read a sign, an instruction, a recipe, maybe a short news article. What gets them is entertainment — and on that front, the easy entertainment of TikTok, Youtube, Movies, Games has an infinite advantage over the slow and arduous art of reading.
Pico della Mirandola will be turning in his grave (Look, I’m sorry!) but: What we may need to stress — and for this, models, scientific insight into reading and neurology, statistics etc. may be of use — are at least in part practical (e.g. performance related) benefits of reading literature, the greats. Gather arguments that are irrefutable. Then hammer it in, again, and again, and again what reading will do for you, or most people. How they get successful. Don’t tell them it will make them more aware, critical, smarter, more empathetic human beings. Tell them that so-and-so-many people (preferably tolerable celebrity xy) got rich / famous / super-admirable because they read 50 books a year.
Promise success and/or delight, then lead them into the trap of higher consciousness. Such benefits that can be used to manipulate the culture to its own greater good, yet unbeknownst to it, is something we should discuss.
8. Reading and Writing have to become desirable as a cultural practice. However, this means overcoming a rampant anti-intellectualism in America, and the West as such (see Richard Hofstadter). Imagine if our youth were as keen on reading and writing as they are on becoming the next Lionel Messi, Ronaldo, Tom Brady or Michael Jordan. Can we get them there? The way is through good models to be emulated, imitated. Maybe Mishima was onto something, minus toxic behavior and delusion…
Again though, double-edged sword. Maybe go the Banksy-route instead. (S_)He‘s popular.
9. All of this is part of the process and really inseparable from a need to educate and raise better readers. By better, we mean readers that have the most basic tools to understanding an easy-to-medium-difficulty text. That are able to focus. That constantly push and expand their attention span. That foster readerly endurance. That engage actively with a given text. That can derive „difficult pleasures“ from its challenges, as Harold Bloom may have put it. That allow themselves to be possessed by a text, and then share its gifts with others.
Wish I could have gotten a tenth point, but can‘t think of one right now.
"Fuck Hemingway and David Foster Wallace because they didn’t do enough,"
I was with you, but then I wasn't.
I agree these guys cast a certain romantic figure during their eras and the way they waded into deeper themes feels lacking in the modern literary sphere, but... do you think it's on them to change the world? That sounds like activism, not art. These writers were greats. They turned up at the desk every day to put out great work. Not to use it as a trojan horse for some message. Quality was the only message. From my perspective, it's on the reader to recognize that and do what you can to climb up on their shoulders.
By the way, I get the sense you're on your way there, your writing has a distinct voice, you're invoking themes that resonate. That's the direction to point the compass in in my opinion. (and yes, I see how there's a touch of hypocrisy in this paragraph, after what I said in the first ha. We're all guilty of it).
I may be speaking out of turn but maybe Ian is saying those writers didn’t do enough because a new literary renaissance could go places they didn’t. I think it’s an exaggerated contrast or device to inflate us, not to deflate them. I don’t think he means, literally fuck Wallace and Hemingway. His videos illustrate that he has a high degree of respect for those authors. I understand and sympathize with your points about quality writing. My writing has an underlying message but it shouldn’t read like evangelism. We get enough of that from just about every other source. The reader should be able take or leave the message and still appreciate the story. Ian, in many of his videos makes assertions I don’t agree with but I don’t let it sour his message of personal growth and forming a supportive community.
I pity you all for your worship of the iterations of other tortured souls imagination, (Fiction is a soft target, exposed to the vicissitudes of the profane mind & unqualified opinions of demented intellectual narcissists.
Haven’t we had enough of this horror fantasy writing & postulations of “the formula for success in mega copies sold”. What praise do you offer if it not is praise that you seek?
you cannot extract a ‘quid pro quo’ with God, with Creativity or with Humility & then claim “respectability”
Illustrating “non - fiction” as fiction, as entertainment, as art & expression is where the master exceeds the precocious delusions of the desperate dreamer, each on a quest for validation.
Dad, I’m doing my best; I’m just stupid. Give me some time to make a masterpiece, sheesh!
My son, I just added a couple new paragraphs that clarify that you don't need to write a masterpiece!
The desire to read from a diverse pool of authors need not be at odds with the desire to read quality writing. This gets at the balancing act you talk about. Also, reading outside your comfort zone helps keep things fresh.
I don't know if he can be called a celebrity, but Percival Everett is a contemporary author who clearly puts a lot of craft into his work. Sure, the biggest bestsellers seldom come from the best writers, but that's not a new phenomenon. Many books that are considered classics now flopped when they were originally published.
My favorite bit in your post is pointing out how it's good for us to praise those we admire. Lots to think about!
Signed,
A soccer fan with a nose piercing
Love Percivall Everett! But, even compared to Toni Morrison Everett he pales in comparison. For instance, read his book American Desert and go read Blood Meridian which also takes place in the Desert and it looks like Lebron James playing against a high school player.
I'm curious to hear your thoughts on Erasure by Everett and how he exposed the literary world's reductive expectations of Black authors. He shed light on the practice of confining writers to narrow racial narratives.
"American Desert," consistently use satire to challenge these assumptions and had different narrative goals then Blood Meridian. The original comparison you made ironically proves Everett's central critique of the literary world of reducing authors to simplistic racial comparisons instead of engaging with their individual artistic effort.
Comparing Everett to Morrison or McCarthy misses his unique artistic vision—a point that "Erasure" itself powerfully makes. This goes for any author.
I am my own worst enemy. I'd rather fuck around on my phone or YouTube than read or write, activities I used to do consistently. I even won an award for my writing in college.
I've always wanted to write a novel, I've even written scenes from something which came to me so viscerally in dreams and while listening to music. I don't agree with everything you've said, but I know it's true for me. I need to stop fucking around. Even if what I write doesn't reach anyone or draw any interest, it's time to get to work. Playing with tech is easy... But the reading and writing brings such fulfillment and color to life.
Thanks for the kick in the ass.
You got this brotha! Stop fucking around and get a first draft done. Even if it takes years to get out after that, you've set it in motion once you have the skeleton down on paper!
I was very much where you were 3 years ago. I stopped fucking around, and did it. You can do it. I had the unfair advantage of a precipitating event in the form of a death in the family. When someone close to you dies you realise how little that means to others. I’m not talking about leaving behind legacy or a name, I’m talking about contribution. Did you spend your life consuming and accumulating or did you put something out that’s polished and substantial to be consumed and appreciated. What can you say you did, and what can you say you’re proud of? A novel could certainty be that something. Taking something to completion and publishing it definitely creates a deep sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.
Love the post and passion.
Just a thought: maybe the entire premise you’re approaching this with is flawed. For most of human history, literature was an elitist endeavor. It could be returning to that state, and that could, in the long run, be beneficial (purer artistic focus).
Good thoughts! I am skeptical however with the advention of AI and the destruction of the middle class for our future ability to create positive change through art. I do love the idea of purer artistic focus.
The utilitarian view of art is incomplete imho. Any change it does bring about seems secondary (or even tertiary) and more the function of moralism/politics, shouldn’t be the focus imho.
Very true. Literacy has been an elite trait for a long period of history, as has the past-time pleasure of reading literature.
There's probably a time period though, sometime before the invention of TV (and maybe the radio), when literacy rates must have been fairly high and literature could serve as enterntainment for the masses in terms of pulp magazines, dime novels etc. The merit of those pieces of literature can probably be debated, but we also find immensly popular writers like Dickens in that period.
The question then is whether a "popular elite of literacy and literature" could be created that could be big enough and elitist in terms of merit but not in terms of social pretense. I'm a believer in the elitist idea of the elite as an elite of humanitas, education, charity -- serving those less fortunate, educated etc. than them.
But perhaps, it's more of a question of raising the general reading level of the populace. Can a critical mass, a majority of people be educated into a higher level of empathy, rationality, interest, openness through the appreciation of art?
Or, conversely: Can a majority of the less educated be taught at least to an extent where intelligence, intellectualism, literacy etc. are not seen as something inherently suspect, something to be scorned and belittled, because deep down, it makes the outside group feel inferior?
Fredrick (?) Jameson thinks that a revolution is desirable to get rid of bourgeois capitalist culture. The urgency is too great. History is unfolding. It's too late for a literary revolution. Fuck technique. Look at punk music and three chord rock n roll. It was simple but that new language was profoundly artistic. Is there a literary equivalent? But the best thing for art is to turn over a new page. Change the material world. The superstructure will follow.
I think Jameson is quite right. I also think that revolution is very much in a race against both time (in the shape of environmental destruction, climate change etc.) and technology. What I‘m saying is, the people with the pitchforks better make up their minds before the rich have the fully weaponized capabilities to do what the system always does, that is, shield them from the consequences of centuries of exploitation.
On the other hand, that revolution very much involves a spiritual or at least intellectual revolution, does it not? How many Americans and Westerners still view Marxism, Communism, Socialism as big scares, fueled more by ignorance than knowledge and experience? How many workers who should rightly be avowed Marxists are soundly asleep in their misery, not realizing what‘s happening to them, still clinging on to some Dream (American or other) of of when they‘ll be rich and succesful. They‘ll have to be awakened, and mass media is almost entirely on the side of capitalist power, engaged in keeping everyone sedated and asleep.
So, in that sense, I don‘t see the two revolutions as mutually exclusive. They may even be quite complementary.
Good points. I'm hearin' you. Sorry, just getting the hang of this substack thing
Don't know how I found this post, but it hits the right notes. I think one of the things you're also touching on - more or less - is the lack of there being a cultural reason among men to write, create, make art, etc. especially one where we're it's a positive community where we lift each other up.
I read somewhere - I forget which author might have been Didion - where friends of her dad would just drop by and share what they wrote on a whatever basis, and they would be loud, rambunctious critics of each other's writings but in a positive and stimulating way. A community where that's happening is epic, I agree with you we need more of that. I think AI and technological advancement has to break us in a way (I hope not, but that's the trajectory), to get back to what's essential. It reminds me of the line from Fight Club that's always in my head:
"I see all this potential and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables, slaves with white collars, advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of the history man, no purpose or place, we have no Great war, no Great depression, our great war is a spiritual war, our great depression is our lives, we've been all raised by television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars, but we won't..."
Beautifully written Ian. I have read it a few times and will continue to read it until it speaks to me on a deeper unconscious level.
Lol! The only thing you need to reread is the Rumi poem! Infinite wisdom in there.
I don't think it's fair to say that cormac didn't change and that we changed when the passenger was the only book set in a non historic landscape and used less germanic prose. It was definitely a change for our boy cormac.
No Country For Old Men was set in the exact same year as The Passenger. He also had drafts of The Passenger done in 1980 when he was woring on Suttree and Blood Meridian. It didn't change too much over the next four decades. So he was writing it during his peak. Thanks for the support though brotha!
Oh wow I didn't know that they were in the same year. It's a cool thought to think both stories were happening at the same time in different locations. Love the content but I do think someone changed with the passenger, it has a differentness that's hard to put a finger on.
I feel like it’s the responsibility of those with a platform to magnify voices/works worth the spotlight. I’m glad Ian is talking about magnifying voices/literary works. It’s unfortunately the case that it takes someone with a public voice to direct others to high quality work they wouldn’t otherwise find on their own. Sometimes people need to be told what to like (including me). That’s not always bad. I try to seek out new, high quality fiction but am having mixed results.
A contemporary author I fall in and out of fascination with is Chuck Palahniuk. Was all in on the guy up until I bought a hardcover copy of Snuff. That one made me feel used. I went to one of his most recent book tour stops and loved how he talked about his craft and fielded questions in a generous way. The folks in attendance were a random sampling of weirdos, outcasts, and misfits—in the best way. I feel Chuck could’ve flipped normal society upside down, but I think he and his fans tried. It just wasn’t enough to stem the societal tide of conformity and banality.
Great example! I never felt the transformational potential in his works. There were small changes I noted and still carry with me from Haunted, Fight Club, and some of his writing advice, but he never seemed to step into a leadership role. But, maybe that's why writing is doomed. Most authors are introverts!
I completely agree with your point on the modern reader. IMO, the root of the literary problem lies not in a lack of celebrity status for certain authors whose works contain literary merit, but in the character of the individuals who read these works. The majority of literary readers today (especially McCarthy fans) are not concerned with achieving this "gnosis" that you hint at. They read because they associate reading/knowledge with intelligence and show a complete neglect for any of the actual individual and societal benefits that are at the core of literature.
They indulge themselves in Pynchon, Dostoevsky, Nietzche, and Wallace without ever taking the time to read a six line Emily Dickinson poem, because they know that reading a Dickinson poem (or any poem for that matter) demands uncomfortable introspection that directly contradicts the nihilistic, atheistic, and moral-relativistic predisposition to reality that they have already decided is the "right" one to live by (thanks STEM).
The unfortunate reality is that a lot of the greatest authors' works (who we absolutely should be championing) can be read in light of this disposition, thereby diverting the act of reading away from its purpose as a means of challenging the way we think about reality, and instead using it to reinforce a consciousness that is responsible for the killing of the very artistic material that it consumes, "as if increase of appetite grew by what it fed on."
So while the Orwellian nature of the problem of literacy is certainly concerning, I am much more frightened by its Huxleyan implications. Becoming a more intelligent person does not equate with becoming a better person, and, right now, I would much rather befriend someone who does not read at all than one who reads literature on the sole basis that it makes them smarter.
So, yes, I agree with you that we need to champion the works of great authors like McCarthy, but I would also like to suggest that if everyone in the world had read Blood Meridian, but only used it as a means to reinforce their flawed worldviews, then maybe we'd be better off in a world where we all anxiously awaited the next Sarah J. Mass release instead.
Just a very quick comment: In praise of Toni Morrison and Margaret Atwood who you referenced off the top. Certainly not dead (well, not one anyway) male or white (not one anyway). Amazing writers who deserve to be read by everyone along with DFW, McCarthy, Pancho and others. As a Canadian, I will put in my own vote for the wonderful Alice Munro, just recently passed, and whose short stories are sublime. And Leonard Cohen too.
We are oppressed with division of the intention of books to communicate. It takes active fucking resistance to actually read a great book instead of a shitty book, or scrolling your phone, or watching people sexualize while one self pleasures or fall into the swiss cheese playground of modern dopamine traps.
The media machine is a beast that eats men - chomp chomp. The beast says that the man who chops wood and carries water must bear allyship to his own erasure. Yes... this. But wait...shhhh don't...don't.
The court of public appeal is on your phone and it's scary to slip into the spiral of silence or to be neck to spear of the hand of this digital ghost megazord of the online public.
The glowing intention to create great books has been reduced in the hot pan of adderall and tiktok to short form 45 seconds look at mes. I have seen brilliant minds make me cry tears of truth in an instagram reel and it was worth it. The books are still good, but we are flooded with something that dilutes everything to seem uninteresting and unimportant by comparison of the never stopping flood of memes.
Still I put in the work to read because I want to know why these are classics. Switch to a dumbphone sometimes. The book sticks better.
I resist the oppression of my infinite scroll by reading a book that starts and ends.
And I thank you for your kinship on that walk.
Praise is grief before death. Don't be late-now.
Thank you for what you do.
Some thoughts, Girardian and otherwise, on the matter, some of them quite contrary to each other:
1) Someone said, „We used to have heroes, who were known for their great deeds. Today, we have celebrities who are mostly known for being known.“ A lot of the „content“ (and I hate that word) that gains massive traction today (see Mr. Beast) achieves that attention not due to the inherent qualities of that content, but due to other qualities attached to the product, which may not be the particular piece of content itself, but the qualities ascribed to the overall product sold. This boils down, quite frequently, to the „aura“ ascribed to the producer, the celebrity, the star. He‘s the model of desire.
A lot of that seems mimetic in nature: Someone gains traction, and that traction amongst others creates its own momentum. The crowd creates its own truth, its own desire, mediating it to others and forgetting that that desire did not originate with it in the first place. In this respect, we‘d need to create traction and momentum for the „product“ or „content“ we‘re trying to „sell“. Our models can serve as the mediators and catalysts to jump-start traction.
In a word, reading and writing, intellectual activity itself would need to become „sexy“ or „marketable“ to more than an intellectual niche. The qualities we see as inherently admirable (beauty of prose, depth of thought, advancement of spiritual or intellectual enlightenment, advancement of empathy, creativity etc.) would have to be rendered as such to so many more. Reach a critical mass and you achieve a kind of mimetic snowballing that can run itself for quite a while.
I suspect that‘s something you‘re inherently trying to achieve here. You probably already serve as a model to many of your followers, to an extent.
2. A genuine friendly smile will lift the days of others. Positivity itself can be mimetically infectuous. Your enthusiasm serves as exhibit A.
Vice versa, we need to consciously steer away from negativity, which is what our online culture seems mostly geared towards. This is very hard, because we‘re addicted to seeing people torn down. Often, we particularly enjoy the „fall from grace“ of exactly the celebrities we celebrated in the first place, taking glee from their misfortune, just as we admired and envied their ascent.
This does not mean steering away from constructive criticism though. Yet we should be careful to constantly celebrate the qualities of each piece of art that deserve celebration, whatever other flaws it may also exhibit.
Similarly, let us not ask of our models that they are perfect human beings (we do anyway) who have no moral flaws or issues.
3. An issue in itself is the celebrity-character which tends to obscure the art itself. The very cult of personality that may bring the art to our attention via the vehicle of the artist may be an obstacle in the way of appreciating the art itself for its qualities.
Thus, the current critical climate elevates what goes for artists these days not due to the inherent qualities of their work (which frequently range from negligible or unremarkable to non-existent, to outright harmful), but due to their identity as a person of „Group xyz“. Similarly, we tear down the greats of old for their identities more so than their work: Hemingway, Faulkner, Melville, McCarthy, DFW, and so many others —- they can‘t be appreciated in their works because they were „white“, „male“, Anglo-, Christian, in some way toxic, mistreated their spouses, or once kicked a puppy. We, as readers, make ourselves guilty by association. (Did you hear that Hitler loved Wagner?!)
Great works, coming from the wrong persons (= person with the wrong group identity card), cannot allowed to be deeper, more thoughtful, beautiful, etc. than that of the latest champion of whatever marginalized group is the flavour-du-jour. Even Shakespeare, to some, can only be appreciated under the premise he really was a woman. This is very petty and really says more about the readers so afflicted than the writers so judged.
The „school of resentment“ as Harold Bloom called it, in this way are much like Blood Meridian‘s natives, cowering in awe and fear and resentment of the Anasazi and their ‚eternal‘ homes of rock, the „dead fathers.“
4. Query: Would the way to circumvent this be moving radically away from biography, personality-worship etc., towards a second death of the author? After all, the work itself is what should decide whose names live on throughout the ages.
However, robbing ourselves off the author also robs us off the most powerful mimetic drive, the „celebrity-catalyst“. It is thus a double-edged sword that can cut either way.
Maybe, there‘s a middle way, which we could call the „Banksy-Solution“: Cultivate a persona that exists solely in your art, and make the mystery part of your branding. Choose withdrawal from the spoils and distractions of personal fame. Go the Banksy, McCarthy, Salinger, Pynchon, Tool - route.
Yet, as artists, we‘re often too ego-driven for this pathway that sacrifices our personal validation. Also literature is a much less immediately appealing medium than visual- and performative arts.
This needs more exploration.
5. A companion to (2) and the power of positivity: As McCarthy ones said, part of why we value the old Greek tragedies so much is that there are precious few of them left to us. Conversely, the sheer quantity of pseudo-literary garbage produced today drowns out a lot of what is good.
A partial key to „weeding out the trash“ may be found in paying no attention whatsoever to bad art and the personalities behind them rather than giving them the attention (and thus validation) of our scorn and mockery: The haters of Stephenie Meyer, Colleen Hoover and E.L. James did their fair share to contribute to their abominable success.
Hence, we should treat bad art and bad artists in the same way we should treat serial murderers or the most vile of criminals: Rather than elevating them by a whole circus of media attention, lending them the aura of „someone people talk about“ (and that is hence admired and thus, a model for imitation!), we should let them slide into obscurity, anonymity before it becomes an issue. In short, to prevent the spread of bad art as an individual, ignore rather than malign.
Example: Until recently, I was blissfully unaware of the existence of Rupi Kaur. There have been a few solid days though, after being exposed to her, when I had to check out her „content“ (apt descriptor here), what others were saying etc. While probably not by much, I added to the number of search results, video views etc. that had to do with her. So, in some small way, I probably bolstered interest in her. Bad move on my part.
6. So, what else to do? Re-Canonize and treat with reverence those works of art that deserve it. Raise its qualities to the state of the model. Reward and promote those qualities you‘d like to see more of, that which can make us better (smarter, more humble, more empathetic, loving etc.) human beings.
Make it clear that a canon is a canon for good reason(s) (which may be questioned and expanded). Sociological, ideological and identity-related reasons may suffice for special interest canons, of which the very best may be good enough for „THE CANON“, which should unite a culture as a whole is solely the quality of merit.
How to do so? I‘m not sure, but as a Girardian degenerate, I suspect good models play a part (And I‘m not talking about super models posing with book-props, though that could help in its own way when you give them the right books).
7. We need to celebrate the qualities of great literature as such, that which makes „reading“ and „writing“ special in our time. Many of my students see no inherent value in reading for the sake of reading. It‘s a purely practical thing to them.: I can read a sign, an instruction, a recipe, maybe a short news article. What gets them is entertainment — and on that front, the easy entertainment of TikTok, Youtube, Movies, Games has an infinite advantage over the slow and arduous art of reading.
Pico della Mirandola will be turning in his grave (Look, I’m sorry!) but: What we may need to stress — and for this, models, scientific insight into reading and neurology, statistics etc. may be of use — are at least in part practical (e.g. performance related) benefits of reading literature, the greats. Gather arguments that are irrefutable. Then hammer it in, again, and again, and again what reading will do for you, or most people. How they get successful. Don’t tell them it will make them more aware, critical, smarter, more empathetic human beings. Tell them that so-and-so-many people (preferably tolerable celebrity xy) got rich / famous / super-admirable because they read 50 books a year.
Promise success and/or delight, then lead them into the trap of higher consciousness. Such benefits that can be used to manipulate the culture to its own greater good, yet unbeknownst to it, is something we should discuss.
8. Reading and Writing have to become desirable as a cultural practice. However, this means overcoming a rampant anti-intellectualism in America, and the West as such (see Richard Hofstadter). Imagine if our youth were as keen on reading and writing as they are on becoming the next Lionel Messi, Ronaldo, Tom Brady or Michael Jordan. Can we get them there? The way is through good models to be emulated, imitated. Maybe Mishima was onto something, minus toxic behavior and delusion…
Again though, double-edged sword. Maybe go the Banksy-route instead. (S_)He‘s popular.
9. All of this is part of the process and really inseparable from a need to educate and raise better readers. By better, we mean readers that have the most basic tools to understanding an easy-to-medium-difficulty text. That are able to focus. That constantly push and expand their attention span. That foster readerly endurance. That engage actively with a given text. That can derive „difficult pleasures“ from its challenges, as Harold Bloom may have put it. That allow themselves to be possessed by a text, and then share its gifts with others.
Wish I could have gotten a tenth point, but can‘t think of one right now.
"Fuck Hemingway and David Foster Wallace because they didn’t do enough,"
I was with you, but then I wasn't.
I agree these guys cast a certain romantic figure during their eras and the way they waded into deeper themes feels lacking in the modern literary sphere, but... do you think it's on them to change the world? That sounds like activism, not art. These writers were greats. They turned up at the desk every day to put out great work. Not to use it as a trojan horse for some message. Quality was the only message. From my perspective, it's on the reader to recognize that and do what you can to climb up on their shoulders.
By the way, I get the sense you're on your way there, your writing has a distinct voice, you're invoking themes that resonate. That's the direction to point the compass in in my opinion. (and yes, I see how there's a touch of hypocrisy in this paragraph, after what I said in the first ha. We're all guilty of it).
I may be speaking out of turn but maybe Ian is saying those writers didn’t do enough because a new literary renaissance could go places they didn’t. I think it’s an exaggerated contrast or device to inflate us, not to deflate them. I don’t think he means, literally fuck Wallace and Hemingway. His videos illustrate that he has a high degree of respect for those authors. I understand and sympathize with your points about quality writing. My writing has an underlying message but it shouldn’t read like evangelism. We get enough of that from just about every other source. The reader should be able take or leave the message and still appreciate the story. Ian, in many of his videos makes assertions I don’t agree with but I don’t let it sour his message of personal growth and forming a supportive community.
I pity you all for your worship of the iterations of other tortured souls imagination, (Fiction is a soft target, exposed to the vicissitudes of the profane mind & unqualified opinions of demented intellectual narcissists.
Haven’t we had enough of this horror fantasy writing & postulations of “the formula for success in mega copies sold”. What praise do you offer if it not is praise that you seek?
you cannot extract a ‘quid pro quo’ with God, with Creativity or with Humility & then claim “respectability”
Illustrating “non - fiction” as fiction, as entertainment, as art & expression is where the master exceeds the precocious delusions of the desperate dreamer, each on a quest for validation.
This former 15 yr old girl who xyz'ed endorses this message let's fkn gooooooo.