Yes, the Blog is On
So this space dropped off my radar screen for about a month, in part because I had an addition to my "portfolio" at work, but also because I insist on writing finished pieces here, rather simply things off the top of my head. Actually, all I want is no grammar mistakes and no obvious misspellings, but even that takes time these days.
So for the time being, I'm writing (grammatically correct and correctly spellled) first drafts. Feel free to send comments and suggestions.
The Nihilism of Mainstream Literary Culture
I would talk about a certain New York Times reviewer and the reworking of the Book Review to indict mainstream literary culture of being
nihilist in specifically Nietzchean terms. [1] The culture has been heading this way, but it really is in the cul-de-sac. The previous editor didn't help either, and perhaps the only thing worse than making a journalist the editor is making a failed academic. I don't like the proposed choices, but then I would rehire John Leonard and ask him to find a managing editor who would eventually assume the reins (which is to say to John, this time you get all the freedom, but someone else takes care of the bullshit, cause that is a young person's job). This however is all so much literary bitchery. The real issue is that NYTBR and journals like it are not making inquiries about new writers. And I mean new writers, not just bright sparkling MFAed novelists. Perhaps better are voices unheard (so far). Why not Rebecca Brown on the front page? Why not Matthew Stadler reviewing the latest Norman Mailer alongside the latest Edmund White? Why not a clutch of Joanna Fuhrman's poetry in the middle? Why not Barry Watten on the latest dissection of the CP in relation to Gertrude Stein? The list goes on. I am sure everyone knows writer who should be in a real, comprehensive view of contemporary literary culture, one that buys into neither rubric of mainstream or alternative. Steven Erlanger is a great reporter and Pinch Sulzburger is a true caretaker of a newspaper, so maybe they will make a great. But it looks to me like the list is full of folks who think New York first and London second. And until they stop doing that, mainstream literary culture will remain nihilistic.
[1] Nietzche claimed that men would rather will nothing than not will at all. And he is write. Except that literary men seem to will money...which is nothing at all. People think that Nietzche is a fascist because comments about the blond beast. But one thing that Nietzsche said which continues to resonate and which would have been his magnum opus is that we need revalue the values. We need a new morality, which I agree with Walter Kaufman in that it doesn't necessarily need to be totally new, but I add, And Capitalism is not going to cut it.
