The cognitive dissonance of unraveling brutalist empire as moral authority is very a strong point, and you make it well. The narrative of our lives is completely off. So much of woke-anti-woke nonsense seemed to me to be a guilty conscience of empire vs a “realist” embrace.
I’ve read a lot on here about the state of fiction and the rise/fall of auto fiction. You mentioned something about Vuong not going far enough. I think this is part of all of it. It has to go farther than gesture. Despite our so called hyper individualism and solipsism, I feel that our own subjectivity is as poorly understood as ever. More than just awakening to the truth of empire, we have to fight off an external, top down technologically imposed schizophrenia. Our lives appear mundane, but they’ve actually become impossible, untethered from reality, dreams within dreams.
Sorry for the long comment. Your article tied some threads together for me.
It's an old journalism saying. (I'm a retired reporter.)
It means that if you have a story, tell it in a straightforward way. If it's a good enough story, it will almost write itself.
If you don't have a story, try to hide that deficiency behind a smokescreen of fancy writing. That's the Ocean Vuong way. And the way of many other "writers."
sorry to digress but you can't receive DMs so i have to send you messages in comments: i nominated you for the sunshine blogger award. please check out my latest post for more info when you get a chance. no rush
Interesting post as always. I agree somewhat in the analysis but would go further—the best novels and the best art have always shown the falsity of society and culture and then interrogated that crack between the real and the appearances that claim to be real. Nothing new there. In terms of solutions, I don’t think it’s just being brave enough to speak the truth, because most people, myself included, don’t know the truth of our existence. So I don’t necessarily think we have some bad novels because people are lying or being disingenuous—instead, they are just people making sense of the world the best they can, but they’re mediocre, as most artists are. I just read a couple short stories from a lauded collection, and this one even had a blurb from a writer I respect, but the stories were cliched and stereotypical. The thing is, I don’t think this writer could have done any better.
One quibble -- Ayn Rand's novels are good stories. That's why they worked as propaganda. They are melodramas, and they are page-turners. Don't underestimate old Ayn. She is a massive bestseller for a reason. I loved Atlas Shrugged as an adolescent, and I have never fully lost my crush on Dagny Taggart.
Having grown up among artists who admired and centered avant-garde books in their thinking, I thought it was a given that one must let the ideologies of the day lie fallow so that surprising (orthogonal) work could rise up through you. It has felt weird and sad to see so many artists fall prey to the notion that they have been conscripted into some imaginary war. But brainwashing within a culture based on incredibly dumb binary thinking will do that to you.
Milch has a riff on Kierkegaard that goes something like this: "You must rest transparently in the spirit which gives you rise." Even though aesthetic intuition and moral conviction are interwoven, I've had the most artistic success by giving projects TIME. With ample time—sometimes months, sometimes years—I'm better able to silence my anxious, nearly-automatic moralizing and let the books be whatever they are. Time honors chaos, or the category-resistant nature of reality, or whatever we'd like to call it. But time also abrades away the daily (local) fluctuations of one's concerns and lets deeper ideas and beliefs structure the art being produced.
So yeah, to any artist reading this: if you feel like you're rushing the work in order to SAY SOMETHING, slow down and step away. At least for a little while.
“moral legitimating narratives of the global American empire” except I don’t think an empire needs this to exist. It needs power, citizenship, and a shared sense of values. I’m pro the American empire not because I believe it is morally superior but because no other empire of comparable power would accept me as an ally and citizen. There is literally no alternative. Study the last 200 years of world history, and you end up an anti-colonial leftie, study the past 1000 years and you’re left with a sense of gratitude that you’re on the side of the current most powerful empire, because you know anyone else with that amount of power would be 10x worse.
The cognitive dissonance of unraveling brutalist empire as moral authority is very a strong point, and you make it well. The narrative of our lives is completely off. So much of woke-anti-woke nonsense seemed to me to be a guilty conscience of empire vs a “realist” embrace.
I’ve read a lot on here about the state of fiction and the rise/fall of auto fiction. You mentioned something about Vuong not going far enough. I think this is part of all of it. It has to go farther than gesture. Despite our so called hyper individualism and solipsism, I feel that our own subjectivity is as poorly understood as ever. More than just awakening to the truth of empire, we have to fight off an external, top down technologically imposed schizophrenia. Our lives appear mundane, but they’ve actually become impossible, untethered from reality, dreams within dreams.
Sorry for the long comment. Your article tied some threads together for me.
Thank you
Great comment and thanks for your thoughts on the piece!
If you have a story, tell it.
If you don't, write it.
This is intriguing.. if you care to expand on it a little (I am stupid). x
It's an old journalism saying. (I'm a retired reporter.)
It means that if you have a story, tell it in a straightforward way. If it's a good enough story, it will almost write itself.
If you don't have a story, try to hide that deficiency behind a smokescreen of fancy writing. That's the Ocean Vuong way. And the way of many other "writers."
Thank you, I appreciate the explanation! I must stop saying I’m stupid in Substack comments though.. ha-ha.
Write books only if you are going to say in them the things you would never dare confide to anyone.
Emil Cioran
sorry to digress but you can't receive DMs so i have to send you messages in comments: i nominated you for the sunshine blogger award. please check out my latest post for more info when you get a chance. no rush
Well said...thanks for the Rolling Stone hyperlink...very informative...re comntemporary alt-lit scene
Really good.
Interesting post as always. I agree somewhat in the analysis but would go further—the best novels and the best art have always shown the falsity of society and culture and then interrogated that crack between the real and the appearances that claim to be real. Nothing new there. In terms of solutions, I don’t think it’s just being brave enough to speak the truth, because most people, myself included, don’t know the truth of our existence. So I don’t necessarily think we have some bad novels because people are lying or being disingenuous—instead, they are just people making sense of the world the best they can, but they’re mediocre, as most artists are. I just read a couple short stories from a lauded collection, and this one even had a blurb from a writer I respect, but the stories were cliched and stereotypical. The thing is, I don’t think this writer could have done any better.
Good post.
One quibble -- Ayn Rand's novels are good stories. That's why they worked as propaganda. They are melodramas, and they are page-turners. Don't underestimate old Ayn. She is a massive bestseller for a reason. I loved Atlas Shrugged as an adolescent, and I have never fully lost my crush on Dagny Taggart.
Fountainhead is a great book
Having grown up among artists who admired and centered avant-garde books in their thinking, I thought it was a given that one must let the ideologies of the day lie fallow so that surprising (orthogonal) work could rise up through you. It has felt weird and sad to see so many artists fall prey to the notion that they have been conscripted into some imaginary war. But brainwashing within a culture based on incredibly dumb binary thinking will do that to you.
Milch has a riff on Kierkegaard that goes something like this: "You must rest transparently in the spirit which gives you rise." Even though aesthetic intuition and moral conviction are interwoven, I've had the most artistic success by giving projects TIME. With ample time—sometimes months, sometimes years—I'm better able to silence my anxious, nearly-automatic moralizing and let the books be whatever they are. Time honors chaos, or the category-resistant nature of reality, or whatever we'd like to call it. But time also abrades away the daily (local) fluctuations of one's concerns and lets deeper ideas and beliefs structure the art being produced.
So yeah, to any artist reading this: if you feel like you're rushing the work in order to SAY SOMETHING, slow down and step away. At least for a little while.
Unfortunately there’s no such thing as a rhetorical vacuum.
The didacticism could also be a dance to persuade the publisher too.
“moral legitimating narratives of the global American empire” except I don’t think an empire needs this to exist. It needs power, citizenship, and a shared sense of values. I’m pro the American empire not because I believe it is morally superior but because no other empire of comparable power would accept me as an ally and citizen. There is literally no alternative. Study the last 200 years of world history, and you end up an anti-colonial leftie, study the past 1000 years and you’re left with a sense of gratitude that you’re on the side of the current most powerful empire, because you know anyone else with that amount of power would be 10x worse.
This is great
Counterpoint: mockery, when it’s done right, is insidiously persuasive.