The most offensive aspect of consciously 'woke'/'anti-woke' art is how boring it is. All of human experience gets compressed into one of two categories. Satire is killed, because it becomes a positive recitation of your team's beliefs, and a negative recitation of the other team's. Fortunately, interesting work is always being done, it just needs to be found.
This gives me hope. I'm entirely exhausted from playing moral teacher in my fiction and essays--something I never wanted to do. I think I was very afraid of readers placing me on the wrong side of an issue, thus "cancelling" me, and so I took this role on. It's only made my writing and voice worse. I appreciate this post very much. Btw, "Incel" is a fantastic novel title. I look forward to reading.
Nuance is super key. In our totally polarized politics there is 0 nuance. People say this all the time like its common fact but then keep being hyper categorically political with no nuance.
There was a powerful statement my mentor Don, and also my gf have both told me several times; fiction is not down-stream from politics but from faith. That is to say literature is a branch of philosophy sure but it should be relaxed, good and in some ways written with kindness towards your readers in mind.
Your readers should be treated in a kindly manner, not unlike a professor with his students just presenting the info without trying to determine their minds for them.
In Crown of Blood I present the King who wants to raise taxes too high as a villain, but then on the same token I've a King in a more recent work I'm working on, who seeks to raise some small ones (after he's foregone all taxes for a year) so that he might defend his kingdom. I don't like taxation, but in this situation the motivation of the two characters are different; one is greedy the other is kindly. Is it wrong of the second one? I don't know. Maybe? I want my readers to decide.
That said, in my serial fiction hereon Substack I just want to write what I love; Mythic fiction that is modelled after that which Howard & Tolkien published (in English and French). My own French and Christian morals slip in of course, as such things always do, but it mostly involves the idea of how the world is bleak place, good people should help each other and eucatastrophes are great for people. Also that humility, honour and pity are good things. Are all my characters like that? Nope, that'd be boring.
I'm not sure, but I think I've been lumped into the 'based' category, as I've anti-woke friends, I don't have a fondness for woke but I'm not really thinking in those terms at this times. I'm thinking these days about culture, loved ones and just love of fiction going back to Homer and Gilgamesh. I only say "I think" here because I've been told I'm one or the other and haven't really put much thought into it in some months.
There's always a new wave coming in. My genre is science fiction, and "The New Wave" describes SF from the late 60s and early 70s by authors like J.G. Ballard, Harlan Ellison, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Philip K. Dick. Not very new anymore.
I like your androgenic fiction label better as it gives some indication of what it's referencing. In 30 years, some 27 year-old who hasn't been conceived yet is going to proclaim that his peer group represents the new wave in literature, and you'll roll your eyes and think, "Goofy kid. The New Wave was Dan Baltic, Andrew Boryga, Mattp969, and Adem Luz Rienspect."
Of course political agitprop will lack depth and nuance. OTH if the world is out of balance towards the feminine there is nothing wrong with being a "based" writer. Hemingway, Norman Mailer, and Bukowski were based IMO, while also writing great literature and poetry that didn't fall into easy pigeonholes other than IMO presenting a very male perspective on the world, which is something we need right now.
Interesting essay. I don't really follow the ebbs and flows of publishing and woke/anti-woke discourse enough to be able to comment on the books and categorization you provide here (although I can't completely avoid it, either), but your ideas did bring up a couple thoughts that I think are relevant to the discussion.
Basically, someone reads an older novel, thinks it's "based" or "woke" or whatever, and then rewrites a new version from a different character's viewpoint to reverse the political orientation of the book. This is what happens in the bad cases, at least. The essay gives examples of this being done badly (usually ideologically motivated) and well (usually aesthetically motivated).
The main example is "Disgrace" by J.M. Coetzee. Not sure if you've read it (I highly recommend it), but it's a fascinating case study because it can be interpreted in so many ways (similar to how you describe Houellebecq). It deals with post-apartheid South Africa, sexual power relations, race, alienation...It has been misinterpreted by people on the right as a sort of apologia for wokeness but also misinterpreted by people on the left due to its depiction of sexual violence and racism. I feel crazy just writing that sentence--it's literature! it's not an instruction manual!--but here we are. Anyway, the book was rewritten from the main character's daughter's point of view by someone who decided to take the complexity of the book and flatten it into something else entirely, but I'll leave that to the essay I've linked, which explains it far better than I can.
>It has been misinterpreted by people on the right as a sort of apologia for wokeness but also misinterpreted by people on the left due to its depiction of sexual violence and racism. I feel crazy just writing that sentence--it's literature! it's not an instruction manual!--but here we are.
I think if you're getting contradictory interpretations, that's the mark of a morally complex work and suggests successful artistic execution.
Best part about Substack is reading shit that feels like it should be taught in college - like this. About to tune into the Book Club From Hell pod. Appreciate the shout out!
This false dichotomy/straw man set up seems only to be noticed by the substack folks worried men aren’t getting enough fictional focus.
Write a book. Make it about a character or a plot or just a static setting. But wasting all this energy pretending you’ve got a new critical perspective is not going to help.
Or maybe offer some analysis that supports this fantasy dichotomy?
Good piece. I guess you can broadly count me as “right-wing” or “anti-woke”, and while I have a worldview (like most people do) I never seek to write cheap propaganda. I find that focusing on broader issues of morality — which is inseparable from religion — keeps politics out of the picture.
I also think that the woke/anti-woke divide came about due to necessity. The woke side started purging everyone and everything even a little to the right of them in all cultural spaces, and small, organized groups always defeat large, disorganized majorities, so those who were purged formed organized groups of their own to protect themselves.
When norms of free expression were upheld across the board, this siloing was not necessary, as people could borrow ideas from each other without much trouble. But now that associating with the wrong group can lead to lost deals, purges from other groups, and even attempts to get someone fired from a day job, you have to stick to your tribe just to stay safe.
It sucks, and I would rather this not be the case, but that’s the environment we’re in right now.
While I don’t think movies and television have been totalized by this dichotomy, a great example of this “New Wave” in that medium is recent series The Curse. It is about woke politics, but not pro or anti, more about the way in which these politics can drive upper class white people insane as they try to “do the right thing,” despite doing the right thing being at odds with their class interests. It’s remarkable they can tell that story without taking a moral stance.
One of the great advantages of being outside the Anglosphere is that you can safely ignore the woke-antiwoke monolith because it's above all an American obsession, though of course Brits in their poodlish way have followed the big dog down that sterile path.
Where I live real politics based on material class interests prevail, so in politics the struggle is the traditional socialist vs conservative-neoliberal power bases.
In arts/culture it tends to be traditionalist vs postmodern or avant-garde. Diversity is of course a thing, but if you have an egalitarian socialist cultural base, it rather unproblematically slots into place. A socialist space doesn't need a bunch of identity-based subspaces as all are welcome regardless of racial or sexual identity.
So in defiance of the US concept, it seems here that culture is downstream of (material/class) politics and not viceversa.
Bien dit! Whereabouts are you? I'm in the Francosphere and we rarely if ever deal with it in day to day life, and are seemingly forgetting woke and focusing ever more on bigger movie productions that are good (Comte) and I'm joining in on a 'New Wave' of French writers just wanting to lovingly put together new works and such.
Hi sorry I didn't respond before I didn't see your comment. I live in Barcelona which has always been at the forefront of libertarian socialist - anarcho-syndicalist practice. Good luck with your efforts to create an engagé new literature, unfortunately I don't read French so well 😢
C’est correcte, I live in a region in Canada which is incredibly socialist and anti-French so I’m looking to move. I also write a ton of English fantasy lit if you prefer that.
The most offensive aspect of consciously 'woke'/'anti-woke' art is how boring it is. All of human experience gets compressed into one of two categories. Satire is killed, because it becomes a positive recitation of your team's beliefs, and a negative recitation of the other team's. Fortunately, interesting work is always being done, it just needs to be found.
>Fortunately, interesting work is always being done, it just needs to be found.
Amen, brother!
This gives me hope. I'm entirely exhausted from playing moral teacher in my fiction and essays--something I never wanted to do. I think I was very afraid of readers placing me on the wrong side of an issue, thus "cancelling" me, and so I took this role on. It's only made my writing and voice worse. I appreciate this post very much. Btw, "Incel" is a fantastic novel title. I look forward to reading.
Nuance is super key. In our totally polarized politics there is 0 nuance. People say this all the time like its common fact but then keep being hyper categorically political with no nuance.
There was a powerful statement my mentor Don, and also my gf have both told me several times; fiction is not down-stream from politics but from faith. That is to say literature is a branch of philosophy sure but it should be relaxed, good and in some ways written with kindness towards your readers in mind.
Your readers should be treated in a kindly manner, not unlike a professor with his students just presenting the info without trying to determine their minds for them.
In Crown of Blood I present the King who wants to raise taxes too high as a villain, but then on the same token I've a King in a more recent work I'm working on, who seeks to raise some small ones (after he's foregone all taxes for a year) so that he might defend his kingdom. I don't like taxation, but in this situation the motivation of the two characters are different; one is greedy the other is kindly. Is it wrong of the second one? I don't know. Maybe? I want my readers to decide.
That said, in my serial fiction hereon Substack I just want to write what I love; Mythic fiction that is modelled after that which Howard & Tolkien published (in English and French). My own French and Christian morals slip in of course, as such things always do, but it mostly involves the idea of how the world is bleak place, good people should help each other and eucatastrophes are great for people. Also that humility, honour and pity are good things. Are all my characters like that? Nope, that'd be boring.
I'm not sure, but I think I've been lumped into the 'based' category, as I've anti-woke friends, I don't have a fondness for woke but I'm not really thinking in those terms at this times. I'm thinking these days about culture, loved ones and just love of fiction going back to Homer and Gilgamesh. I only say "I think" here because I've been told I'm one or the other and haven't really put much thought into it in some months.
There's always a new wave coming in. My genre is science fiction, and "The New Wave" describes SF from the late 60s and early 70s by authors like J.G. Ballard, Harlan Ellison, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Philip K. Dick. Not very new anymore.
I like your androgenic fiction label better as it gives some indication of what it's referencing. In 30 years, some 27 year-old who hasn't been conceived yet is going to proclaim that his peer group represents the new wave in literature, and you'll roll your eyes and think, "Goofy kid. The New Wave was Dan Baltic, Andrew Boryga, Mattp969, and Adem Luz Rienspect."
ha!
Of course political agitprop will lack depth and nuance. OTH if the world is out of balance towards the feminine there is nothing wrong with being a "based" writer. Hemingway, Norman Mailer, and Bukowski were based IMO, while also writing great literature and poetry that didn't fall into easy pigeonholes other than IMO presenting a very male perspective on the world, which is something we need right now.
The 'reason I do this is threefold' section is very convincing! Great essay. Really enjoyed INCEL, Arx.
Thank you! Amazon + Goodreads reviews help a lot (in case you haven't already!).
Cheers
Interesting essay. I don't really follow the ebbs and flows of publishing and woke/anti-woke discourse enough to be able to comment on the books and categorization you provide here (although I can't completely avoid it, either), but your ideas did bring up a couple thoughts that I think are relevant to the discussion.
The first is this essay published in New Left Review from early this year about older novels that have been rewritten by new authors from different points of view. https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/feminist-correctives
Basically, someone reads an older novel, thinks it's "based" or "woke" or whatever, and then rewrites a new version from a different character's viewpoint to reverse the political orientation of the book. This is what happens in the bad cases, at least. The essay gives examples of this being done badly (usually ideologically motivated) and well (usually aesthetically motivated).
The main example is "Disgrace" by J.M. Coetzee. Not sure if you've read it (I highly recommend it), but it's a fascinating case study because it can be interpreted in so many ways (similar to how you describe Houellebecq). It deals with post-apartheid South Africa, sexual power relations, race, alienation...It has been misinterpreted by people on the right as a sort of apologia for wokeness but also misinterpreted by people on the left due to its depiction of sexual violence and racism. I feel crazy just writing that sentence--it's literature! it's not an instruction manual!--but here we are. Anyway, the book was rewritten from the main character's daughter's point of view by someone who decided to take the complexity of the book and flatten it into something else entirely, but I'll leave that to the essay I've linked, which explains it far better than I can.
>It has been misinterpreted by people on the right as a sort of apologia for wokeness but also misinterpreted by people on the left due to its depiction of sexual violence and racism. I feel crazy just writing that sentence--it's literature! it's not an instruction manual!--but here we are.
I think if you're getting contradictory interpretations, that's the mark of a morally complex work and suggests successful artistic execution.
Great comment!
Best part about Substack is reading shit that feels like it should be taught in college - like this. About to tune into the Book Club From Hell pod. Appreciate the shout out!
This false dichotomy/straw man set up seems only to be noticed by the substack folks worried men aren’t getting enough fictional focus.
Write a book. Make it about a character or a plot or just a static setting. But wasting all this energy pretending you’ve got a new critical perspective is not going to help.
Or maybe offer some analysis that supports this fantasy dichotomy?
Good piece. I guess you can broadly count me as “right-wing” or “anti-woke”, and while I have a worldview (like most people do) I never seek to write cheap propaganda. I find that focusing on broader issues of morality — which is inseparable from religion — keeps politics out of the picture.
I also think that the woke/anti-woke divide came about due to necessity. The woke side started purging everyone and everything even a little to the right of them in all cultural spaces, and small, organized groups always defeat large, disorganized majorities, so those who were purged formed organized groups of their own to protect themselves.
When norms of free expression were upheld across the board, this siloing was not necessary, as people could borrow ideas from each other without much trouble. But now that associating with the wrong group can lead to lost deals, purges from other groups, and even attempts to get someone fired from a day job, you have to stick to your tribe just to stay safe.
It sucks, and I would rather this not be the case, but that’s the environment we’re in right now.
While I don’t think movies and television have been totalized by this dichotomy, a great example of this “New Wave” in that medium is recent series The Curse. It is about woke politics, but not pro or anti, more about the way in which these politics can drive upper class white people insane as they try to “do the right thing,” despite doing the right thing being at odds with their class interests. It’s remarkable they can tell that story without taking a moral stance.
One of the great advantages of being outside the Anglosphere is that you can safely ignore the woke-antiwoke monolith because it's above all an American obsession, though of course Brits in their poodlish way have followed the big dog down that sterile path.
Where I live real politics based on material class interests prevail, so in politics the struggle is the traditional socialist vs conservative-neoliberal power bases.
In arts/culture it tends to be traditionalist vs postmodern or avant-garde. Diversity is of course a thing, but if you have an egalitarian socialist cultural base, it rather unproblematically slots into place. A socialist space doesn't need a bunch of identity-based subspaces as all are welcome regardless of racial or sexual identity.
So in defiance of the US concept, it seems here that culture is downstream of (material/class) politics and not viceversa.
Bien dit! Whereabouts are you? I'm in the Francosphere and we rarely if ever deal with it in day to day life, and are seemingly forgetting woke and focusing ever more on bigger movie productions that are good (Comte) and I'm joining in on a 'New Wave' of French writers just wanting to lovingly put together new works and such.
Hi sorry I didn't respond before I didn't see your comment. I live in Barcelona which has always been at the forefront of libertarian socialist - anarcho-syndicalist practice. Good luck with your efforts to create an engagé new literature, unfortunately I don't read French so well 😢
C’est correcte, I live in a region in Canada which is incredibly socialist and anti-French so I’m looking to move. I also write a ton of English fantasy lit if you prefer that.
The laundry machine symbolizes her vagina, which is why her legs are spread.
I think it's a fun moniker - that certainly helps with hyperstition.