[Marxism] Literary radicals

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

NY Times Book Review, October 3, 2004
ESSAY
The Widening Web of Digital Lit
By DAVID ORR

The World Wide Web is a glorious collection of the best that has been 
thought and said, especially if it involves Free Mortgage Advice 4 U! or 
sexual positions that approach the purely theoretical. In addition, 
however, the Web is home to hundreds of sites that talk about, pick on, 
poke at and generally mull over books, writers and writing. It would be 
impossible to list, much less describe, all of these destinations, but 
the following guide should provide you with an introduction to literary 
life on the Web; where you go from here is your own business. The sites 
of print publications (like The New York Times Book Review) have been 
excluded to allow more space for pure creatures of the Internet.

(clip)

The Underground Literary Alliance (www.literaryrevolution.com/): Karl 
Marx once said, ''Of all the great inequities of capitalism, perhaps 
none is so heartbreaking as the slush pile at Random House.'' 
Fortunately, the Underground Literary Alliance is here to change all 
that. Led by an impresario who goes by the name King Wenclas (like the 
Christmas song, only burlier), the rough-and-tumble populists of the 
U.L.A. are determined to shatter the snotty New York publishing scene 
and bring good ol' two-fisted, hard-working, not-terribly-well-written 
fiction back to the masses. Accordingly, they have caused ruckuses at 
readings, fired out screeds with titles like ''The Art Revolution vs. 
Corporate Art'' and gotten into shoving matches with the writer Thomas 
Beller (the ''moody giant,'' in Wenclas's poetic description of the 
fracas). Do you hear the people sing? Singing the song of angry men?

full: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/03/books/review/03ORRL.html

===

From: www.literaryrevolution.com/

The ULA Monday Report!

This week's report by Karl “King” Wenclas, ULA PR Man

An Open Letter to the New Yorker

While it's heartening to see that the upcoming New Yorker Festival for 
the gentry (on October 2 at the French Institute Alliance) includes an 
interesting topic-- "Do world events have a place in fiction?"-- the 
topic illustrates much that's wrong with the New Yorker and with the 
establishment lit world.

First, the question is idiotic. It can be answered in a 
second-and-a-half: "War and Peace." End of discussion. All the Manhattan 
and Hamptons rich people who hang around trendy authors as a substitute 
for reading can save their inherited fifteen dollars and skip the event.

Second, on the panel of the second-and-a-half discussion is depthless 
trendy writer Dave Eggers. This is curious.

In January of 2003, with an overseas war looming-- war talk everywhere-- 
the Underground Literary Alliance famously crashed a McSweeney's event 
at Housing Works (The Dave wasn't there, unfortunately). Spearheaded by 
ULA Exec Director Michael Jackman, we asked that the readers and the 
crowd discuss current events-- the pros and cons of the U.S. invading 
Iraq; an event already palpable, seeming, to us, to overhang the city 
and the venue like a huge, foreboding cloud impossible to pretend wasn't 
there. The audience consisted of the nation's young intelligentsia; 
exactly the people, as writers and readers, who should be engaged with 
important issues-- engaged with the world!

To enter into any such discussion, to entertain even the notion of it, 
the organizers and McSweeney's readers there that evening resolutely 
refused. Those portions of the audience who heard us were of the same 
mindset: "World events"-- and whether fiction should address them (even 
when those world events would soon affect all of us) had no place in 
their hip affair. Among those who firmly disagreed with us was New 
Yorker staffer Ben Greenman, who'd just read a story-- not about world 
events, or America, or society, or people, but about a tree.

No discussion; no discomforting questions. Instead, the ULA and world 
events were asked to leave the room.

Now we look at the schedule of this fall's safely polite New Yorker 
festival intended for affluent and comfortably smug lovers of approved 
literature and find that-- amazingly enough-- planned for one of the 
days is a discussion about "Literature and Politics: Do world events 
have a place in fiction?"

What's going on? Does the smug rag take its cues from John Kerry, who 
voted for the war but now is more-or-less against it? Has Dave Eggers 
tested which way the wind is blowing, and decided it's time to follow 
the establishment liberal crowd? Doesn't the entire matter demonstrate 
that these people are puppets, dilettantes, and trend followers?

Is it the case that once the election is over, "world events" will no 
longer be fashionable, and the New Yorker and the Eggers crowd will 
return to fiction about trees, and to the genteel literary narcissism 
with which these people are most familiar?

(One could ask when writers outside their exclusive club, not from the 
upper classes, not properly vetted by writing programs to be 
unpolemical, not controlled by the conglomerates, will be included in a 
discussion of "Literature and Politics." We're left with an out-of-touch 
debate among this society's cultural aristocrats.)

To address these other questions; to allow in unvetted writers; would 
create a more representative debate, which would take longer than a 
second-and-a-half, and lead to a livelier discussion.

[Check out the King’s blog: kingwenclas.blogspot.com]

--
Marxism list: www.marxmail.org




_______________________________________________
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism