Christian Bök

This is an online flash version of Chapter E .

WARNING: IT IS INTERACTIVE

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This picture of Christian Bök during his marathon reading of Eunoia:





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Last night I was thumbing through Chirstin Bök's lexical exprmnt:

(I am quoting now straight from blogcritics.org's Mike Daley)

Eunoia. I picked this book up, with its accompanying CD, at Word on the Street in Toronto a couple of weekends ago. The deal is that Bök (pronounced "book") has written a novel that uses the five vowels, but only one chapter at a time. So chapter one is "A", and all of the words in the chapter contain "a" as their only vowel.

It's quite amazing what he does, and clearly virtuosic, which I like. Now, as a guy who can't tell his metonyms from his synecdoches, I am loath to offer much in the way of criticism or analysis. I'll leave that to bookish English-teachin', poetry-lovin' babes, in whose company I like to be seen.

Let me just say that to hear this stuff read aloud, as the author does on the disc, is a striking sonic experience, and very interesting from a musical standpoint. Here's why. With the constant reiteration of the short and long forms of one vowel, albeit punctuated with a variety of consonant closers and openers, a kind of rhythm and melody emerges. Vowels ARE the carriers of tone in language, doncha know. Of course, this melody and rhythm is always present in spoken language, and implicit in written language as well. But the sameness of the vowel sounds (which are really just timbral profiles, which are themselves just formant registers [language babes love when I talk linguistics]) really points up the musicality of the speech.

What's interesting too is that Bök doesn't shy away from giving affective labels to the different vowels ('u' is obscene, apparently). All of this, in my bök, is a recipe for fun. I'll be chewing on this one for a while. Side note: I'm reminded of one of my mum's (9 months gone yesterday) favourite jokes, which is in the form of a newspaper headline: "'Sex before marriage? Not in my book!' claims angry Noah Webster...."

Oldtimes

Severe judgmental culturally elite complex writing literary industry commercial prospects. This is fucked up serious damage.


TIME STAMP:
Tuesday, June 20, 2006

TITLE:
difficult gems

BODY:

key phrases to look out for:

- severe judgment
- This is fucked up
- culturally elite
- neatly equated
- complex writing
- serious damage
- commercial prospects
- literary industry

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Citing Ulysses as the ultimate scare text, he claims, that its frequent placement on top-ten lists of the best books of the twentieth century "sends this message to the common reader: Literature is horribly hard to read. And this message to the aspiring writer: Extreme difficulty is the way to earn respect. This is fucked up. It's particularly fucked up when the printed word is fighting other media for its very life."

Even while popular writing has quietly glided into the realm of the culturally elite, doling out its severe judgment of fiction that has not sold well, and we have entered a time when book sales and artistic merit can be neatly equated without much of a fuss, Franzen has argued that complex writing, as practiced by writers such as James Joyce and Samuel Beckett and their descendants, is being forced upon readers by powerful cultural institutions (this is me scanning the horizon for even the slightest evidence of this) and that this less approachable literature, or at least its esteemed reputation, is doing serious damage to the commercial prospects of the literary
industry.




-From a Harper's Article (you know about this Timothy)


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Do I agree?

There's plenty of accessible literature out there being sold and even SOLD-OUT. What's wrong with studying some difficult gems? What's wrong with pushing the limits? So maybe some people get left behind but there's always BEST SELLERS. There's still a middle between Donald Barthelme and The DaVinci Code.

And then there's movie adaptations.

Literature. Hmm...

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COMMENTS:

12:47 PM - 7 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove
The Timothy Corporation


I do, I do.

Posted by The Timothy Corporation on Tuesday, June 20, 2006 at 12:58 PM
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anna


so maybe some people get left behind, but there's always left behind. now that's great literature.

Posted by anna on Tuesday, June 20, 2006 at 1:03 PM
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DeenaOdelle


there was a movie adaptation of that in 2000.
the IMDb tagline for the movie = "the future is clear"
bullshit!

Posted by DeenaOdelle on Tuesday, June 20, 2006 at 1:07 PM
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Exeter


As a card-carrying member of the countrys cultural elite please excuse me while I get out my soapbox. I think its grossly short sighted to say that the force feeding of difficult literature to popular society is such a bad thing. Furthermore I think that as painful as it may (or may not) be, its necessary. Not everyone enjoyed taking basic science and math classes in school, but without some sort of basic bank of societal knowledge about these things communication would be impossible. The same is true of literature.

This concludes the intellectual diarrhea.

I love D.O.H.

Posted by Exeter on Tuesday, June 20, 2006 at 2:00 PM
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Thoracles Odinrocker


The problem is we no longer have to courage to say something sucks, or I don't understand it (and just because you personally don't understand it, doesn't make it stupid), and we have no idea what constitutes "good literature." I'm not saying that I do, but I do know that there is a difference between "good literature" and "writing that is good only because it makes you turn the page." The latter is a psychological device that can be expertly crafted, but will not push the bounds of literature to new levels of anything except summer-time book sales and terrible movie adaptations. Our children will not read The DiVinci Code; they will read Tim O'Brien's work.

Posted by Thoracles Odinrocker on Tuesday, June 20, 2006 at 2:57 PM
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The Timothy Corporation


Accessibility and experimentation are not mutually exclusive. There are plenty of writers able to push the boundaries of language and narrative form without sacrificing one iota of their readership. To me, that's the definition of literary genius.

(Name-dropping time! Writers like Alice Munro, George Saunders, and Robert Coover are perfect examples of authors who maintain that balance.)

ps..My mom LOVES the Left Behind series.

Posted by The Timothy Corporation on Tuesday, June 20, 2006 at 6:25 PM
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Christopher el Mexicano Barbudo Rojo


An observation, perhaps even a thought: There is more to the quote than the idea that "difficult" literature is being force fed, so I think. The problem, and I do believe it is a problem, and grevious one, is that there has been established a great gulf between what academics might call literature and what people are reading. No doubt there is a lot of literature that is accesable, but there is, it must be stated, much that is not. Why? Joyce, and he does deserve to be cited here, and the other modernists, especially later in their careers, filled there works with as much "stuff"--to use the technical term--as was possible. This makes it difficult for your average, even for your exceptional, reader. Anyone can pick up pretty much any 19th century novelist of poet and read and enjoy with little effort or education; the same cannot be said regarding many of the "greats" of the 20th century. The modernists, in an attempt to make literature more rich, made it also more obscure, this necessarily limited their audience. We have seen over the last many decades an increasing academization of literature. It is becoming a specialist field. This is not yet so clear in prose as in poetry, which is will serve as a more stark example. Poetry is no longer written for people, but is written for poets and critics. Eliot himself said that only a poet can criticize a poem. This is a new and exclusionary idea. Poetry is no longer for the people. Prose is going the same way. "But what?" you say, "there is so much literature being printed." And to be sure, there is. But compare this to the prose of a century ago. In the 19th century, newspapers were filled with serialized authors such as Dumas, Hugo, Tolstoy, and Dosteoevsky--names which are not venerable merely because they are old--imagine such a thing today. Imagine even serialized novels. Difficult, I know. Why? That is a big question which I should not attempt to answer in a blog comment. But it must be acknowledged that literature occupies a very different, and much more narrow, space in the lives of people today. At least one factor affecting this, is, I strongly believe, that people do think "real literature"--a term that you will hear them say--is too hard. Perhaps the idea of real literature needs be redefined (or, for that matter, defined at all). You see the same thing in philosophy and music. Few today will read Aristotle for leisure or listen to Palestrina for contemplation. No, there is an aversion to the "difficult stuff." I do believe that "cultural institutions"--we call those universities where I come from--force an idea about literature on people, and I believe this idea is very incorrect. We are losing the middle ground, so it seems, between literature as something to be enjoyed, and literature as something to be studied. Before guys like Joyce & co., it was not necessary to "study" literature. Anyone can enjoy Milton without getting all of his references; without getting all of his references--and who does?--Pound's Cantos are unintelligable. This is a big difference, and I would argue, a big problem. Ok, that's the observation and the thought, I shall close with a recommendation: Read Dana Gioia's book, Can Poetry Matter, and perhaps also some works on criticism and literature by G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis. Pushing the envelope may be a good, but not at the expense of the letter.

Gertrude Stein

"A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears."

"To write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to write".

"I really do not know that anything has ever been more exciting than diagramming sentences."

"Poetry is I say essentially a vocabulary just as prose is essentially not. And what is the vocabulary of which poetry absolutely is. It is a vocabulary based on the noun as prose is essentially and determinately and vigorously not based on the noun. Poetry is concerned with using with abusing, with losing with wanting with denying with avoiding with adoring with replacing the noun. It is doing that always doing that, doing that doing nothing but that. Poetry is doing nothing but using losing refusing and pleasing and betraying and caressing nouns. That is what poetry does, that is what poetry has to do no matter what kind of poetry it is. And there are a great many kinds of poetry. So that is poetry really loving the name of anything and that is not prose."

"The great thing about language is that we should forget it and begin it over again."

-Gertude Stein (b.1874)




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Ever since Chris lent me a copy of Tender Buttons I've developed a mild obsession with Gertude Stein. There's a lot to say about her. Many people say many different things. Some post-modern / avant-garde / whatever-you-want-to-call-it literary movements such as "L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E" of the 1970's have claimed her. She lived from 1874 to 1946, so obviously she wouldn't have described herself then in those terms. In fact, I'd be curious what she would think of it. Some feminists have claim her. Some get annoyed with her use repeatition. Some disregard her work as nonsense. Some say her writing is akin to cubist's painting. It's important to note that she did roll with some cubists such as Picasso. She was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania but resided mostly in Paris, France. Quoted to say, "America is my country, but Paris is my hometown."

Wikipedia says: "These stream-of-consciousness experiments, rhythmical word-paintings or 'portraits,' were designed to evoke 'the excitingness of pure being' and can be seen as an answer to Cubism in literature. Many of the experimental works such as Tender Buttons have since been interpreted by critics as a feminist reworking of patriarchal language. These works were loved by the avant-garde, but mainstream success initially remained elusive."

I will say only: it's clear that Stein was experimental, subversive, and innovative as a writer and bold as a personality; she certainly thought outside the timeframe in which she lived. So naturally she wasn't initially taken well by critics because her writings "did not represent a familiar world and could not be read in familiar ways" (to quote Ulla E. Dydo).

Cute tidbit!!! The famous sentance she wrote in Sacred Emily (1913): "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose" was heavily promoted by her life partner Alice B. Toklas; for example, she sold plates with the sentence going all the way around.

The sentence is often interpreted as "things are what they are."
Stein: "When I said. 'A rose is a rose is a rose.' And then later made that into a ring I made poetry and what did I do? I caressed completely caressed and addressed a noun." (Lectures in America, 1935)

Many critics of the time disregarded her work as "nonsense." Her response? "Listen to me."

And my response? I'll use you Stein's words: "A master-piece ... may be unwelcome but it is never dull."

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Here are some audio links (thank you once again UBU) that you can listen to:

The Making of Americans: A family history and history of whole humanity. Written 1903 - 1911. Only very early notes were written in 1903 in New York; basically the novel was rewritten and rewritten in Europe. recorded in New York, Winter 1934-35.

Matisse: Written in Paris, early 1911; Recorded in New York, Winter 1934-35.

If I Told Him: A Complete Portrait of Picasso: Written late Aug. 1923 in Nice / Antibes, where Stein & Toklas went to see Picasso. Picasso returned to Paris early September, but Stein, working steadily, stayed on for 3 full months, far longer than her usual, short visits.

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If you are really interested in Gertude Stein, then you sould know that Ulla E. Dydo is one of the world's foremost Stein scholars.


Hahaha of course! someone has created a myspace profile of her with audio recordings.


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Internet thumbnail version of the portrait Picasso did of Stein (1906):