KOREAN AMERICAN FICTION::
FOX GIRL by NORA OKJA KELLER
EAST MEETS WEST:The Making of an Oriental Yankee by YOUNGHILL KANG
and...BOY GENIUS by YONGSOO PARK

The first Korean-American novel was Kang's East Meets West published in 1937 by Scribner's (via Kang's friendship with Thomas Wolfe). Kaya Press has recently republished it with blurbs from Wolfe, Elaine Kim, and Chang-rae Lee to argue the obvious fact that it's a classic. Written vaguely in a similar style and length as Wolfe's You Can't Go Home Again, it also has similar dated problems/charms: a latinate lyricalness coupled with bloated extended metaphors. It is historically significant as a documentation of one of the last Koreans to emigrate in the 20s before the US's gates closed. Giving a nicely biased and personal picture of NYC chinatown and harlem, it pictures early northeastern american anti-asian racism rather quaintly through Kang's lens. The book's strong thematic gambit is the detailing of two archetypes of expat experience: a worldly aristocrat of deep eastern and western learning who languishes rather tragically and absurdly in the bohemian life and an equally worldly ladies' man pragmatist. Of interest to the interested...

Potentially more important is the current trajectory of Korean-American fiction, which is dealing with the (now somewhat old) problem reflected in all the hyphenated identity literature: what to do beyond the assimilation question? The two new titles that fell on my radar were FOX GIRL and BOYGENIUS -- the gendered nouns in their titles about the only relationship tween the two... FOX GIRL by Keller is a sour disappointment, breaking no new ground. I'll leave it at that...

BoyGenius however, is a winner. Part of Brooklyn based Akashic Books' Urban Surreal series, it's an example of a) the continued gutsiness and necessity of small presses and b) what really should be a cross-over hit.

In this hilarious and perfectly paced Candide update, Boy Genius tumbles the journey from KBS television-star-child-prodigy to east coast street urchin to west coast new economy suit to avenging ghost. Yet the story never succumbs to its (lesser) cartoon possibility, but functions, despite its fantastic plot, within the wound of reality. And it is a wound, a constantly renewed scarification that Boy Genius first discovers, then weeps for, and finally raises a finger to.

A fierce satire which maintains its humanity, Boy Genius is also a unique event in Korean-American fiction. It recasts the confessional prose of assimilation-conflict driven narratives -- via the imagination -- into a scathing accusation of geopolitical corruption as well as a description of the defiance immigrants currently wage in (as they always have) of bricholaging a consistent sense of self. A new landmark in the landscape of Korean-American literature.


LINKS:
Buy BOY GENIUS from the publisher
BOY GENIUS makes Small Press Distribution's Best Selling Fiction list!

__________________________

Dear diary, i know my voice is a little strained a little tense a little brittle. Moving -- for all my experience with it -- just keeps getting harder. The moms is alright and i'm actually glad to be back in gotham.

...Caught Spiderman with cornelius, O! and also saw LES DESTINEES by assayas: what a guy! And married to Maggie Cheung! ...so have had a little R&R but my pacing's all off and i apologize dear for not being the usual self. will fix the routine, up the chamomile and get all snuggly with my bad self any day now, i keep saying.
baby steps.

Or as the venerable chogyam trungpa sez: "Then one has to channel it differently, without the eagerness and without the fascination, but going step by step -- as it says in the Scriptures: at an elephant's pace. You have to walk very slowly, unemotionally. But walk with dignity, step by step, like an elephant walking in the jungle."

so.
To the elephant mind.

Love,
-e

FORREST GANDER'S TORN AWAKE

Alright, been awhile, i'll spare you the details and traumas, get right to the chase:

New found friend Cornelius, in addition to being an expert on typewriter key "action", is also a poetry junkie and has hipped this square cat, ahem, to some new tunemakers.

To whit: Forrest Gander has a previous book out called Science & Steepleflower which i haven't read but which garnered some attention. Writing about poetry, i'll admit, is like writing about art -- little confidence save the fact i'm unapologetic about what i like. That said, Torn Awake is notable to me for some brilliant poems about fatherhood. Not the only impacting thing about the book, but the ones that I was most fond of. I'll let the following speak of Gander's worth and perhaps my own sentiment (but see how parental fear and mutual knowledge of risk's necessity output to):

=====================
VOICED STOPS

Summer's sweet theatrum! The boy lunges through
The kitchen without comment, slams the door. An
Elaborate evening drama, I lug his forlorn weight
From floor to bed. Beatific lips and gap-

Toothed. Who stayed late to mope and swim, then
Breach chimneys of lake like a hooked gar
Pressing his wet totality against me. Iridescent
Laughter and depraved. Chromatic his constant state. At

Ten, childhood took off like a scorched dog. Turned
His head to see my hand wave from a window, and I too saw
The hand untouching, distant from. What fathering-
Fear slaked the impulse to embrace him? Duration:
An indefinite continuation of life. I whirled out wings. Going
Toward. And Lord Child claimed now, climbing loose.

--------------------------------------------

Her whimper pitched high, the greyhound dream-
Races on kitchen tile. He scraped back a chair
And hunches against morning's cool:
Nates to heels, knees to chin, t-shirt

Stretched over the foreshortened
Bulge of him. Bowl-of-Chex mouthfuls
Mostly open. A newspaper turns: voluptuous
Acousitcs of home as bird hits

Window, walls tremble. The concussion
(Crushed breast) blots the pane (broken
Neck) with an impact mark: a solid
Host-white print the breadth

Of a child's fist from which
The ghost-trace of wingbones upcurve.
=====================
-------------->[compare that to Zukofsky's rendition of fatherhood in his Little]

Gander's faculty page at Brown U.

The Academy of American Poet's Gander page

EN ROUTE

Dear Diary... As if it's news: Moving's a bitch. Quite literally destabilizing... The book that's unfortunately's taken me through these past few days of boxing and phoning and negotiating is FOX GIRL by Nora Okja Keller, which unfortunately, since it was much anticipated, is rather crappy... But as far as migration is concerned, and Korean-American fiction, Kang's EAST GOES WEST and Park's BOY GENIUS are both winners... which I'll tell you about as soon as I pack, move, then unpack my computer over the weekend... On a little personal note, mom's got the nicest neighbor, Cornelius, who I never quite noticed before. But I flirted outrageously with him last weekend and he's a used typewriter salesman with a shop in Astoria and the coolest Motown vinyl collection I've ever...

Made my old ticker go pitter patter like it hasn't in years.

Forgive the distraction from our usual concerns, dearest diary, but anticipating's almost as fun as the doing. Plus the man's turned my brain into pudding.

Ok, We'll talk again in the new digs.

-Eustace

GOING TO GOTHAM

Dear Diary, a little hiatus as of the last few weeks as I'm going nomadic again. I'm going to join the mom's in queens as she's broken her hip. Life changes. April's always like this for me. I lost my first tooth and my virginity in April, different april's mind. Ran my first marathon in April. Married and divorced in April. Went to my first funeral in April. Got into four car wrecks in various Aprils throughout my driving life. Now, gonna go back home.

wish me luck.
-Eustace

P.S. Coming soon (after Kang and Park, um, really): Gilbert Sorrentino's Little Casino and Ben Marcus' Notable American Women

READER'S ADVISORY, INNOVATIVE FICTION and the LIMITS OF GENRE

Readers come into libraries and, on occasion, ask librarians what to read next. Answering this question (and other less interactive techniques, e.g. book displays) is traditionally grouped under the term reader's advisory services and has become a set part of the library's role. A philosophy of genre has come to dominate the policy and technique of RA as it's conducted in public libraries across the land. Though in many ways helpful, there is a limit to its applicability which rarely gets acknowledged.

This philosophy is especially dangerous for the types of books reviewed here. At best innovative fiction is herded under the misnamed genre "literary fiction" (usually middle brow, bourgoise books, widely reviewed by hacks and winners of dubious awards, ahem). Shunned by the reviewing establishment and now evidently flying under the radar of genre-lensed librarians, these novels will have no choice but to continue to rely on what has always been their chief advertisement method: direct marketing and word of mouth to the already-in-the-know.

Not naive enough to think this will ever change, it is still another form of intellectual dishonesty, namely pessimism, to not make an effort to fight for innovative fiction's promotion.

Readers for innovative fiction exist, just like romance aficionados and science fiction junkies, though in smaller numbers. The populist mission and the democratic mission of libraries are often, if not in direct conflict, then at least in tension over limited resources. Genre philosphy then, though with obvious benefits, if applied mindlessly, subdues the democratic impulse (many voices, plural) to the populist (majority voice, singular) -- a visionless error.
____________________

That the Readers Advisory interview is a complex process of analysis no less difficult than reading tea leaves or psychoanalysis is a given. And though grateful for the philosophy of genre as well as the RA reference tools which provide basic structure and agency in moments where previously librarians only had their own reading experience, the OPAC, and the adrenaline-occasioned motivation of panic to guide them ?there is a very real danger of assumption inherent in the philosophy of genre.

This danger might be likened (admittedly somewhat melodramatically) to the psychiatric professions?oft criticized over-prescription of anti-depressants. The dilemma might be described as twin fold. First, that by assuming divisions of genre, the reader's advisor is eliminating from their repertoire of prescriptions those works which are either cross-genre or outside the current definitions of genre. (The psychiatrist grows to depend on prescriptions of Zoloft and less readily explores other options like stress-reduction or exercise or even other possible drugs). And secondly, the philosophy of genre may pre-mold the reader, in the eyes of the advisor, as a genre reader and therefore allows the advisor to erroneously reduce the complexity of their analysis/conversation. Furthermore, and more dangerously, this may limit the population who considers readers advisory appropriate for their needs. (The first effect would be like the psychiatrist who quickly diagnosis into set categories of neuroses and the latter would be like those sufferers who, for example, think of mental illness as some particular caricature of depression and therefore don't think to seek therapy for their own chronic, more hidden, instabilities).

Readers advisory could become, a Pollyanna might dream, a ubiquitous function of the library and, gasp, society, where all felt comfortable and excited about their next novel and that next novel would turn out to be both expansive and familiar, a meeting of reader and book which did not diminish the complexity of either. Such a fantasy is a reach to which we librarians may collectively extend our grasp. However back in the nitty-gritty present day, such concerns as outlined above may understandably seem a bit impractical if not altogether out of touch. To exemplify this last admission, try going into a public library and asking for a "read alike" of your fave book and you'll find even the current benefits of RA reference tools and genre analysis have yet to be fully implemented -- not to mention the bewlidered look a query based on an "obscure" novel might produce.

RA interviews, in the end, suffer from what is most likely an intrinsic problem for readers advisory: the advisors suggest only what they are familiar with. Furthermore, the conversation between advisor and reader is usually woefully reductive. However, I wonder also if, even given a meaningful interview, how easy it would be to find an appropriate title. My own searches through one of the premier RA databases -- NoveList -- informed often with my very specific ideas about what I want, hardly ever brings up appropriate titles. I do believe that if I was searching for a more traditional genre title I would get more seemingly related suggestions. For instance, if I was searching for science fiction novels about time travel to Nazi Germany I could probably find other science fiction novels about time travel to Nazi Germany. However, even then it seems like the reference tools would have difficulty (based as they are, by necessity, on matching controlled terms) with the non-algorithmic complexity of matching moods and styles as well as content. In no way am I dismissing the usefulness of these reference tools, but they should be secondary devices (and not primary or only ones) which should support the labor-intensive but much more effective technique embodied in a widely and well read advisor who is familiar with their collection.

Reference tools then, embody the assumptions (and crutch) of genre in that they do seem to be more effective in handling genre readers' questions (but might, in closer analysis, be somewhat less so than appears). This apparent success, as well as the basic assumption behind genre, may lead us to ignore the population of readers who are interested in cross-genre books or books unclassified in our current genre definitions, or, those who think of books more in terms of style and mood than genre or content. That this population's needs are more difficult to answer (how can you attack a non-systematizeable problem via a systematized answer?), does not make it in any way dismissible.

Joyce G. Saricks gives the following caveat in her The Readers' Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction:

Frankly, all this genre classification is really antithetical to reader's advisory work, where we focus on what a reader wants to read and cross genres with abandon as we make suggestions. So why devote years of reading and writing to create a book that defines genres and establishes themes and authors? Because understanding fiction is the backbone of our work, and understanding the genres and conventions and the authors that exemplify them is what allows us to move readers from one to another, to be the knowledgeable resources readers expects and deserve.

The above rationale from this skillful and dedicated readers?advisor can serve as a warning not to be glossed too lightly. To be effective advisors it seems necessary to use genre study as a foundation for understanding. However, one must also humbly keep in mind that it is not an end in itself, but a process whose ambition is non-rigid insight into all the varied possibilities of fiction.

RA literature by YA advocate and Libschool prof, Chelton, and NoveList founder, Smith.

Some print and online RA tools

Ursula Le Guin on despising genre
-------------
NEXT TIME: (really) Younghill Kang & Youngsoo Park

JOHN WIENERS & JORGE LUIS BORGES

BORGES: Personally I'm not afraid of dying. I think that if somebody told me, 'You'll be executed tonight,' I'd say, 'Well, that's that!' Of course one never knows. Maybe I would break down. I have a sort of fear of not dying, of going on. And I have also a personal fear about the immortality of the soul, because I wouldn't care to go on and on. I mean if I were sure of immortality and at the same time of utter oblivion then I wouldn't mind. But in that case what would immortality mean? Sometimes I think, 'Why on earth should I die, since I have never done it? Why should I start a new habit at my age?'"

Last night I had the pleasure of watching a short documentary on our most famous librarian, something called Borges & I, directed by David Wheatley. Well-directed, believe it or not, dramatizations of his stories, almost Lynchian filming, all centered around a lovely interview with a twilight Borges, who spoke accented, perfect English. Smuggle it home and weep in private.
____________________

Wieners died this month. When I started reading his Selected Poems 1958-1984 this month I didn't realize this and only found out afterwards when searching for him. just a few notes:

1) A reason to love Ginsburg, if one was needed, is his generosity. As when he says in the preface:

John Wiener's glory is solitary, as pure poet -- a man reduced to loneness in poetry, without worldly distractions -- and a man become one with his poetry. A life in contrast to the fluff and ambition of Pulitzer, National Book Awardees, Poetry Medlaists from the American Arts & Letters & Poetry Academies -- harmless bureaucratic functionaries among themselves, until the holders of these titles deny the pure genius of poets like John Wieners, in favor of society-minded misfits who drink flatter fuck & get interviewed, sucking up the attention of the young, who are misled into the study of minor poetry -- till such books as this emerge from obscurity of decades, to reveal the true ligth of genius in the poem. And if this curse falls on myself, so be it, that John Wieners' Genius may shine froth and be proclaimed by the authority of my own fame deserved or not.

2) Wieners is like, but differently, Gertrude Stein and Louis Zukofsky, poets where sonic concerns are priority. They are all poets of sound, i.e. they submit all -- meaning and grammar -- to the reign of sound; however, in Wiener's case, the result is less intellectual than emotional, melancholic.

3) Though classical sometimes in figures, this ability to prioritize sound above meaning is strictly modern.

4) His poems are amazingly illusive. His images and narratives are instantly forgotten. What is remembered is the pitch of the composition, the sound.

4) An example:

Billie

He was as a god,
stepped out of eternal dream
along the boardwalk.

He looked at my girl,
a dream to herself and
that was the end of them.

They disappeared beside the sea
at Revere Beach as
I aint seen them since.

If you find anyone
answering their description
please let me know. I need them

To carry the weight of my life
The old gods are gone. What lives on
in my heart

is their flesh
like a wound,
a tomb, a bomb.


THE BLIND SEE ONLY THIS WORLD: Poems for John Wieners, edited by William Corbett, Michael Gizzi and Joseph Torra.

John Wieners Papers at University of Delaware, special collections

Search used bookstores's inventory for Wieners books, at ABE.com
_____________________
NEXT TIME: Younghill Kang & Youngsoo Park

VICTOR PELEVIN'S Homo Zapiens

"Tatarsky, of course, hated most of the manifestations of Soviet power, but he still couldn't understand why it was worth exchanging an evil empire for an evil banana republic that imported its bananas from Finland."
--Homo Zapiens

There is an inscrutability, a zaniness that tends toward the incomprehensible, which have made critics shrug at Pelevin’s last two books.

He privileges his style over his story and his intuitions over his logic, and – has not quite yet perfected the balance. But readers only concerned with successes – those spectacle-prone who go to ball games only when the local team is making good – may go back to burying their heads in the sand. In Buddha’s Little Finger and Homo Zapiens, when readers complain of insightless fancy and mere metaphysical solipsism, they are being short sighted, for the promise (some already delivered upon) is there.

First, what Pelevin has accomplished in these latest two books, more ambitious though less polished than his previous work, is a unique worldview which is sincerely informed by his Buddhist practice. (That members of that American wing of surrealism, the Beats, also tried a literature informed by Zen, can, by comparison, show how widely divergent such applications can be.) Plus, this Buddhism is shaded with that unique renunciating character of post-communist Russia (such huge historical paradigm shifting leaves one either enormously cynical and/or capable of great philosophic honesty (non-attachment)). In Buddha’s Little Finger, Pelevin delivered a constantly swirling metaphor of the enlightenment “process”, a novel-length kong-an that takes place simultaneously at both ends of the last century.

In Homo Zapiens, Pelevin’s concerns have shifted to the beginning of this one, where the abuses and complete tyranny of the Image reigns supreme. (Stunning, isn’t it, how much the basic theme of our Literature is coalescing completely around this urgency: the dictatorship of the image, and the ecological endgame and prisonhood brought on by our (read: the geopolitical north’s) consumerism. But such a dour face isn’t one to be pulled by Pelevin. As always he is hilarious. His humor is less gallows’ than a combination of laughing-Buddha and satirical wise-ass. (He does a routine – narrated by the spirit of Che Guevara via the protaganist’s ouija board – which explains among other things, the nature of our consumer selves, which one could find tedious (if fighting the ride) and absolutely hilarious (if one momently drops the ingrained dogma that plot, in every atom of a novel's being, be advanced!).

That all being said, the book is a cobbling together of critical set pieces, some of which can be baffling or boring or repetitive. The language is both packed and colloquially sped, a fact which makes the fluid translation by Pelevin's regular partner, Andrew Bromfield, that much more admirable.

As damningly satirical as Burroughs, it is less frustrating to the reader, but -- to the same degree less trangressive, less terminal, and yes, less explosive.

But. Where can all this detachment go? Maybe Pelevin has some sly finale for his middle act. ...A Uzbek friend mentioned to me the other day that the "kids say" Pelevin used to be something, someone whose books they'd pass along on samizdat floppy disks back in the early 90s when you couldn't get anything, but now? He's past his prime.

Not having any idea how 40 year old Sasa gets his street buzz, I'm guessing Pelevin's got some tricks left... (notwithstanding that author photo! Purple! Bamboo! ...Then again, guy's got a certain style...)

One to watch.

Love,
Eustace Limon
Your Pamphleteer for the Front for Full and Final Liberation

A Pelevin page all in Russian, with pictures and interviews.

Gregory Freidin's Pelevin links page

A look at Pelevin in 1994


NEXT TIME:: John Weiner's Selected Poems
oh and MARCH is Small Press Month

EUSTACE'S QUICK SPICY WARM TOFU SALAD

Dear diary, I know this isn't really relative to our main concerns here, i.e. libraries, art, and innovative fiction -- however, I needed place to announce my ultimate victory, achieved on my day off no less, over a culinary problem that has confounded generations. How might I, many have pondered, create a salad full of both protein and scrumptiousness that I can create practically instantly, cheaply, and furthermore which will survive nicely in unrefridgerated non-separation so I may easily transport said salad to consume at my humble occupation? I know many are, even as I type, pounding their collective miserable heads on kitchen counters across the globe, at hard work on this problem.

They may cease their efforts.

Here is Eustace Limon's lunch-packingly-appropriate, cost-effective, vegetarian-friendly, almost-instant spicy warm tofu salad recipe:

What you should have around:
-red onions
-carrots
-cucumber
-mixed greens
-firm tofu [my recent find has been Stow Mills brand organic tofu, firm style, creamy texture. If it's not expensive, try it. Nicely dense.]
-mirin or soy sauce
-cherry tomatoes
-sesame oil [can be replaced with olive or corn or vegetable]
-sesame seeds
-korean hot pepper paste [ko chu jang] or any chili paste/sauce
-miso paste
-hijiki [optional]

Ok, the hijiki prep'll take some time, so if you want the instant version, skip that. The entire process can be done in fifteen minutes as follows:
1)Take your mixed greens (which like you could mix 'em but i can't refuse the convenience of those pre-packaged salad mix things, tho, course, not all are made equal, and if you don't wanna cop out like that, then here's an Eustace tip, screw the salad dryer which takes up too much counter space anyway. Do what I do! Don't wash! Dirt and pesticide's good for you! Or, if yer rich, you can buy fresh mixed greens...) and put 'em in a large bowl.
2) Chop the cucumber up and put it and the cherry tomatoes in the bowl. Note, the cherri-ness of these tomatoes allows their moisture and flavor to not leak out, thus not potentially wilting yer greens when you tupperware the whole thing to work.
3) Put some oil in a pan. Heat to medium. Stir fry onions and chopped carrots (I buy baby carrots. Less pealing. Ok, so there're some compromises, we gotta do this in fifteen minutes right?)
4) Add cubed tofu, mirin, sesame seeds, hot pepper paste, and miso paste. Stir and mix and cook for ten or more minutes.
5) Pour the tofu stir fry mix into the bowl with the greens and tomatoes.
6) Mix. [you can add the hijiki here too, if you prepped it, which means like soaking it for awhile...]

If you eat it then, you'll note the coolness and crispness of the raw greens mixes nicely with the warmth of the sesame flavored tofu. If you tupperware it and take it to work, this effect is somewhat lost, but makes for fine eatin' anyway. You can also add cottage cheese on top of it, but some people find this gross.

NEXT TIME:: Victor Pelevin's Homo Zapiens and Buddha's Little Finger

Sanford Berman's original cataloging to be decommissioned
from library juice 5:9

Folks, Sandy Berman called me today and left a message on my answering
machine that contained some bad news. The list of user-centered original
subject headings created by him and his staff over two and a half decades
at Hennepin County Library is now going to be replaced in the catalog by
straight LC subject headings, or something close to that. In Sandy's
words, "The curtain is coming down."

---------------

Sanford Berman is a maverick cataloger who used to work at the Hennepin County Library system until he was rudely forced into retirement. Before the term "politically-correct", he was radically discussing the effects of naming, and the consequent injustices that could occur when it was done badly or improperly. A thorn in the side of the Library of Congress' Cataloging Division (or its conscience, depending on yer persuasion), he developed progressive subject headings at HCL for over 25 years. That he is lionized by librarians everywhere speaks toward his charisma as well as the far-reaching respect he has gained through his many years of service. That he is treated with such contempt by the library system he worked at for so many years is tragic, disappointing, but nevertheless -- unsurprising.

To update a curse from W.C. Williams:
Send the visionless and spineless middlemanagers of this earth (of which there are legion) to hell.
Make it hot.

Venomously,
Eustace

THE OUTSIDER AND THE CURRENT CHAMPION: Henry Darger at the American Folk Art Museum and
Gerhard Richter at the MOMA

Mrs. Limon -- as my mother was called, respectfully, even though there'd never really been a "Mr." Limon in yours truly's life (tho that's a different story and probably for a different sort of diary) -- was a dyed in the wool communist of the sort produced by the depression and living her entire life in a predominantly liberal Jewish section of Queens. She got her fellow traveler chops by organizing tenants and fighting developers for over twenty years and displays, at hat's drop, her blacklisted creds like they were a framed Harvard diploma.

Which all goes to say, even at seventy five, there's no flippin WAY Mama Limon is going to move out of our five bedroom in Rego Park to some stair-less sunlit condo in Durham. Which is a long way to say, dear diary, that I, once again, did the long haul up to Gotham for a weekend dose of conventional maternal guilt.

However, a traitor to the East Village's ever evaporating grimy lustre for going on five years now, has not beat out the scanning of the library's copy of The Village Voice -- but weekly. Plus, though we're not even connoted with the eastern seaboard so much, and all that Yankee Coo-chure -- Richter's still been inescapable (to the hungry carpetbagger's eye), what with covers on both ArtForum and Art in America plus a NYTimes magazine cover (what a boogie middle-brow piece of shit that was). So to cut to the chase, dear diary, I skimmed a Sunday morning off the mother-daughter happenings and caught both the Richter show and the ongoing Darger at the AFAM next door.
-------------

DARGER'S BEEN, RELATIVELY SPEAKING, so quickly 'canonized' that the term outsider art is now, ironically, one of the (serial) ambitions of every MFA hack who habitually romanticizes their own isolation. The difference of course is that Darger was isolated, almost absolutely so. The critical spin has the schizophrenic problem of needing to acknowledge Darger's outsider status while also wanting to place him in the pantheon -- which means it must say that Darger was conscious, aware, cognizant of what his skills meant and of the era in which he worked. Which might be true enough (Darger left his apartment every day, did not have his head in the sand), but the argument is the trap of well-meaning equanimity. Darger's work is that of a madman. Whatever the slippery distinction between awareness and mindless will, the legal-speak generated from discussion of whether he knew what he was doing -- is beside the point. Or, at the very least, incapable of resolution. Same goes for whether awareness is necessary for an act to be art. In my mind, Darger's work speaks -- and whether it is important to decide if the vessel of speech is psychological artifact or articulated expression is ...someone else's problem.

On the other hand, I understand why critics are faced with the problem. It is almost impossible to talk about Darger's work without describing his isolation and obsessiveness. That he was self-taught and innovative in his techniques was simply necessary and this fact's prominence in the show is only a marketing ploy, i.e. Lookeehere, how clever our boy is! He figured how to do it! All by himself! ...All artists do this. What is central to Darger is the completeness of the world he created, even if it was with a limited (though of infinite variations) repertoire of images. That he could compose these images into epic tableau's is why we now know his name.

A madman on the fringe, who sent us a report. May we appreciate his sacrifices.


Notes from a show produced by the University of Iowa Museum of Art. Includes a personal anecdote by Nathan Lerner who "discovered" Darger, a biographic timeline, images, and notes on some work.

Sara Ayers page on Darger with good links.

John Ashbery's book-length poem based on Darger's work
-------------

RICHTER'S SHOW HAS BEEN HYPED up the wazoo, as had been noted, but frankly dear diary, I was not in the least bit disappointed. That he is a master is a given. Others more invested in such things can argue whether he's a master whose importance will end up matching his current reputation.

Much has been made of Richter's protean qualities, his simultaneous work on multiple and arguably opposed fronts. But the show struck me as incredibly consistent and with an organic trajectory. Some of this, no doubt, is due to curatorial genius, but Richter's concerns, how he sees, seems indelibly stamped on all the variety of works (with, for me, the possible exclusion of the color charts). Probably the difficulty in "naming" Richter is because his consistency is not within the grammar of how the art world has been labeling consistency. But yet he is consistent. From the early blurring to the later blurring, from the idea of the magazine image to the photo-paintings to the brushless-portraits, from the color charts to the tree-fungus winterwork abstractions -- what is consistent is his humor, his awareness of idealism's inescapable tragedy, and that we now see only via other media. This last seems like my best shot for giving Richter a one-liner. That he makes us aware that we can now only see through a mediated haze, but that this too, is seeing!

But even this vagary limits him, and possibly that is why his genius is such a painter's one. That he is consistent is obvious. That we can not define that consistency in our language but only know it through his painting, seems to me to speak of his incredible accomplishment, an effort achieved in that area where only painting can uniquely venture.

-------------

...ok. enuf with the art criticism. ain't really my bag. still got an eyeful this weekend, humming in the mind below the incessant whine of mere Limon.
But.
Next week: back to the books!

Jennifer Egan's Look at Me: Dire, egregious, subtle.

o mi god

and

Janice I know I'm a reading slut -- two glasses of sherry and my legs are open WAY too early, like page sixty, singing raptures too easily for anyone but me to take the relationship serious. But. This one -- in the time-worn phrase of us romantic types -- this one is different.

Fuck Underworld and The Corrections, those big-dicked love affairs of the brain (which I liked) -- Look at Me is the best reflection of the 90s I've read so far. Better than Infinite Jest, Correktall, Bobby Thompson metaphors, and even the underappreciated Big Lebowski.

And by this I don't mean the social-commentary hype generated by Egan's accurate forecast on terrorism, webcams, and fashion models. I mean that the academic thesis which observes the inextricable link between our surface orientation and our loss of substantiality is mutated from a scholarly conviction into the lung scratching scream of recognition which attends the self-discovery of the truly heinous within.

Furthermore (and hopefully in a shorter sentence), the writing is diligent. Meaning, Egan finishes each idea entirely. Not a justification of over-think, a commendation for subtle pacing and full development of admittedly complicated and large materials. Egan's book was what I was thinking when I wrote the last entry...

Here's a stupid review but with a plot summary.

and
Here's an interview with Egan and
another.

What you get from the two interviews is first that terrorism and the concept of Real-World via the web, was initially conceived as satire. That the world caught up and surpassed Egan's intentions, one assumes, horrified her as she watched in real time as her science fiction turn into current events commentary.

Secondly, you see her acknowledge that the way the book was advertised, i.e. a plot revolving around a fashion model, was probably a tactic that misfired. That is, that the readers of Glamorama or whatever life and times of this week's brand-name face, would be disappointed in Look at Me. In other words, if the idea of reading about fashion models turns you off, don't worry, as the book's central focus has nothing to do with unmitigated gloss. Nor, really, about terrorism. These plot tools are really only that, devices so that Egan can tell the biography of the "Image" -- a tale both fraught with woe and familiar to all western twentieth century denizens, regardless of glam-addiction. Luckily, the book was made finalist for this year's National Book Award so readers should pick it up, despite the marketing misstep.

So, as they say in Library Journal: Recommended for all collections.

NOTES ON THE PRODUCTION INSTINCT OF WRITERS

Generally speaking, there are two instincts vis a vis production for writers and these declensions I will denote as, ahem, "male" and "female".

Male: Not necessarily prolific, but this is the trend. The idea is to keep writing, and the simple relief from guilt that comes from the producing obviates the guilt (in various degress, for various types of moral beings) of writing undeveloped ideas and/or "padding". Beyond this exchange of guilts, there is also the idea of the Will, i.e. the famous ego of the writer who believes also that his lesser words are still magnificent and worthwhile, even as he buries this obviously narcisistic absurdity in a coat of self-deception. Nonetheless, he may write a stunner somewhere in the midst of five or six dross-drenched mistakes. As Carol Maso once quipped, these writers generally feel no shame in unleashing, a la Updike, their bloated "Vollmans" of encyclopedic humdrum upon the world. And yet, from Phillip K. Dick to Don Delillo to William Faulkner, and yes William T... and include Melville and Dostoevsky -- these writers can produce, in a burst of desperate luck, some of the more tortured and beautiful winning gambles in literature.

Female: Not paralyzingly so, but much more toward the perfectionist end of the spectrum. They produce but not in staggering quantities. The admirable thing here is that each idea has been thoroughly developed, and with this there is the danger -- which these writers are aware of -- of over-thinking an idea. However, this rarely happens because there is also an awareness, implicit in their dedication, of how the magic works. It is the respect for this magic that propels these writers to work as hard as they can, to fulfil their end of the bargain, but not so much as to remove their (necessary) sense of awe. These writers are not trying to will themselves to power by some egomaniacal, brutal thrust, but instead handle and move their material as if it was (and indeed for them, it is) sacred. Like all secular saints, they really have no faith save for the belief in those rare acts of magic that only work, effort, provide.

Not typically a dualist, but that was a mental exercise I thought might "model" well...

THREE JAPANESE: Endo's The Sea and Poison, Nakagami's The Cape and other stories from the Japanese Ghetto, and Shono's Still Life and Other Stories

I would hardly have read any Japanese Fiction if it wasn't for my friend Jasmine. She's a corn-fed demoness of an octogenarian who I've been friends with for going on thirty years. She now spends most of her time in a rocking chair smooching with her husband Larry, who often credits their long life and matrimony to drinking three Jack-and-Ginger's before bed each night. Anyway Jasmine's real up to date on Japanese fiction and had recently sent me these three books. Two of them are from Stone Bridge Press, a bunch that -- by evidence of nice packaging, selection, and critical additions -- seems to be doing an excellent job.

Endo's The Sea and Poison, translated by Michael Gallagher from New Directions is the story of a doctor who's haunted by his helping to murder american soldiers (under the auspices of medical advancement) during WWII. Jasmine argues that the novel is interesting because of the epic quality that such a short novel creates, mostly from its structure (or lack of structure) which is comprised of the separate stories of the participants in the murder (and one initial foreshadowing frame chapter). I think it's a moral story (Endo was a very Catholic writer) that dates somewhat in our amoral world, or at least in a world where such moral debasings as happen in wartime seem somewhat simple compared to the infinitely shaded arguments of corporate imperialism. It was, Jasmine says in its defense, one of his earlier books.

Much more interesting to me are the two Stone Bridge Press books. The Cape and other stories from the Japanese Ghetto by Kenji Nakagami is a book by the winner of the prestigious Akutagawa Award who was the first award winner to be born after the second world war. Furthermore Nakagami is a member of the burakumin, an outcaste class in Japan. His work has been praised for its muscularity and as antidote to the traditional view of Japanese aesthetic, one of flower arranging and effete gestures. Nakagami is, it's been argued, a brute of a writer, working in a fever, spewing stories about arson and sex and the spilling of masculine bloods. Well, that was one reading, well argued against by the stories' translator Eve Zimmerman, as diminishing the consciousness that Nakagami maintained while constructing his outsider tales. The language is simultaneously brutal, refined, and hauntingly dislocated. Written as if the brain were a muscle. The stories of Hemmingway could arguably seem uninspired in comparison. As they say in Library Journal: Recommended for all collections.

Finally, Junzo Shono's Still Life and Other Stories is somewhat recognizable due to dim resemblences to its more popular cousin: Kawabata's Palm-of-the-hand stories. But while Kawabata achieves mystic imagined poises, Shono restores the juice and grit in the last word of the cliched hyphenation, slice-of-life. Told by a series of "still-lifes" -- brief passages describing the mundane world of his domestic life. An especially good read to watch how prose-poems or shorter prose can, under a guided hand, accumulate nice weight.

Franzen's The Corrections

"Eustace!" my aunt Imelda once said, "Come here at once! You will sit at this table until you've eaten this rhubarb or I'll, bigod, lash you senseless." Such was the way of my dear aunt Imelda and such is the way, repeated each generation, that we manage to fuck our children up. But that ain't no revelation...

I didn't really want to read this book. I might have given slight smile to the oprah shenanigans but -- it wasn't that funny. More painful to watch the obviously self-conscious and media-UNsavvy Franzen whine his way to fame than any joy it would be to see him go down in flames. But he didn't. Everyone loved the book.

Here's the skinny: It ain't nothin super-duper, nothin that's gonna change your life, make you stop eating beef or defrost your freezer (mine's got an inch and a half that needed to be dealt with two seasons ago...). And the hype, especially any review that used the cliche "Great American Novel", is misleading. It really is oprah fare, but solid and interesting "literary fiction" as yawning a victory as that might be...

All that being beside the point, a winter of lightless mornings and a partnerless bed made such a book a blessing. Not merely escape into a world, but a world filled with familiar yet expectation-defying characters. The first hundred pages or so have to be weathered; the last two chapters are worthless, but the story of Denise is glorious. The worst I can say about Franzen is the character of Chip -- the one Franzen is arguably the most "like" -- is the one he has least insight into.

Did I have a point here?... no, but here's one: Don't bother with The Twenty-Seventh City and
what's up with that GQ author photo?! Who's he trying to fool?

READERS ADVISORY for ADULTS, part I

In the reader's advisory seminar, any attempt to argue the assumptions inherent in the philosophy of genre is, more or less, snubbed as being "impractical". This is, obviously, the only way RA could ever be done.

Anyway, arguing against the basic premise of a class might have been interesting to do in lib school, but herein we're bureaucrats looking for policy. For procedure. All else is digression and distraction... May there be a nice deep circle in hell for middle managers.

Someone yesterday came in and said, "Can you show me the section on 'packaging'?

"Well, it could be in a few places. Maybe you could tell me some more about what you're looking for."

He says, "Could you maybe then just show me the largest section you have on packaging."

This last comment was accompanied by a two handed animated gesture, signifying large width.

-------------------

Taking a seminar on Adult Reader Advisory. Frankly, diary, yours truly considers herself a fairly well-read and well-rounded reader, and not particularly snobbish, but nonetheless had not read one thing on the syllabus. Which included things like: Lawrence Block, Sue Grafton, Jonathan Kellerman, Orson Scott Card, Louis L'Amour...

The names are familiar but haven't voluntarily put one of those things down ever. Well, the purpose of such a seminar, assume, is to learn to get readers in touch with the work that will best suit them. "Every reader, his [/her] book" so goes the law. And somehow, empty plot-driven escapist cookie-cutter pulp is what suits many people? Well that's probably wrong, and I'm sure there're something to these books. (What an admission! you are a snob...)

Anyway, there will be, already has been, a great deal of discussion of "mood", linking the mood of a reader with the mood of a book. So too, it's a great psychological game. One that has to be played with a complete absence of patronizing; more delicate, one imagines, than even the delicate maneuverings of the reference interview. So: we'll see. I remember someone quoting Confucius (Kung Fu-tse) as saying, roughly, that the two places to go to discover things, are first, the place where no one goes and secondly, the place where everyone goes.

The cough is really something. I think I've contracted bronchitis from another librarian at the branch. Should leave the cigarettes home this morning. Those things will kill me... This seminar will be the first time I've ever been in a class where the trash novel is glorified and high literature is villified. The thing is, frankly, honestly, I've never believed in those categories, though all practical experience says they must exist. Isn't there the punk novel? A book which loses both the formulaic gimmicky stuff of trash and the middle-class boring angst of high lit? dream on pollyanna.

Yet still, there seems some kind of basic assumption in philosophy of genre which is explicit in this conception of Reader's Advisory, which takes whole hog these categories. Allows very little room for the weird and eccentric. I think most people, contradiction aside, are weird and eccentric. They just haven't had the chance to experience the 'other'. Or maybe within these genres are worlds enough for most people's satisfaction. Interesting seminar anyway.

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I really would like, this week, to post something about comics and Scott McCloud as well as The Cape and Other Stories... This line is my soul's contract. I may delete its embarrassing self-involvement and lying promise when such act is complete. love, eustace

"Technical matters on which Dogen criticized deteriorations of the Zen commonly associated with Rinzai Zen in general, and Dahui's school in particular, are generally three: naturalism, nihilism, and static goal-orientation. In this context, naturalism refers to the idea that since enlightenment is inherent in the mind and reality is all-inclusive in any case, there is no need for cultivation and realization of enlightenment. Nihilism refers to denial of causality because of a subjective sense of aloofness. Static goal-orientation means conscious anticipation of enlightenment in meditation, thus blocking objective realization by the bias inherent in this subjective anticipation."

-From Thomas Cleary's intro to RATIONAL ZEN: The Mind of Dogen Zenji