Fly Melon

I’m about 50 pages into 2666, a heavy 900+ page galley that I’ve been toting back and forth from home to office because I can’t bear the thought of being without it. Galley separation anxiety? The galley itself is beautiful, printed on that thin cream-colored paper that feels expensive under your fingertips, while the cover is made of coarse brown material similar to that of a grocery bag, with “2666” in bloody red lettering. The epigraph: “An oasis of horror in a desert of boredom.” Baudelaire.

It’s not a purely sensual, of course—if that were my thing, I’d work for, er, a paper factory or something like that. From the first time I read Bolaño I had that spine-thrill (also where Nabokov situated it) that is our visceral reflex-response to writing that is not just good, but magical. The recognition is highly subjective, but many readers will feel it. Bolaño is incredibly erudite–he spent his thirties wandering, working odd jobs and reading—and though he wears his knowledge lightly, he uses it to situate his characters (in Part 1, minor German literature academics) in relation to, say, William James, or the Odyssey. It’s delightful, for example, both epic and accessible, when an aging professor is, as an aside, likened to Eurylochus. Bolaño is a generous guide, retelling the stories in his own fashion, implying that we all have the right to draw from this common store of lore and literature. And Bolaño is a master storyteller, nestling stories within stories, revealing some characters motivations but tantalizingly withholding others (“it would be best not to say what Norton was thinking” –approximate quote only), pausing to describe the night sky in a way that is completely original and that reminds one that, yes, he is also a poet. And he writes passionately. There’s a conviction that language and stories are all-important. It’s contagious. Thus I’ve been keeping the galley close by me, as if it were some kind of religious relic whose power might save me from –.

I’ll have more to say later, but nothing negative for now—I’m too much in thrall.

Journalist Philip Nobile kicks off his book Intellectual Skywriting—an investigation of the politicking behind the scenes at the New York Review of Books—with a visit to Bob Silvers’ office.  Silvers doesn’t want to talk about it, but then Norman Podhoretz comes up: “Silvers…thinks lowly of Podhoretz, who once offered him a post at Commentary in the early Sixties…He says he hardly knew the man and dismisses him with a continuum of choice pejoratives. These must be New York intellectuals.  See how they loathe one another.”          

In a certain little corner of the literary world, the battle of the Internet vs. n+1 (and the battle of a couple of bloggers vs. Keith Gessen) has been raging away. It isn’t even confined to a corner any more, I suppose.   A post from this past week on The New Yorker’s Book Bench blog (http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/?xrail) recaps the recent back-and-forth between former Gawker Choire Sicha, Emily Gould, Keith Gessen, and Nick Denton. 

I’ve been watching all this unfold from the sidelines and trying to sort out whether there’s any substance to the disagreement between the lit-maggers and their blogging nemesis’s.  Here is a recap of the events from my vantage point: Keith and some of his friends started a magazine called n+1.  They published an article about why the Internet is bad (this is a gloss, I know, but so far as many people are concerned, that’s what the article said).  Uproar commenced online.  Keith and his friends hired interns, who were uppity.  Keith stole girlfriend of one of the interns, then a reporter on the publishing beat at the New York Observer. Girlfriend was a Gawker, girlfriend stopped working for Gawker, Gawker posted piece on breakup.  [You can tell I’m getting bored because I’m omitting articles.]  Keith and Gawker girl Gould broke up.  Gould published self-indulgent amalgam of journal and blog entries in the New York Times Magazine.  Keith organized a panel on the Internet.  Former interns attended and gathered afterwards to discuss the pertinent issues, though all that really got discussed (at least in the presence of yours truly) was how the interns’ writing careers were progressing.  Meanwhile Keith’s blog is “discovered,” I read recent posts on the subway ride home (yes, I printed them out), and spend the evening wondering if this is all an elaborate pissing contest.

At last week’s panel, Keith and the other n+1 editors did say interesting things about the Internet and how it affects the ways we think and interact with each other and with information.  But the most vitriolic responses have been premised on personal attacks, most along the lines of: “How dare you criticize my medium, the Internet, you out-dated self-involved elitist snob?  You’re just mad that the bloggers aren’t saying nice things about your book.”  Which, maybe, but so?  That’s a cheap-trick way to invalidate his argument.  As some of the commenters on Keith’s blog pointed out, there are more important things going on in the world: America’s occupation of Iraq, global warming, genocide, and the list goes on.  But that makes it all the more important for us to take a close look at how the way we disseminate and discuss information affects our thinking.  We’re a nation that can’t get our act together, in large part because we’d rather bicker than reach a consensus.  The Internet–with its tendency to reward writers who rely on emotional gut reactions and to discourage structured arguments that take time / space to unfold–is a symptom and a cause of what’s gone wrong.  It’s a new medium and it’s powerful.  Let’s talk about it.  And maybe next time Keith could organize a panel including speakers who actually make an effort to discuss what’s good about the Internet.

Readers take note: Intellectual Skywriting is out of print. 

One of my Type-A personality characteristics is an inclination to make lists.  Like books to read, books I haven’t read, books I should read, books I’m able to pretend I’ve read.  Yes, I did read Pierre Bayard’s How to Talk about Books You Haven’t Read.  Though he certainly proves there’s a tradition and a practice of talking about books one hasn’t read, the idea still makes me uncomfortable.  The Glass Bead Game (full disclosure: have only partially read it) is premised on a super-cerebral community of intellectuals who play at making elaborate patterns with the whole span of human knowledge.  One establishes ownership of an intellectual work by demonstrating familiarity with a few common points of reference.  Like constellations—here are three shining points all in a line, and now we must say we see Orion standing there in the sky.  We lose our sense of vastness because we’re meant to be familiar with everything.  Each piece of the sky is taken up with a certain shape that we all must pretend to see.  My lists are a crutch for these interactions—this territory is safe, that isn’t, this can be approached by must be circumvented.