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i will say I have mixed feelings about this publication, not because I don't think it's good and insightful and thoughtful, but because of their whole "we're so sincere," anti-Eggersard (Eggersian? Eggers-esque?) stance---though to be honest, I'm not sure if this was a stance envisioned by its celebrated creators or invented by the critics (or maybe a bit of both?). If the former, it does feel a little self-important and contrived: (whiney tone)" I wanted to be Eggers! That 30-something idiot got to it before I did, so now we have to do something different!" And, of course, I suppose each movement is a backlash or response to (derivative of?) the one before it, right? Although these are both pretty contemporary. Who knows. I'll stop there. hope you enjoy the read. and hope the link works.
4 comments:
This is an interesting rant, but that's my problem with n + 1--they rant but they don't have any better solution to the problem. I'm sick of people bashing Oprah's book club. It's like party of my heart's recent letter in Poetry magazine
(It's the featured letter of the month). No one is saying Oprah is the solution to America's cultural delinquency, just that her book club is a pretty good idea. Instead of bitching all the time about how other people's solutions won't work, I'd like to see the n + 1 people suggest some alternatives. That's what I admire about Eggers & Co--though they have their drawbacks, he complained no one was publishing the kind of stuff he wanted to read, so now he publishes a lot of it himself.
AND ANOTHER THING!
I HATE the end of the article:
"In this way the novelist becomes as protected as the poet is today, a member merely of an endangered species (in the “fragile ecosystem”), or say of an identity group, who cannot be disagreed with, to whom certain months of the year will be dedicated, who is not only tolerated but encouraged and petted by the powers that be, not because of the content of what he writes (there is no content), but because, well, what sort of powers would they be, to discourage the flowering of such an art?"
I agree that there needs to be a lot more poetry criticism than there is right now, but if the current state of poetry is "encouraged and petted" I'd like some more of that myself. Yes, you heard me, I'd like some heavy petting from the society that supposedly supports poets so much, because right now I'm not seeing it. Talk about rants. Suck it, n + 1.
Ha! Well said, starrykick--I specifically thought of you when I read that ending, imagined you flinging the thing across the room. As if the young, hot novelists of late are not getting a very special heavy petting themselves, particularly the founder of this said publication, who I just noticed, dedicated his book to n + 1, which struck me as 1% sweet and wide-eyed, 9% odd, and 90%, well, 90% we like ourselves don't we . Maybe his holiday greeting is a photo of the cover of the magazine, decorated in Santa hats and mistletoe?
I have more to say on this, but I must make some stuffing for the bird.
Party of My Heart, that's a fantastic letter, and the use of "crapping" is absolutely wonderful.
p.s. but i haven't read his book yet, so I don't want to be too judgmental (well, I do, I do want to be judgmental, I suppose). many have read it, whose opinions I trust, and say it's fantastic. I'm going to put it on my list for over break, which would make that about 50 books to read in the next week.
These people. You know, these are the fucksticks who made me first get into using the phrase that has given me my handle on this blog.
You people, n+1.
Ooh you're so smart, and ooh you keep it so real.
Oh--and you're intellectually rigorous, too, asking all the questions and confronting all the several-headed monsters no one else will, or can.
Except that the gist of this essay goes six ways to Wednesday. Take the following, an excerpt from their version of what the Oprah letter would have read like were it honest:
None of us can prove our books are of genuine worth yet—that would require time, and belief in the reading process, therefore respect for an ordinary readership, and even maybe respect for critics.
Unless they're, like, really throwing their voice here what I take this to mean in terms of their position is that none of us will know if what we're doing is worthy/valuable/art right now, that will take time and what not, good criticism, et al. But then they go on to cut down the practices that would allow just this sort of thing (tests run by time) to take place, i.e., permissive reading, the encouragement of readers, the rejection of outright dismissal. What I mean is, how is it that they say, on the one hand, You know, none of us really know if what we're doing is good at the moment, and we believe in waiting (because true literature stands the test of yada yada ya), but then on the other hand they go on to, well, criticize and dismiss?
But like I said--I could be wrong; they could be throwing their voice and what not, but you know I still take umbrage with their position. Because what they seem to be saying is that we shouldn't treat literature with kid gloves, we should demand more of it, make sure it's good.
But good according to whom? And why waste the energy to talk trash about worthless shit? And what are you doing reading worthless shit anyway? Maybe I've been in California too long, but the idea of not publishing negative reviews makes sense to me. Why bother? And most importantly, oh n+1, THE REFUSAL TO PUBLISH HARSH CRITICISM DOESN'T TACITLY ENDORSE DREK. That's right, gentlemen, all they're saying is, This, this here, this we like. They quite simply don't traffic in drek at all. And you know what else that means? That means that there's more room for reviews of writing that should be brought to people's attention.
But that's not to say there's no place for manifestos. In fact manifestos are nice, even if it's that fallacious, backwards-looking Reader's Manifesto by DB Myers. But manifestos should be about what you believe a thing to be, not what you think it should not be. It's like trying to make a building by creating all the negative space around it; it's like telling someone what a word means by defining every other word in the language but the word, and then leaving the receiver of this sea of knowledge to glean from what's been given him what exactly it is that's left. I could write about how much I hate Ann Patchett's work, or how nearly moribund I found Julie Orringer's collection, but what does that really say about my taste, and what I hope art will be? Not nearly as much as would a statement about Shklovsky and Eliot, and Denis Johnson, and Henry Miller. Then--now--you know what I'm talking about.
One of their other minions wrote this of David Foster Wallace:
Fourth-wall-breaking constitutes a central technique for the metafictionists with whom Wallace has so often been grouped. But while the means are similar, Wallace pursues them to different ends. He has no interest in highlighting the artificiality of his art, which is and should be self-evident, but rather in communicating thought and feeling as directly as possible without shirking their complexity.
Again, another example of defining by negative space, but that's not my point here. My point is this: n+1, quit worrying about what other people are doing, and just put your heads down and do your work. Talk about highlighting the artificiality of art. Talk about spending vast amounts of time writing about the act and process of writing.
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